Page 97 of Summoned
The question hangs in the air, fragile as a thread pulled too tight. She doesn’t breathe. The faintest tremble flickers beneath her eye. The truth sinks in slowly. I know what it’s like when those closest to you aim their arrows at your back. It was one of the things that pushed me to act against Madeline.
“Maybe they did. Maybe they didn’t. We often sense the truth deep within. But we don’t always trust it. Or we choose not to.”
I sip my wine, letting the taste linger. Nicole follows suit, her focus still on me. With every passing second, theintensity of her presence fuels the fire within me.
“My turn to ask,” I say, about to voice a question I’ve never asked another soul because it never mattered. It doesn’t now, either, but I won’t find peace until I hear her answer. “Why did you summon the Black Joker?”
A crease forms between her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“Years ago. With your friend Daria. What wish did you want me to grant?”
Heat coils under my skin. Maybe part of me hopes she’ll name a wish I could grant here and now. A way to redeem myself, however slightly, for what I’ll do to her in a week.
Her expression darkens, shadows gathering as though my words have cracked open a door she’s kept sealed too long. She drops her gaze to the table, fingers spinning the stem of her wineglass.
“I was a kid. Naïve. Believed in love. In pure happiness. I wished…” She pauses, swallows hard, then exhales. “My father had just started growing his business, and he was home less and less. My mother was hurting. She’d sit at the table alone at night, talk to herself, wait for him. And when hewashome, he mistreated her. Mistreatedusboth.”
Her voice is calm, almost devoid of emotion. It’s in that evenness that something far colder resides: the habit of hiding pain. Of holding it inside, so it turns into your poison. “Sometimes I thought that if I were just a better daughter—more obedient, prettier, more successful… maybe he’d smile more. Or at least stop yelling.”
She looks at me not seeking pity. “That’s why I summoned the Black Joker. I wanted everything to fix itself somehow. To go back to how it was in that Christmas photo. The one you found in my drawer. The holidays before my father’s first big business deal succeeded.”
A weight settles in my chest. This isn’t the kind of bargain I’m used to. I know the hungry ones—the ones who crave power, vengeance, pain. This… this is a deeper kind of vulnerability.
Something I could never grant.
“Please,” she murmurs, cutting through the silence. “Stop looking at me like that.” There’s a flicker in her expression.I interpret it as uncertainty, yes, but also curiosity, maybe even longing.
I swallow. “Like what?”
She glances away, then back, steadier now. Almost defiant. “Like you understand me. And you actually… like me.”
My lips curl before I can stop them. “I thought that was clear back in the cave.”
A blush rises to her cheeks, warming me more than the wine ever could. It’s not the kind of warmth I’m used to. It has nothing to do with power or control, nothing to do with the deals I’ve made. “No,” she says, softer now. “That’s not what I meant.”
I lean forward, pulse quickening, already suspecting what’s coming. And if she’s noticed, then I’m in real trouble. “What, then?”
“You often look at me like you see beneath the surface. And what you find there… doesn’t repulse you. On the contrary.”
Invisible chains tighten around my throat. She’s right. Idosee her. The cracks, the ache, the hunger to prove herself. And I want her—her body, and that feral spark inside her that would never fully submit, but might reveal itself to the right man.
Icould have been that man.
But I can’t tell her that, because there’s no future for us.No world where we both survive.
I take another sip of wine to keep the truth locked inside and let the silence fill the space between us, confirming nothing. Not denying it, either.
“I’m the Black Joker, Nicole,” I say at last. “I don’t exist beyond these walls.”
Her steady gaze remains on me. As if she, too, sees past my mask and through every layer of the role I’ve played for centuries. And knows there’s nowhere left for me to hide.
“Tell me how you became the Black Joker,” she says. Her voice holds that human softness that disarms me more than any sharp question I’ve ever been asked. “I suppose you weren’t born that way?”
A reluctant smile touches my lips. “That’s a long story.”
“I’ve got all the time in the world. Or at least a full day before my father sets the police loose. Unless you’re already tired of guests…”
My fingers curl beneath the table.You don’t have all the time in the world.The thought pierces through me and lodges deep. I refuse to go there. Not yet.
