Page 25

FENELLA

T he brooch got a lot of curious glances, first from Atzil and then from the bar's clientele, but surprisingly, no one asked about it. They must have assumed that it had been a gift because someone like her would never buy a piece of such jewelry for herself.

It looked expensive, but even if she'd had the money, Fenella doubted she would have gotten something as big and as bold. It looked ridiculous on her simple T-shirt, and yet she wore it with pride that bordered on reverence.

It wasn't just that Din had held on to it for fifty years, though that alone would have made it precious. There was something about the brooch itself that was reassuring, comforting. It felt like an old friend found after a long separation.

The brooch was more than just a beautiful piece of jewelry.

It was special.

Maybe it was her newly discovered psychometric abilities playing tricks on her mind, but she could swear she felt a subtle pulse of energy from it, like Kyra's pendant but different. More subtle and patient.

Was it possible that the brooch could channel her abilities like Kyra's pendant channeled hers? The thought seemed fanciful, but then again, a week ago, she would have laughed at the idea of reading memories from objects or being descended from gods.

Her definition of possible had expanded considerably.

Someone cleared his throat, pulling her out of her head, and she realized that the vodka she'd been pouring into the shaker was overflowing.

"Sorry about that." She emptied the contents into the sink and started on the Moscow mule from scratch. "Lost touch with reality for a moment."

"It happens," the guy said with a smile. "Has the shaker revealed some hidden truths?"

She chuckled. "Even if it did, I wouldn't be able to understand them. I don't speak Chinese."

The guy cast an amused glance at Atzil. "I'm sure your boss has plenty of interesting stories to tell, and he's been using this same shaker for months."

Fenella shrugged. "You know that I'm making it all up, right?"

The guy arched a brow. "Not all of it."

She was about to come up with a rebuttal when the bar door opened and Ruvon walked in.

He paused just inside, scanning the half-empty room with uncertainty. Then his gaze landed on her, and he offered a tentative smile and made his way to the bar.

"Evening, Ruvon," she greeted him. "What can I get you?"

"Just a beer, please. Whatever you have on tap." He sat on the barstool next to the talkative client.

During Kian's party, Ruvon had said something about coming over to hear her amusing readings, but he was early. She wouldn't start the performance until the bar was full and all the patrons were at least slightly drunk.

It was no fun performing for sober immortals.

Perhaps Ruvon realized his mistake because his eyes kept darting toward the door.

"Expecting someone?" she asked as she put the beer in front of him on the bar.

He accepted it with a nod of thanks. "I'm actually waiting for a friend, but I'm not sure she'll come."

"She?" Fenella raised an eyebrow. Had he asked Shira out on a date?

Perhaps that was what they'd been talking about during Kian's birthday celebration.

"Would this mysterious friend happen to have red hair and freckles?"

Ruvon looked confused. "No, I'm waiting for Arezoo."

Fenella nearly dropped the bottle she'd just picked up. "Arezoo?"

He nodded, taking a sip of his beer. "We met at the playground, and I invited her, but she wasn't sure she could come."

"Of course she won't," Fenella said, shaking her head. "Her mother would never allow it. Besides, isn't she a little too young for you?"

"She's of legal age, isn't she?"

"Well, yes, she is. But she lived a very sheltered life, and then bad things happened to her. She's not ready to date a guy who is older than her great-grandfather."

He frowned. "I'm one hundred and thirty-seven, which makes me younger than most immortals in the village. I don't see why I shouldn't court Arezoo."

Fenella had forgotten that age was a relative thing in the immortals' village.

The gap between her and Din was more significant than the gap between Ruvon and Arezoo, but that was just chronological age. The experience gap went the other way.

"She's not ready, Ruvon. You'd have more chance of success courting her mother."

He winced, looking dejected. "Her mother is scary. Arezoo is kind and I like her, not her mother."

Fenella couldn't argue with that, and she felt a pang of sympathy for him. He looked so lonely.

She filled up a small container with pretzels and put it in front of him. "You don't have to sit here at the bar looking like someone stood you up. Din is sitting in the back corner at his usual table. You could take this bowl of pretzels to him and join him."

Ruvon glanced toward the back of the bar, where Din had indeed claimed his regular spot, already armed with a beer and reading on his phone. "Maybe he doesn't want to be bothered."

"It's a bar, Ruvon, and the moment it becomes crowded, which it soon will be, people will not let Din hog a whole table for himself, and he'll have no choice but to share. He might as well start with you."

That earned her a small smile. "When you put it that way…"

Ruvon picked up his beer and phone, then paused. "If Arezoo does show up..."

"I'll point her your way," Fenella promised. "Though honestly? Don't hold your breath."

As Ruvon made his way to Din's table, Fenella smiled at her guy and signaled as best she could that he should invite Ruvon to sit with him.

Poor guy. He had no chance with Arezoo or her mother. The daughter needed time to get over her trauma, and a former Doomer wasn't the best candidate to help her with that, even if he was the nicest immortal.

"First reading of the night!" A cheerful voice interrupted her musings.

