Epilogue
Dove
The camera on Ellis’s phone glared at me as her brows knit in determined focus, like this was some sort of life-or-death mission rather than just filming a short clip for the shop’s TikTok account.
“Okay, Dove, smile—but like a shop-owner smile, not your usual I-just-made-a-snarky-joke smile.”
I rolled my eyes at her and shuffled the stack of cards on the counter. “That’s literally my only smile.”
“I can assure you it’s not,” Ellis said with a snort, the familiar wrinkle forming on her nose.
“All right,” I said with a sigh, fixing my face. “Go.”
I tapped the deck in front of me, lifting it high so the camera caught the gleam of the elegant gold-foiled edges.
“At last, guys, after months of promising my deck, I can finally say it’s here.
Months of sketching, inking, misprints—we’re here, and we made it.
You can now purchase in-store at Margaret’s Mystique or online, here, here, and here.
” I moved my hand exactly where Ellis had told me to; she’d said she would bounce the words in when she edited.
Ida, perched on a stool just out of frame near the register, clapped her hands. “You’re a natural, Dovey.”
“Don’t give her a big head,” Ellis groaned, though the grin on her face betrayed her words.
I winked at Ellis’s phone. “And if you order right now, you’ll also receive—absolutely nothing. Because this isn’t late-night TV, people. This is an independent tarot shop in Chicago. Support small businesses.”
Ellis snorted and lowered her phone, giggling. “I honestly don’t know if that’ll make people buy it faster or slower.”
Ida took a sip of her tea and set it back down. “Well, you’d get me over the line, but I’m a sucker for infomercials.”
Ellis stopped recording and gave me a shy smile before looking back down at her phone, already queuing up the edit. I sorted the deck into little piles to bide some time, a soft yawn slipping out.
“So, when is Europe happening?” Ida asked as she adjusted her spectacles. “Did they lock in the date yet?”
Ellis looked up, her smile warm and radiant as she turned to Ida. “Next month,” she said. “We leave on the eighth. They’re fully sponsoring my trip, and Dove is coming along for fun.”
“Are you still good with the store?” I asked, concern etched across my face.
“Always, kiddo,” Ida said with a smile. “You’re young. Go live your life and leave the witchcraft to the crones, okay? Amazing. So the travel company pays for it?”
“Yep,” Ellis said with a smile. “I’m basically there to create content for them. It’s obviously work, but also fun.”
“It’s too perfect,” Ida said with a smile. “I can just picture you two running around Europe. Margaret would absolutely lose her mind at the thought of you in Europe, Dovey.”
“Thank God there are no ashes left,” Ellis said, wide-eyed. “Dove would smuggle them in her shoes and scatter her in Paris.”
Ida made a thoughtful face. “Well, that’s an idea.”
A laugh left my lips at the terror on Ellis’s face and the utter seriousness on Ida’s. I could only imagine Ida’s last wishes if she’d seen what I was capable of doing for her.
Ellis’s phone pinged, and she glanced at it, her brows furrowing before she looked to me. “Are you still coming for dinner tonight with my parents?”
“Yeah,” I said with a soft smile, noting the anxiety in her eyes. “I’m still in.”
“Great.” Relief flickered across her face. “Um, also, it’s not just Mom and Dad anymore. It’s Thomas as well, and his new girlfriend.”
“Cool,” I murmured, picking up my tea.
“And my grandmother and grandfather,” Ellis continued, gauging my reaction as she spoke, while I noted the casual growth of her dinner list.
“That’s fine,” I told her assuredly.
Ida gave me a wink as Ellis went back to her phone, her energy the same old frantic buzz of anxiety. It was clearly something so deeply built into her—but I liked it. She kept me on my toes, kept things interesting, even if she went a little crazy every now and then.
She was fun to calm down.
The bell above the door jingled, and I set down my tea, looking up eagerly to see who had come in—we’d been a little quiet today, not that the three of us hadn’t had fun together. We’d spent the better part of the day messing around.
My stomach tightened at the figure who walked in—the cocky swagger belonging to no one other than Uncle Bill.
My skin prickled at the sight of his smug grin, balding head, and shirt tucked neatly into his pants.
He walked in as if he owned the place, regardless of the fact that it was my name on the paperwork.
Ida glowered as Ellis looked up with a frown.
“Well, well, well,” he drawled, his eyes darting greedily around the store. “If it isn’t my favorite little con artist, carrying on the legacy of another con artist.”
Ellis stiffened and set down her phone, her cheeks turning pink as rage filled her eyes, and God damn it if that didn’t make her even more attractive to me.
“What do you want, Bill?” I asked flatly, turning my attention to him and schooling my expression, refusing to give him the satisfaction of pulling anything real from me.
He smirked as he picked up a book on crystals, flicking through it before dumping it back on the shelf unceremoniously. “Oh, nothing,” he said with a smug air. “Just wanted to check in, see if this place was still running. It’s a little quiet in here, no?”
Fool, I thought with my own smug grin. Most of my sales were coming in online now, thanks to Ellis and her content creation skills. She wiped the floor with what I had been doing and created me an online persona I never would have been able to curate.
“We’re closing soon,” I told him sweetly. “It’s often quiet around this time.”
“Hmm.” He ignored my words, scoffing at the deck of cards on the counter as he came closer. His stubby finger tapped the stack, condescension dripping from him. “You haven’t been over to see Margaret’s ashes.”
