But I did.
And he punctuated it by nudging my foot with his, a move that caused Bartholomew, who had miraculously followed us in without me noticing and settled between Battle’s and my seats, also without me noticing, to groan.
I bugged my eyes out at Battle.
He subtly jerked his head toward Prudence.
I mouthed an exaggerated, I know, but what do you want me to do about it?
He did the subtle head jerk again.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Temperance complained. “I’ll say the quiet part out loud.”
Battle’s brow lowered dangerously as his attention shafted to his sister.
“Tempie,” he growled warningly.
Temperance ignored him. “We all think Ravenna is full of shit.”
I sat back in my seat, rethinking if I liked Temperance.
“She is not,” Prudence said defensively.
Chastity emitted a whisper-peep.
Prudence’s voice was rising. “You too?” she asked Chastity.
“And Battie, also Vivienne,” Temperance took it upon herself to confirm.
Now my brow was lowered dangerously and aimed at Temperance.
I smoothed my features when I felt Prudence look at me.
I caught the et tu? look in her eyes and explained, “I’m one hundred percent all about tarot. You can use the cards as a means of digging deeper into what’s happening in your life, things you might not be seeing, things you might be avoiding, feelings you might not fully understand, but should. I guess you can say that about pretty much every”—I put my spoon down to do air quotation marks—“‘fortune telling’ thing. Like tasseography, astrology, crystallomancy or palmistry.”
“What’s tasseography?” Chastity whisper-cut in.
“Reading tea leaves,” I told her, and turned back to Prudence. “But honey, curses and actual fortunes and some of the stuff you told me Ravenna said to you…” I trailed off and shook my head.
“Though, I will say the woman knows fortunes, since she charges you one every bloody time you see her,” Temperance added.
“Enough,” Battle said low.
Temperance pressed her lips together.
I grabbed a dejected Prudence’s wrist. “But I do want to meet her. I didn’t lie about that.” I shrugged and gave her a smile. “I might be wrong. Though, how about we take another day to do that and do Glastonbury on our own?”
“With Chassie,” Temperance unpressed her lips to declare.
“Of course,” I said, then looked to Chastity, and instantly, my scalp started tingling.
She appeared downright panicked.
“Glastonbury isn’t my thing,” she whisper-asserted.
“Nonsense,” Temperance said. “You loved the ruins of the abbey when you were a kid.”
“I have—” Chastity whisper-began.