The same immortal who'd kicked off her impromptu psychic performance the night before slid onto a barstool with a grin. "I brought something different this time." Graham produced a fountain pen from his jacket pocket. "This baby's twenty-six years old. Maybe it'll be more talkative than my watch."

Fenella looked around the bar, debating if it was the right time for her first reading. It was far from full, but what if Sunday nights were slower than Fridays and Saturdays, and this was as crowded as it would get?

"It's still early, but I'll do it for you." She accepted the pen, wrapping her fingers around it. For a moment, she thought she felt something, a whisper of emotion, perhaps a ghost of a memory, but it was so faint she couldn't be sure if it was real or just her imagination filling in the blanks.

Still, she closed her eyes and made a show of concentrating. After a suitable dramatic pause, she gasped.

"Oh my," she said, opening her eyes wide. "This pen has a confession to make."

"Does it now?" Graham leaned forward, his eyes full of eager anticipation.

"It seems," Fenella said in a stage whisper, "that this pen has been living a double life. By day, it signs important documents and writes thoughtful letters. But by night..." She paused for effect. "It composes terrible poetry about cheese."

Graham burst out laughing. "Cheese?"

"Oh yes. Odes to cheddar, sonnets to Swiss, haikus about gouda." She handed the pen back with a solemn expression. "Your pen has hidden depths, my friend. Hidden dairy depths."

"I'll never look at it the same way again," Graham said, still chuckling as he pocketed the pen.

Thankfully, her prediction of a slow night had proven to be false, as more and more customers began arriving, and soon Fenella found herself in the familiar fast pace of the previous nights, mixing drinks, inventing outrageous psychometric readings, and keeping the crowd entertained.

Still, tonight was a bit different, and she wondered if the brooch had something to do with it, or was it her growing comfort with the village community. She definitely felt more grounded than before. More confident.

When she picked up a car key for her next reading, she was surprised to feel a flicker of something, like a faint impression of urgency, of someone racing against time. The sensation was gone as quickly as it had come, leaving her uncertain whether she'd imagined it.

She covered her momentary disorientation by launching into a tale about the car key's secret desire to unlock a door to another dimension where everything was made of chocolate.

The owner, a Guardian named Kri, protested loudly that her keys would never betray her for confectionery, no matter how tempting.

Throughout it all, Fenella found herself unconsciously touching the brooch, her fingers drawn to the amber stone, and each time she did, she felt that same subtle pulse of energy.

She must be imagining it—a mystical placebo effect.

"New jewelry?" Ingrid asked, her sharp eyes missing nothing. "It's lovely. A bit old-fashioned for my taste, though. Antique Scottish?"

"I believe so," Fenella said, her hand going to the brooch again. "It's a gift from Din."

Ingrid grinned. "That's nice. He must have brought it with him from Scotland."

"He did. He bought it for me when we first met half a century ago and kept it for all those years even though he had no reason to believe he would ever meet me again or that I was even alive."

"That's love." Ingrid sighed dramatically. "It's irrational."

Before Fenella could respond, another wave of customers arrived demanding drinks and entertainment in equal measure, and she threw herself back into the performance.

As the night wore on, she noticed something interesting.

The faint impressions she was getting from objects seemed to be growing slightly stronger.

It was nothing dramatic, just moments when she picked up an item and felt something.

An emotion, a fleeting image, a whisper of memory that vanished before she could grasp it.

The brooch seemed to be amplifying her abilities even if only slightly.

Or was she simply becoming more attuned to her gift through practice?

Either way, she made sure to keep her actual impressions to herself, sticking to her invented tales. The last thing she needed was to accidentally reveal something private that should remain that way.

"Your wallet is judging your spending habits," she told one customer with mock severity. "It's particularly offended by that impulse purchase of a singing fish plaque last month. Where did you even hang it?"

"How did you know? I mean, that's ridiculous!" the man sputtered, his face reddening as his friends roared with laughter.

That had been pure coincidence, but Fenella had learned to run with whatever reactions she got. "The wallet never lies," she intoned solemnly, handing it back.

A singing fish was a stupid decoration, but it wasn't anything to be ashamed of. It was innocent enough.

She was just reaching for another object when the door opened, and a mane of dark hair caught her eye. For a wild moment, she thought it was Arezoo, proving her wrong about her mother's iron grip, but it was just a dark-haired immortal female, one she'd seen the two previous nights.

Poor Ruvon. She glanced toward the back table where he still sat with Din. At least he had company, even if it wasn't the company he'd hoped for.

The thought occurred to her that Ruvon, despite being more than a century old, seemed as young as Arezoo in some ways or even younger.

There was an uncertainty about him, a hesitancy that spoke of someone still finding his place in the world.

Maybe that's why he was drawn to her—not despite the age difference but because of it.

In terms of romantic experiences, they might be more evenly matched than the numbers suggested.

Or maybe she was overthinking it. Maybe Ruvon just liked Arezoo because he was attracted to her. After all, men were simple creatures when it came to romance. They were either drawn to a particular female or not.