Chapter 28 #2
“That’s the thing,” Morgan says, biting her lip and putting a hand to her chin. “I’m…not sure.” She closes her eyes and inhales sh arply, a little reset. “Okay, so, this is your basic cruciform spread—cross-shaped,” she explains.
“I know what cruciform means,” I retort. “I’m in Emrys’s class with your stepbrother, remember? It’s from the Latin.”
“Right, right, right.” Morgan waves a dismissive hand. “Anyway—it’s a cross. The intersections of the conscious and unconscious, the past and the future.” She makes a little plus sign with her index fingers to illustrate. “As above, so below.”
At her words, a full-body shiver courses through me, scalp to toes.
Quod est inferius est sicut quod est superius, et quod est superius est sicut quod est inferius.
“I see,” I say, but my voice sounds uneven, wobbly, like I’m underwater.
So I focus instead on the cards, frowning, pretending to study them.
The illustrations are intricate and curlicued, like woodcuts or engravings, with a decidedly old-fashioned aesthetic: billowing feathers, curling ferns, doublets and ballooning sleeves. Renaissance, maybe? Slightly later?
Kai would know , I think. Then shake away the thought.
“Look at that,” Lucinda says, hovering a fingertip around each of the four framing cards in turn. “What are the odds—one of each suit?”
I follow her gesture: Cavaliere di Spade, Cavaliere di Coppe, Cavaliere di Bastoni, Cavaliere di Denari.
Knight of Swords, Knight of Cups, Knight of Wands, Knight of Pentacles.
“I don’t know,” Morgan murmurs again, sounding vaguely irritated. “That’s a math question. It’s…the knight is the headstrong one,” she adds, to me. “They express their suit’s essence to the extreme.”
“Swords for intellect,” Lucinda interjects, “cups for emotions, wands for charisma, and pentacles for groundedness. Air, water, fire, earth. ”
“Right,” Morgan says. “But to have them all in the spread, kind of focused in on the center like that…”
She trails off, her gaze fixed on the center card. That one is less ornate—almost boring, actually, a simple round slab of wood with a column-like base.
The caption beneath it reads, in spidery Italian, La Tavola .
“The…table?” I translate. “What’s that mean?”
“I already said , I’m not sure,” Morgan all but snaps. She looks me dead in the eye, and for the first time since the day we met in our dorm room I see a sharp edge of suspicion in her gaze. “What did you ask?”
Lucinda intervenes with a slight cough. “You don’t have to tell her, ah?—”
“Gwenna,” I say, not looking away from the cards.
“Gwenna,” Lucinda finishes graciously. “Morgan, perhaps it’s an old deck. You know how the classic tarocchi has some variations in the cards that?—”
But Morgan is only fixed on me. “What did you ask?” she says again, a bit more gently.
I stare at her, stare at the cards.
What am I doing at Camlann House?
But before I can answer, a soft hum breaks the silence. Morgan’s phone, in her back pocket. She shakes to life, pulls it out and gives the tiniest eye roll.
“Sorry,” she says. “I’ve got to take this.” She waves the phone in the air, scooping her purchases and the loose cards into her tote bag. “Gwen, meet you for coffee? I won’t be long.”
I nod, swallowing, hiding the untethered wriggle of panic that’s now taken up residence in my chest.
Be normal.
“Great.” She whips the phone out of sight, but not so quickly that I can’t see whose name came up on the screen. “Hey. I’m getting it now. Can you… ”
Kingston.
With its reclaimed wood tabletops, stark white walls, and minimalist decor, Eclipse Coffee Lab is decidedly not Holy Grounds.
But heads still turn my way when I enter.
Fine , I think, lifting my chin. It’s going to be that way? Stare all you want.
Armed with my fake-it-til-I-make-it energy, I get at the end of the long line, trying to lose my train of thought in the whistling of the espresso machine and the faint sounds of 70s yacht rock—played ironically, I’m sure—over the PA system.
The letterboard behind the bar informs me that I won’t be getting a beverage for less than six bucks, which makes me wince a little—but still, it’s caffeine. And I need some kind of pick-me-up after that tarot card incident.
As I’m debating between a macchiato and a flat white, the line shuffles forward, and the guy in front of me flicks a glance over his shoulder.
I see him from the corner of my eye, but do my best to ignore him, staring straight at the tiny plastic letters and emitting as many fuck off vibes as I can without saying as much out loud.
It doesn’t work. He looks again, this time angling himself to look at me more fully, and the prickling sensation of being not just seen, but observed creeps up my chest. I give it another few seconds, waiting for social decorum to kick in and for him to deflect his stare, but…nothing.
My fingers start to shake, and I tuck them up inside the sleeve of my peacoat.
The line shuffles forward again, more heads from nearby tables turning and more whispers stirring.
Somewhere overhead, the soundtrack shifts to a bumping disco track, upbeat and vaguely familiar, but pinging something in the back of my brain that says danger.
Another step forward. The guy still stares. And then the chorus kicks in, and I realize why I hate this song.
Disco Inferno.
Burn, baby, burn…
Titters come from the coffee shop crowd as heat climbs up my neck. And this fucking guy is still staring at me.
I can’t take it. I wheel on him.
“What?” I say, a tremble in my voice. “Is this your little prank?” I sweep a hand in the air to indicate wherever the fuck the speakers are. “You want to get a reaction out of the crazy pyromaniac girl, or whatever? Cute. Very mature. Points for creativity.”
The guy’s expression shifts from curiosity to blank indifference.
“I beg your pardon.” His lips tilt in a smile—apologetic, but not guilty. “I only wanted to see what all were staring at,” he goes on. “I see it’s you, and…”
His words are clipped and musical, a foreign accent I can’t quite place—Eastern European, somewhere.