Bingo.
Joy sparked through me as Ellis coughed and bent back over her phone.
Ida busied herself with her tea. I looked at Uncle Bill, knowing full well that darling Margaret had been scattered across the Pacific months ago—and all he had were the contents of her vacuum cleaner sitting inside that expensive urn.
“I’ve been very busy.”
“Mmm. Too busy to see the woman you claimed to love so much?” His voice slipped into a mocking, cooing lilt.
“Margaret isn’t in your house, Bill,” I told him with a shrug. He’d never know just how true those words were. “Margaret isn’t just a pile of dust for me to stare at. She’s in every part of my life. I can see her whenever I want.”
Uncle Bill rolled his eyes and tapped the deck again, his mouth twisting into an ugly scowl as he eyed it with disdain. “This useless crap you let Margaret suck you into.”
“You seem awfully interested in the cards, Bill,” I said gently, shifting my tone and treating him like a customer instead. I leveled him with a flat look. “Do you want a reading?”
He snorted. “The witchy show, eh?”
I laughed as I grabbed the deck, pretending I thought he was funny. His eyes flickered. Idiot. The cards were never a show. They had always been a way for my hands to tell the truth—especially now, when my mouth only wanted to spit at him. I breathed and shuffled.
He didn’t move.
The cards whispered against each other. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ida perk up, watching with interest. Ellis had her arms folded, glaring unblinkingly at Uncle Bill. I reminded myself I never wanted to be on the receiving end of an Ellis Langley glower.
I licked my dry lips, stopped shuffling, drew a card, and laid it on the table. I had to stifle a laugh as his eyes followed it.
The Lovers.
“Oof, well, that’s a little on the nose, isn’t it?” I said airily.
Uncle Bill frowned at the card and then at me.
“This card means you’d better check yourself, because arrogance and affairs make one ugly cocktail. One man’s lipstick on the collar is another woman’s divorce.”
Uncle Bill’s hand shot to his collar, as if he hadn’t even realized it, and Ellis let out a soft yelp, stifling a laugh. Color rushed up his neck.
Good.
I flipped another card.
The Fool.
“This is a good one,” I told him, my voice pitched with false discretion. “It’s a reminder to be careful where you take that next smug step. You might just end up falling off a cliff of your own making.”
Ida choked on her tea and set the mug down, clapping her chest.
Uncle Bill’s ears had turned pink, but he seemed frozen in place, his eyes locked on the cards. So I dropped another one, just for fun.
Death.
“Uh-oh,” I said dramatically. “Whew. Now, this card is important. It means transformation—beginnings in better shoes. But for you, it means stop clutching at what isn’t yours, or Ida over there is going to make a voodoo doll of you and ruin your fucking life.”
Uncle Bill’s eyes snapped up. Ida glared over her spectacles, gray brows knitted together, playing her part well enough to be believable.
With her shawls and the unlit incense sticks tucked behind her ears, she could easily have been mistaken for a witch, at least by someone as moronic as Uncle Bill.
He looked back at me. I stood firm, my back straight, feet planted hard on the floor. I knew exactly who I was in this room. In this shop. Hell, in the world.
Uncle Bill would never make me feel small again.
“Time to go,” I told him firmly, setting down the deck as I held his gaze, pressing my palms flat against the countertop. “Keep your glass bowls of dust. Keep your venom and your shortcomings. Don’t ever come back in here again, Bill. This is my only warning.”
His lips opened and closed, as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t quite manage it.
Instead, he scoffed, his flushed cheeks betraying him, and turned on his heel, muttering, “Fucking lunatic,” over his shoulder before storming out.
The bell above the door jangled violently as he ripped it open and slammed it shut behind him.
I grinned as the slam resonated through me, leaving nothing sticky or unfinished in its wake. Just clean air where dread had once sat.
“Ha!” Ida crowed, clapping her hands as she slid off the stool and tapped the countertop twice before gathering our empty mugs. “Oh, I wish we’d filmed that. What a sight—Bill turning into a human tomato. Ah. I need more tea. I’ll be back.”
Ida shuffled off to the back room. Ellis came around the counter, a glint in her green eyes as she took my hand and lifted it to her lips, holding my gaze.
“You okay?” she asked softly.
I looked at her and nodded, a genuine grin spreading across my face. “I am so much more than okay. You have no freaking idea.”
Her green eyes shone, and she nodded. “Me too.”
I leaned in and pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth, savoring the flush of red that spread across her cheeks when I pulled back.
“So,” I asked, tugging her closer until she stood between me and the counter, “you coming back here with me tonight after dinner?”
Ellis smiled shyly and shrugged, her fingers toying with the hem of my shirt. “Yeah. I can.”
I grinned wickedly. I loved it when she got shy and flustered, like I hadn’t seen every inch of her, hadn’t touched every part of her.
Like she hadn’t seen all of me, lost herself in me.
Like it was still day one of a fresh relationship.
It warmed me and excited me all at once, and I loved messing with her.
“Sounds good,” I purred in her ear, and she trembled a little. “Want me to do that thing you like?”
If it was possible, she went even redder, and I bit back a smirk as she nodded.
“I guess my question is then…” I began softly. She watched me with parted lips. “Uppercase or lowercase?”
The End