Page 13 of Angel of Water & Shadow

“Sorry, yeah?” I faked a tone of indifference. He saw right through it.

“Youuu okay?” He squeezed the sweet spot between my thumb and index finger. Clearly, he hadn’t experienced anything out of the ordinary. A quick sweep of the few people in eyeshot confirmed it—no one else had, either. Just me again.

My nails shot to my mouth and took the brunt of my stress.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I lied, avoiding the concern in his gaze by returning to the deck of cards. All had been reverted to a normal pattern, in the shape of a V, the extras stashed into a neat pile.

No wings. No cups.

I released a breath, relieved to see the Grim Reaper’s faded silhouette again, instead.

“You look like you’re about to chew off a finger.” He gently guided my hand away from my mouth. “And you’re hovering over me like my abuela when she senses something is wrong.”

“Oh.” I stepped back to put a few inches between us. “My bad.”

This time he grabbed my whole hand and pulled me even closer to him. “Hey. You’ve got a little something on your chin.” Heat flooded my face. Oh God, there must’ve been puke—dried puke from the break-in-time-that-couldn’t-have-happened. He raised a brow and eyed me suspiciously. “Everything good?”

I brushed my chin and attempted a smile. “Yeah, thanks. Did you get what you wanted?”

“I did.” He strummed the edge of the tablecloth and dropped a couple bills in Myrian’s tip jar. “Thanks for the reading.”

Judging by the complete sense of vacancy behind Madame Myrian’s eyes, she didn’t hear—or care—that we were done.

As we turned to leave, a calloused hand gripped my wrist and I boomeranged backwards, my shoulder nicking the sharp edge of a crystal as my body slammed into the table. Tarot cards fluttered in the air, until a petite, rumpled frame loomed above me and blocked everything else from sight.

Risen from her chair, the psychic hooked her stare on to mine. Her gleaming irises were so black and shiny, dilating wildly, and the receding sun cast a devilish veil across her weathered face.

Pinned in place by Myrian’s sudden—and unexpected—strength, there was nowhere for me to look except directly into the hollow of her haunting expression. And her expression said it all: She knew that I knew she’d witnessed the blip. She had seen me.

She had seen everything.

Those taut lips started to spasm, hacking and spitting, twitching with frantic purpose. Her garbled words intensified, growing louder. Sharper.

I willed myself to focus on each syllable flowing from her lips, and soon, with repetition, the words became a bit more coherent.

“Quarto vigil,” Madame Myrian bellowed. “Quarto vigil,” she repeated again. And again. And again. Without stopping for breath.

The fortune teller’s throat croaked from the lack of air and her sunken cheeks bloated with rage. Something controlled her and propelled the chant forward and monopolized each of her muscles in its wake. A shocking familiarity swept over my body, pushing my fear away.

As I was readying myself to ask if she’d heard the Voices too, a tug on my free arm stole my attention. Javi.

“LET HER—whoa!”

The distraction broke us apart.

Myrian’s grip lifted, and whatever spell she had cast, or whatever spell had bound her, ceased. Javi and I tumbled like a sideshow’s milk bottles onto the gum-specked promenade.

Lucky for me, I didn’t hit pavement. Not so lucky for Javi, I landed on him.

His arms stayed wrapped around me, a blockade against the littered ground. Our chests lifted in unison with each breath. His cheeks flushed—probably from the fall. I’m sure that’s why mine burned, too. In fact, I’m sure it wasn’t because I was literally on top of him, and our pulses seemed to be syncing with each rattled beat. For a few more winded inhales, neither of us moved.

Then he whispered, “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

Yeah—good idea. After getting up and securing myself on my own two feet I moved to help him, arm outstretched. His words ghosted on my lips, and with a smile due to the irony, I asked, “Hey, you okay?”

He wriggled his eyebrows in response, tucking me into him once he was up.

“That’s my line,” he muttered into my sun-kissed highlights, giving me a light squeeze, when his grip suddenly tightened. “Jesus, Riv, you’re shaking.”

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