I hadn’t fibbed, I really didn’t believe in this stuff. At least, not until last time and all the events that directly unfolded.
I’d convinced myself it was a coincidence, but who really knew?
Gretta spread the deck before me. “Pick the first disk that calls to you.”
“None of them call to me.”
She leveled me with a glare. “Child.”
Pursing my lips, I picked one at random, sliding it toward me.
“Now pick a second.”
I did.
“And a third.”
After I picked the final disk, Gretta swiped the deck, placing it to the side before flipping over the first disk in front of me.
I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath.
The card glowed with a glitzy holographic image. A four-headed snake curled around a glass heart, squeezing it until it burst, shards flying everywhere. The moving image looped repeatedly.
Perfect. This is going well.
“Hmmm,” Gretta hummed and scowled. “This is the Serpent of Oborosa. He’s a slippery one. Be careful of your peers, Mouse. Friends aren’t always friends.”
That was vague. Vague, and common knowledge. That was the thing about these disks. Most of them were nonsense. Just like horoscopes. Generalized information that could be applied to anyone, anywhere, at any point in their lives.
Ridiculous.
Gretta flipped the second card.
A red waterfall flowed, and I couldn’t help but snort. “I hope this is code for red wine. Because I could use some right now.”
“This is Fernisha’s Fountain.” Gretta chuckled. “Expect your menses soon.”
I eyerolled so hard it hurt.
See what I mean? Ridiculous.
And finally, she arrived at the last card. I peered closer. The image had falling snow and purple vines riddled with thorns that dripped with blood, staining the white ground. Beyond it, three suns rose.
“Let me guess, my menses are going to be extra crampy this month?” My eyebrow hiked into my hairline.
“No, these are Rendu Vines and the Triplet Stars. It just means the situation you may find yourself in could be painful, but there’s warmth at the end of that journey.”
“Sounds like a load of crazy.”
“What’s life without a little crazy?” Gretta waggled her brows and looked past my shoulder. “Right Kye?”
I craned my head on my neck. Hadn’t even heard his hooves on the wooden floors. He regarded me with a strange expression, but it quickly morphed into a small smile aimed at Gretta.
“Meredith sent me in to let you know third meal is ready. Holly, can I speak to you for a moment?”
Any excuse to get away from Gretta’s ullek disks, I stood. “Sure.”
We traveled downstairs into the empty game den. My fingers drifted over a puzzle board before I turned to Kye. “Thanks for saving—”
“You lied.” Kye’s eyes were narrowed to slits, his nostrils flared, and his breathing picked up. His voice was razor sharp. “A berchta always lies. I should’ve known!”
“Whoa, what the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m not a witch,” he mimicked, in a terrible impersonation of yours truly, I might add. “I don’t want to trick you.”
“I’m not a witch!”
“I witnessed you foretelling the future with my own eyes!”
“Me?! That was Aunt Gretta, not me. And besides,” I crossed my arms, “all that shit is fake.”
Now wasn’t the time to mention how real it felt the last time I had a reading.
“It was vague information. Like hey, I’m gonna get my menses soon, like I don’t already get them every month. And hey, maybe watch out for backbiters because we all know I have enough of those in my life. And maybe, maybe one day this shit-show will be over, and I’ll stop compulsively flushing toilets and creeping on my ex like the psychopath I apparently am.”
I sighed, realizing I needed to talk to my therapist again already because Kye just got an info dump of my life the past three years and he was looking at me like I’d lost my ever-loving mind.
Which, I had. A long time ago.
“I’m not a witch, those cards are bogus, and I’m not trying to trick you.”
Kye scrubbed his horns, clearly frustrated. “No, you’re just tricking your family. How am I supposed to believe you won’t trick me when you’re lying to them?”
“Way to pass judgment.” That stung more than it should have. Mainly because he had a point. “You were all for it this morning.”
Not that I faulted him. I’d do everything I had to if it meant escaping a hellish interdimensional prison.
I scrubbed my face. “Listen, let’s just do what we agreed to do. I’ll help you, you help me, and then when it’s all over, we don’t have to think about each other ever again.”
He grunted. “Fine.”
“Fine.”
He gestured toward the stairs. “After you, darling.”
“Thanks, honey.”
As I brushed past him, I tried not to register how charged the air around him felt or that the whole time I walked up the stairs, I could feel his gaze on my ass.
Smile, Holly.
TWELVE
KYE
I’d already forgotten the names of her family members, hadn’t I? If I thought really hard on it, I might remember.
But Holly’s ass was burned into my immediate memory and it left zero room for anything else.
The way she angrily stomped up those steps made her hips sway in a manner that should be illegal. The skintight jeans she wore—which looked painted on—molded to every curve and dip along her shapely legs and cheeks.
It didn’t get any better when she turned to scowl at me either, because her turtleneck sweater left little to the imagination. Her breasts would cup nicely in my palms. And her nipples would gently pebble against them too.
I’d gotten a good enough hint of their size. Like fat gumdrops that would be perfect for sucking.
Stop, you idiot.
I’d just accused her of lying. Which, I still didn’t trust her. Maybe she was a witch, maybe she wasn’t. It was too early to rule anything out and I needed to keep my horns about me.
Berchtas were tricky.
By the time we joined everyone, Holly was back to smiling. We were the last ones to the table and I even held out her chair like a fucking gentleman.
I could keep up my end of the deal.
After someone—I think his name was Delaine, one of her cousins—passed me the platter of sliced roast, Meredith popped the question.
The question. The one Holly had prepped me for. The one we had to get our stories straight about.
“How’d you two meet?”
I saw Holly open her mouth, as if she were about to answer.
Aht-aht.
I beat her to the punch. “We met on Love Is Holo.”
I’d seen Love Is Holo on a commercial last night while trying to get comfortable on the couch. An app for desperation.
Holly’s eyes immediately found mine and murder shone there.
I’d gone completely off script. This wasn’t what we rehearsed. But I was done playing by these rules. If Holly wanted me to go along with her weird, slightly sad plan, we needed to spice it up.