Page 28

Chapter 28

I jerked my gaze away from the window and leaned forward to look at the third card. Sure enough, the Death card stared up at us, but this time it faced in Penny's direction.

"Oh, crap," I muttered. Had I doomed myself to die because of what I'd done? Who would I drag down with me? Suddenly, the thought of taking off had never felt more appealing. At least that way nobody else would have to suffer because of my choices.

"Relax, it doesn't mean death death," Penny said.

"Just your regular death, then? Death lite? What is that, like a coma?"

" No . It's the death of something, not a person. Usually, anyway. The end of a cycle and the prospect of new beginnings after a period of metamorphosis," Penny said.

I blinked at her. She spoke so fast and used such large words that I wasn't sure it had all sunk in.

"I mean." Penny took another calming breath before continuing. "The cards are suggesting that you need to go through some sort of transformation."

"And if I do, will everything work out?"

"They're never that specific. The cards never guarantee a good or a bad outcome, just the mechanics by which they happen."

I pinched the bridge of my nose with my fingers. The things I wanted to say would hurt Penny's feelings. There was no two ways about that. So I took a moment to rephrase my first thoughts.

"So, this could end badly but hey, so long as I learned something along the way?" I asked.

The scowl Penny gave me told me I hadn't done as good a job rewording as I thought I had.

"There's a greater chance of a good outcome if you allow the journey to change you," she said. "That's all I can say."

"I thought I was perfect just the way I was?" I smirked as I quoted the feel-good message she had told me so many times whenever I doubted myself or my worth.

"Guess I was wrong," Penny said, grinning from ear to ear.

I called her a name so bad that Hecate jerked up from her sleep, blinked sleepily at us, and then returned to a deep slumber. Penny opened her mouth, most likely to hurl a similar insult back at me, but before she could, my door swung open. I froze as Edward stuck his head through the gap and glared at me.

"What did you just call this magnificent - neigh - perfect woman?" he asked.

"Have you been standing out there eavesdropping?" I demanded.

How much had he heard? And how much of it would he report back to the rest of the household? I could handle Penny learning my secret; she would take it to the grave. But if one of them knew, they all would before long and I didn't think I could deal with them all trying to insert themselves into my business at the same time.

"The only thing I heard was that word," Edward said, stepping into the room. "I only came up here to coax Penny down with brownies."

"Since when do you bake?" I raised an eyebrow at him.

Edward knelt down next to Penny and shuffled so close to her he nearly knocked her over, which only caused her to giggle. "Since m'lady told me how much she likes sweet treats. What are you doing a tarot reading for anyway? And what are those ?"

He jabbed a finger at the jars on the nightstand.

A layer of ice crept across my skin, freezing me in place. I knew I'd locked the door for a reason before Penny went flying in and out of here.

"Bea's experimenting with magical night lights," Penny said. "Side hustle."

"Ooooh, moving away from the dangerous grimoire making? Priya will love that," Edward said.

"Don't get too excited." I didn't want anyone thinking I was giving up my livelihood, even if I was grateful for Penny jumping in when she did.

"Well, I'm excited." Penny got up and pulled Edward up with her. "For brownies. Come on!"

"Thank you ," I mouthed at Penny as she all but dragged Edward out of my room.

She winked. Gods, that girl's confidence was really snowballing.

Once Penny had shut the door behind them, I got up and locked it. Didn't want anyone else bursting in to see the utter mess that was my life at that moment.

I turned around and caught sight of the tarot spread Penny had left behind. My back found the door, and I slid down it until I was sitting on the floor, hugging my knees to my chest. Between my knees, I stared at the tarot cards. The raw spread of my past and present laid bare, dragging every awful emotion and fear to the surface. Yet, I couldn't help but take a little comfort in its predictions for the future. Change, I welcomed, because there was little I wouldn't have done to stop feeling this way and to have some long-awaited answers.

I squeezed my knees a little tighter. The question was, what kind of sacrifices would I have to make to achieve them?

The door stayed locked for the rest of the day, but I left Penny's tarot deck where it was. She had made it clear enough that I would get a spatula to my behind if I even nudged her cards. In an attempt to ignore them, I got to work on the new grimoire commission, checking on Hecate at regular intervals.

She slept soundly, without her regular rolling around and stretching breaks. Even when I sat down to stroke her to encourage some movement from her, all she did was twitch her ears. Having those memories inside her for all that time had really done a number on her. Unfortunately for us both, I couldn't exactly take her to a vet, magical or otherwise. Spirit creatures like Grimalkins were understudied because of the reverence the magical world had for them. Nobody dared turn them into guinea pigs even to study them for their own good.

So long as Hecate was still breathing, I could take care of her. I could only hope that she would wake up and demand to eat her bodyweight in food soon enough.

I took my anxieties with me as I slipped into my secret room. With Hecate unwell and everything else going to crap, I needed to focus on work. The commission I had just received was so simple that it almost insulted me; a basic grimoire that would give anyone who wasn't the owner a static shock if they tried to touch it. Forget magic, I could have rigged that up with a few batteries.

But given I was a professional , I set about doing it the right way.

A sense of peace gently wove its way across my raw nerves as I sliced the leather, and folded and prepared the block of papers. The act of creating a grimoire had become meditative over time. Making something from scratch brought with it a sense of freedom like no other; as if I created something that had such endless possibilities that the potential seeped into me, too.

But when I made my way over to my cabinet full of powers, I paused, my fingers grazing the bronze handle. They glimmered inside their jars, a testament to my turmoil and need for control over my own life. In order to give myself power I had to take it from others. Sure, they all deserved it, at least in my eyes, but...

Was that why everyone wanted me to stop this business? Because at the heart of it, I wasn't much better than my old family. Was I? No, of course I was. I hadn’t locked anyone up in the basement because I was scared of them. I had just removed something from these people that they could use to hurt others. Something they had used to hurt others. That made me better than them, didn’t it?

I pressed my forehead to the glass, steaming up a patch with my breaths. What the hell was I doing?

Before Asher arrived I thought I knew: building on the life I had created for myself and doing a service to humanity in the process. But now I was neck deep in trouble with a dangerous family and indebted to a mysterious criminal. How long would it take before all the mistakes I made bled over into my home life?

The idea to take off resurfaced, stronger than ever, like a rising tide during a storm. Everyone here had their lives how they liked them; comfortable, in order, and without the danger I brought to the table. Even Penny had an infinitely better life than she did a few weeks ago.

I pushed away from the cabinet and grabbed a handful of empty crystals and a drawstring pouch. Without allowing any more thoughts to cloud my judgement, I unscrewed the jars of the powers I couldn’t do without. I started with the powers of the Bishop family; they were the only things stopping my grandmother from paying someone to have my throat torn out after all. Troy Franklin’s power came next, alongside the powers I used the most often during my bouts of cat burgling.

One by one, I dropped a crystal into the jars. Once they had clanked to the bottom, they sucked the wispy magical essences into them, where they glowed from within. I emptied the crystals into the drawstring bag, pulled it closed and put it back on the shelf.

For a long moment, I stared at the little bag of glowing rocks. I straddled the border between staying here with the only people who had ever loved me, or leaving to protect them…and myself.