That, combined with his relatively imposing height and the sharp cut of his brown suede jacket make him feel oddly sophisticated compared to the rest of the largely student patrons—even though he has to be around college age himself.
And he clearly has no idea who I am.
“I…sorry,” I stammer. I clench my fists hard. “I thought you…” I wheel my gaze around the room, but everyone’s gone back to their conversations and chocolate croissants, no one daring to make eye contact now. “The song—I thought you were making fun of me.”
“No.” He shakes his head—dark curls, dark eyes, high cheekbones—and I notice for the first time the thin silver chain around his neck with a tiny cross hanging at the hollow of his throat. He turns to the barista, signals for her attention. “Excuse me. Miss?”
She perks her head up, not without glancing at me. I recognize her, vaguely, from campus—stubby brown ponytail and cat-eye glasses.
“She does not like the music,” he says, gesturing at me. “Could you please change songs?”
“I…” The barista girl looks caught off guard, like she’s torn between this ever so clever practical joke and six-plus feet of tall, dark, and handsome asking her a favor.
“Please,” he adds again, with a smile. “I thank you.”
“Sure,” she chirps, and scurries off to fiddle with a screen. Satisfied, he turns to me.
“Hopefully it is better now.”
I swallow, my mouth gone dry. The song shifts to something warm and inoffensive—lo-fi, no lyrics—and I feel my head go up and down in a nod, but I’m not sure I am feeling better.
No, I’m definitely not. The ringing is still in my ears. The cold sweat springing up on my chest and neck. Every pulse of my heart palpable.
I’m going to have a panic attack.
“Good.” He nods back, holds out a hand, his voice tinny and distant. “I am Alexei.”
Pulse. Pulse. My heart has taken over my whole body, my whole consciousness, and it takes me a minute to realize he’s introducing himself—formally. I take his hand, feeling slow-motion, like a marionette, and manage to shake it. It’s firm, oddly cold.
“I’m…Gwenna,” I hear myself say.
He nods—or bows, almost—just as it’s his turn at the register. Beneath me, the floor tips sideways. I swallow, desperate, chasing calm and not finding it.
“What can I get for you?” says a male barista .
“Coffee. Black, please. And for you?”
Me. He’s talking to me. Alexei. The stranger.
“I…the same.” I blink. “Excuse me,” I say hurriedly, stepping past him. “I just…excuse me a second.”
I push blindly past low armchairs and cylindrical side tables to the back of the coffee shop, where miraculously I find the door marked W.C. right where I’d hoped. I all but fall inside and slam the door behind me, panting in the cramped space of black tile and eucalyptus-scented air.
I’m suddenly hot, too hot, sweating all over, so I frantically strip myself from my coat, needing out of the heaviness and heat. It’s still not enough, so I push my sweater sleeves to my elbows, rush to the sink and scoop back my hair, throwing water on my face.
Fingers dripping, I grip the edge of the sink and stare at the silver circle of the drain.
All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
Maybe it’s the lingering effects of the weird tarot reading. Maybe I’m actually insane and just incapable of getting an actual grip. Maybe it’s some kind of immune reaction to a total stranger being generous to me, for once.
Whatever it is, it’s powerful.
And yet…it’s passing.
Slowly, slowly, the dread ebbs out of me, leaving sheer exhaustion in its wake. My shoulders feel heavy, my breathing ragged like I’ve just sprinted a mile. But every heartbeat gets me that little bit closer to calm.
Finally, I’m steady again. Or steady enough.
There are no paper towels—just one of those stupidly unhygienic Airblade things—so I pat my face dry with the edge of my sweater sleeve—dry clean only be damned—and bundle up my coat from where I’d shucked it onto the ground.
With a deep breath, I grab the handle and push my way back out into the world.
“ There you are!”
It’s Morgan, rushing towards me from the end of the line. “I was about to put out an APB when I didn’t see you.” She frowns, looking me up and down, and grabs my upper arm. “Are you okay?”
“I’m…yeah,” I say. “Now, anyway.” I press a hand to my forehead. “Long story. Or, not really, just…”
I think of the guy—Alexei—and look around for him. Nothing—he’s gone. But a single cup of black coffee sits waiting on the sideboard.
“I guess that’s mine,” I mutter, and gently shrug out of Morgan’s grasp.
She pouts. “You ordered already?”
“Sort of,” I say, threading my way to grab the cup and ducking back to her side. “I, uh, was in line, and this guy starts talking to me—Russian, or something?—and buys me a drink.”
Morgan’s eyes go wide. “Russian?”
The coffee’s way too hot to drink, so I blow on it, nodding. “I mean, I didn’t see a passport. I’m just stereotyping based on accent.”
“What did he look like?”
“Um, tallish? Dark hair, dark eyes, little cross necklace?” I lower my cup slightly. “Why?”
Morgan snatches the coffee out of my hand so fast she nearly spills it over herself. “Don’t drink that!”
I gape at her. “What?”
“You…you can’t just drink random unattended beverages from strange guys,” she says, darting a glance from the still-sloshing coffee to my face. “Come on, Gwenna. Have some street smarts. Especially after what happened at the formal hall.”
She does have a point, I realize. Still, her reaction seems…off .
“Speaking of which,” Morgan says. “I need to make one more stop, so?—”
I shrug. “That’s fine. I’m down for whatever.”
Morgan winces. “Yeah, it’s…a little ways out of town, is the thing. But , good news is, I got you a ride back to campus.”
With that, she turns to the door and waves to someone:
Callahan.