Page 260 of Slashed Bonds

Valerie’s is the kind of drawing you stop in front of without deciding to. A heron on a wrist. A wall of stones that I stood in front of for a full minute before Killian came and stood behind me and said nothing.

His drawing. The one he burned three times. She’s got the fourth under glass and he knew I’d find it.

Dox had looked at me when we came in. Up and down, the way he looks at skin, and then at Killian, and he’d said one thing before he went up the stairs to mind a laundromat.

“Right strings.”

Killian had nodded. I’d filed it. I’m filing a lot today.

“Valerie!” Maddie claps again. “Work your magic!”

I look over.

Valerie’s come out of her office. The door at the back, past the three stations, a room I’ve seen into once, all drawings pinned to cork and a desk under them that’s more sketchbook than desk. She’s in black today, no plum, hair in a high knot with a pencil through it, both sleeves bare and moving as she waves me in.

“I’ll start with my Queen of Cups,” she hums.

“Queen of what?” Greenie.

“You don’t know shit about tarot?” Maddie, cringing, a full-body cringe that bends her at the waist. “Oh my god. I bet our horoscopes don’t even align.”

“Here we go.” Viper, to the magazine.

“Queen of Cups,” Maddie says, to me now, ignoring Greenie entirely, which is how I know she likes him. “It’s the water queen. Intuition. Feeling everything before anyone’s said it. Compassion that’s been through something.” She ticks them off on pink nails. “A woman who looks calm on the surface and has an entire ocean going on underneath. Val’s right. That’s you. That’s so you it’s upsetting.”

“What am I?” Nikolai asks.

“You’re the Tower.”

“What’s the Tower?”

“Sudden destruction. A lightning strike. Everything you built falling down so something better can go up.” She smiles sweetly. “Also you’re a Scorpio, which I knew from the doorway.”

“I’m a Libra.”

“You are NOT.”

“He’s a Libra,” Killian confirms, without looking up. “October. The twenty-first.”

“That’s a cusp. He’s a cusp. That explains everything.” Maddie turns to Cassian. “And YOU⁠—“

“No.”

“You’re the Emperor and you know it.”

“I’m signing a form, Madison.”

“Emperor energy. Signing forms. I rest my case.”

Eight weeks ago I’d have found this unbearable. I’m sitting here grinning at it like it’s the best thing that’s ever happened in a basement.

“Should we be worried?” Killian asks the room, mildly, with a puff of candy air.

“If she’s going to go on a spree about tarot,” Nikolai declares, sitting up so fast Knox grumbles, “I’m in.”

“Leave me out of it.” Cassian signs a page. Turns it. “Because the two of you are going to fight about it and then start cursing each other out in two languages.”

“We’ll go get the snacks.”