Page 117 of The Reveal
“So,” Maddox says on the last Saturday before Halloween, while I’m sitting at the kitchen table with my cards spread out before me, conducting what Gran called agetting to know youreading.
They already know me,I argued when she told me I needed to do this.They know too much.
It’s not about what they know,Gran retorted with a roll of her eyes.It’s about what you know, and what you can pick up, and the relationship you have to build with them.
I stared at her, dead-eyed.
Yes, Winter,she said after a moment, still sounding impatient—but a bit softer with it.You have to build a relationship with the cards. With everything in your life. With life itself, and death too.
Death can take care of itself,I protested.
Death is a gift,she replied.Think of all the other things that could happen that are much worse.
She has a point.
I’m only too happy to look away from the bright gold images on their dark backgrounds with frayed edges, all of them oddly evocative, though half the time I don’t have any clue what they mean. I only know the messages they send. Gran is certain that if I get to know them better, I’ll understand the deeper meanings in the images on the cards themselves.
I’m happy for a break.
“So what?” I ask Maddox.
“So ... the vampire king situation.” She eyes me. “Haven’t met up with you sneaking back into the house in the middle of the night in a while.”
“I haven’t invited him into the house.” It sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud, but we all have to pick our hills to die on.
“Trouble in undead paradise?”
I sit back, contemplating what to say. How to say it. The house feels cavernous around us. Gran’s in bed. I haven’t seen Savi in days. She’s off doing sorcery shit, as far as I can tell. Briar was lurking around earlier, but whether she’s hidden in her cottage or off in the woods, I couldn’t say.
Augie told me he was going down into Jacksonville to have a beer at the tavern.
I couldn’t help myself. I made a face.
He laughed, though it was a bitter sort of sound.Oh, how I wish that a beer was the problem,he said.I would be fucking delighted to be a goddamn alcoholic.
Somehow, after he left, I was the one who felt ashamed. I could havenotmade a face. Why did I?
“Ariel and I were nevertogether,” I tell Maddox after a moment. “If that’s what you mean by ‘undead paradise,’ I don’t qualify.”
She laughs. When she sees I’m not laughing with her, she sobers. “Oh. Sorry. You’re being serious?”
“He released my brother, which is great. But he also imprisoned my brother to pressure me into giving him access to my visions, so we have no other reason to interact.” I sigh. “Aside from the whole saving the world thing.”
“Winter.” Maddox looks like she can’t decide whether she wants to laugh, shake her head, or maybe shake me. Or possibly all of the above. “His mark is upon you. More than that, you’re bound to him.”
She waits, as if she expects to see a light bulb literally burst into its brightest shine above my head.
“I don’t know what that means.” I cross my arms and glare at her, mostly because she’s the one in the room and this is an enduring frustration. “You all know exactly what’s going on all the time.I don’t.In case you’ve forgotten, I thought you were just a girl in high school. I don’t know how vampires operate. I don’t know what it means—”
“You know what it means.” Maddox’s voice is quiet, but with a certain steel in it that reminds me, against my will, that she is another alpha of the werewolf pack. That soon enough, she will be considered its queen, and that she, too, will rule. She nods at whatever expression shows on my face. “Yes. It means that. You’re his, end of discussion.”
“What? Like he put a dog tag on me?”
“It’s more like he put a brand on you.” Maddox frowns as she studies me, as if she’s looking for clues. “If he’sgiving you space, if I were you?” She shakes her head. “I’d worry more about that.”
“Maybe he’s being respectful.”
She laughs. “Sure. That sounds like the vampire king we all know to love and fear. He’s definitely known for beingrespectful.”
