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A man in his early thirties pushed through a heavy velvet curtain, and I was willing to bet he’d been waiting there to make his grand entrance. I’d been expecting a Mr. Clean lookalike. Or maybe the male version of Wendy. Instead, Mystic Stones was almost attractive, in a hip-Vegas-magician kind of way. His light brown hair was a bit overgrown, but his beard was neatly trimmed. He had piercing blue eyes that were a little too calculating.

“You must be Dahlia,” he announced with no warmth.

Since he was the man who’d cost me my job and safety net, my tone was equally as cold. “And you must be Mystic Balls.”

“Stones,” he corrected with a glare.

“Oh, right.” I turned to Wendy. “I’m sorry, I don’t have a lot of time. I just need to grab my check.”

She waved her hand around, brushing me off as she grabbed my arm and started pulling me. “Come check everything out first. Maybe you’ll decide to take the job here after all.”

“Or maybe you should become a client,” Mystic muttered from behind us. “Your aura could use it.”

Wendy gave me a quick tour of the place. Some of the areas, like the massage one, were blocked off with the construction supplies.

Pushing aside the velvet curtain, she pulled me into a room. “This is where Mystic does his readings. Sit, I’ll go get your stuff.”

When she left, I stayed standing and looked around. Crystals and incense lined velvet covered shelves. Deep reds and blacks added to the gothic vibe which was at odds with the cool tones of the rest of the building.

“Your aura is coal and ash,” Mystic said from close behind me, making me jump.

“What?”

Slowly, he walked around until he was across the table. “You dance with the devil. What he touches, he burns, leaving ash in his wake.”

I reached out for the chair as my legs began to shake. My heart began to race, and I could hear my blood surging.

“He was born into the shadows. It’s his life, he knows no different. You willingly stepped into it. You are pure darkness, and it surrounds you.Deathsurrounds you.” Picking up a deck of tarot cards, he shuffled them like it was a magic trick. They bounced from hand-to-hand, flipping and making an arch. “Darkness spreads.” As he spoke, the room grew dimmer and dimmer until I could only see him and his side of the table. “It snuffs out even the brightest of lights if given the chance. His shadows bring light to your life, and in turn, that light shines in his. Without each other, the darkness would grow until it swallowed you both whole.”

The blood that’d been coursing through me slowed, taking my heartbeat with it. My breathing changed to shallow gasps.

Mystic turned over a card. I lost my weakened breath when I saw Rachelle’s face. Slowly, he flipped another, this one with Lou’s face. “Darkness serves a purpose. The tides turn, the earth spins, and your soul rests.” He continued dropping cards until Theo’s closest family was lined up.

I scanned the cards, a feeling of warmth and fullness surrounding me as I inhaled deeply.

Mystic met my eyes, a silent warning in his gaze.

Instinctively, I gripped the chair tighter.

It did little because, when he set the last card away from the others, my knees hit the ground. I clutched at chair to keep my torso upright as an unbearable pain tore at my chest. At mysoul.

Straining in the dark, I could barely see my dull and blank face on the card. My image’s eyes were filled with regret and agony, following me as I shifted.

“You are a whole person,” Mystic said, “but your soul is not. The only thing more painful than never meeting its other half is knowing wholeness before being ripped apart again.”

I cried out as the room plunged into total darkness, the pain in my chest growing so acute, I was sure I was about to die. My breathing slowed, my heartbeat faded. Regret clawed at me, the bitterness impossible to withstand.

I was wrong.

The pain may have been bad, but it was the regret that was stealing my life.

A small light flickered from the table as Mystic lifted my card. Carefully, he rubbed his thumb across the top of it until it began to separate. Once it did, he pulled it fully apart. He set my card back in its place, the light beginning to fade again. Before it did, he set the newly formed other half of my card in the empty space.

Every light in the room buzzed to life. Candles lit, the flames growing high. The pain in my body eased, the warmth returning even stronger than before. I was able to stand, feeling better than I had before I’d walked in.

I looked down at the table to see Theo’s card between mine and his family.

Mystic’s eyes blazed into mine. “Your days require darkness before the light. Not all good is truly good, and not all bad is evil. You dance with the devil, but the devil needs love. Stand tall as the coal he’s made you, and the pressure will make something beautiful.” Additional cards spread on the table below Theo and me, each one showing a blurry face.