Page 79 of Divine Temptations

She took the cards and laid them in a single stack before me.

“Three-card spread,” she said, already sliding them into place. “Past. Present. Future.”

The first card:The Lovers.

Percy let out a low whistle. “Well, shit.”

Zephyr tilted her head, considering. “In the past position, The Lovers can mean a choice. A pivotal moment where a path diverged. Connection, sure—but also temptation. Commitment versus impulse. Duality.”

I stared at the card. Two figures, naked and beautiful, reaching for one another while an angel hovered above them. Fire and fruit and a snake in the background.

“That was the night in the woods,” I murmured. “After the ritual. When he kissed me in the healing center.”

Zephyr said nothing. Just flipped the second card.

The Tower.

Even Percy winced. “Oof.”

“Destruction,” Zephyr said quietly. “Upheaval. Everything falling apart. The present. You’re in the rubble right now. Whatever wasn’t built solid is crumbling.”

“It didn’t even get the chance to be built,” I said too fast. “We only kissed each other twice.”

Zephyr’s gaze didn’t waver. “But it shook something in you. Didn’t it?”

I looked away. My throat was tight. My buzz had shifted, gone from warm to brittle. I felt like glass under pressure. If someone tapped me, I might shatter.

She turned over the third card.

The Star.

For a long moment, none of us said anything.

Then: “Well that’s hopeful,” Percy muttered.

Zephyr nodded slowly. “Healing. Rebirth. Faith. A return of clarity. It’s about hope, Jude. Light after darkness. Guidance.”

I stared at the card. A naked woman pouring water into a pool, the stars glittering above her. It didn’t feel like clarity. It felt like someone trying to convince me that drowning could be inspirational.

“I think the deck is drunk,” I said finally, pushing back from the bar with a scrape of the stool.

Zephyr didn’t flinch. She just picked up her cards and gathered them quietly, like she’d expected that response all along.

I stood, wobbled slightly, then righted myself with one hand on the bar. “This is bullshit. Cards, angels, cosmic gears… I’m over it. He’s gone. And good riddance.”

“You don’t mean that,” Zephyr said, still calm. Still maddeningly kind.

“I hardly knew him,” I snapped. “We talked for what, a couple of hours? He kissed me. I turned him down. He ran away. That’s not fate. That’s just a guy with a fragile ego.”

Even as I said it, something inside me twisted. Because that wasn’t the whole truth. And I knew it.

“He’s coming back,” Zephyr said softly.

“You don’t know that,” I snapped.

She didn’t flinch. Just slipped the cards back into their pouch with a faint smile, like a cat who’d already knocked the vase off the table and was waiting for you to notice the water on the floor.

“Actually,” she said, tying the cords into a neat little bow, “I do know that. Julian is definitely returning.”