Page 58 of Zero Happily Ever Afters

“What are you playing at?” I asked suspiciously since Milo never willingly divulged his cases.

“Sometimes sharing a potential outcome helps steer the future in the right way.”

“But only parts of it, right?” I took a big gulp of my drink, finishing the tiny martini glass—seriously, who the fuck thought tiny, rounded triangle cups were a good idea? “So, why did you lure The True Witch back to Chicago?”

“Here’s the thing, I didn’t lure her. She brought us. She only ever intended to come to Chicago. Everything else she had planned, the attack on Harmony Valley, the sole survivor, her immediate surrender, the political nightmare of fighting over who will put an international threat on trial, all of it went exactly how she expected.”

This horrifying sinking sensation threatened to consume me with dread, panic, fear I’d never shake loose, but Milo’s bright smile cut through those feelings. His confidence radiated like he didn’t care he’d played right into The True Witch’s hand. He didn’t care that she’d intended on her own escape from the very start.

“Wait. What?” I fidgeted, having trouble reading Milo’s mind as my own whirled round and round with concern. “If you were going to do everything the way she wanted from the start, why spend all those weeks chasing her false trails?”

“They weren’t false, and it wasn’t bravado of the other guild witches,” Milo explained. “They were pit stops The True Witch had mapped out. Sort of her road trip of mayhem, slaughtering people for the hell of it, fueling us, encouraging the chase, and distracting everyone from her true objective.”

“Which wasn’t Whitlock Industries?”

“Not at all.” Milo scrunched his face. “Probably. Maybably.”

“You’re not sure if she actually dislikes the Harris Enchant Tech merger with Whitlock Industries because of extremist ideology or not?”

“The lady is hard to read.” Milo shrugged. “She’s got a lotta crafty pokers in the fire. Does that make sense? Sounds menacing. And hot. Gotta be real. I see why Wadsworth is such adick. Like he had a big ole bone for a naughty hottie, and she’s a whole lotta scary wrapped in a pretty face.”

I stared, not quite glaring but definitely giving him a disapproving expression for trying to shift his thoughts to shipping witch and warlock couples. Playful nonsense that added to Milo’s minxy expression when he realized he’d been caught.

“But to answer your earlier question, because I feel like we’re jumping all over the place: I sent Gladiatrix, Diaz, Wadsworth, and myself off to every potential destination loud and proud and making the news so that way The True Witch would know we were tracking her, know that I was aware of her, know that even though she believed only a few breadcrumbs had been spilled I fucking CSIed those crumbs and figured out her whole damn recipe book.”

“Well, that’s a weird metaphor.” I poured us each new drinks, as Milo had finished his while spilling his plan and his drink.

“That’s the thing, though. I had to show her that I knew it all. It was the only way to steer her from casually killing people to send a message, to lure us closer.”

“But if she intended on being captured, intended on being caught, what is her actual objective? What does she really want? And how are you going to actually stop her if she knows that you know? Won’t she just plan around that? Could she seriously break out of the MDC? Shouldn’t they be made aware their facility is being targeted?”

“Potentially targeted,” Milo corrected. That was the downside to clairvoyance. It never held up as evidence in a court of law. It didn’t matter that Enchanter Evergreen had never lied or deceived others about possible horrors. They were merely a possibility.

“But now that she knows you know, what can you really do?”

“She knows that I know she knows, but she doesn’t know that I planned for her to know that I know she knows so that I can truly catch her off guard with what she doesn’t know that I know.” Milo sipped his drink, holding his chest with pride.

“I have no fucking clue what you just said.”

“All part of the carefully curated plan.” Milo winked. “And I’ll explain it all to you. Explain everything you should ready yourself for. Because things are about to get royally fucked.”

I set my drink down, decidedly aware I didn’t want the comfort of a blitzed buzz. I needed to have my senses, needed to attempt to understand Milo’s plan. Whatever pieces the great Enchanter Evergreen chose to share with me.

“Come with me.” Milo led me through his penthouse and to his master bedroom. “I’m gonna tell you everything I can, but the future has eyes and ears all over the place.”

“Wait. Like actual eyes watching?” I stared around Milo’s bedroom, barely able to absorb the cheery decorative style as I wondered what looming threat his thoughts twisted toward.

“There’s psychics in the air, working with The True Witch. They’ve got an inside track on how things will play out.”

“Another clairvoyant? Like you?”

“Possibly.” Milo rifled through a drawer. “There’s more to it. She has allies. This Celestial Coven, some reboot on old lore.”

They were real. Or some incarnation of them. How did my telepathy detect the presence, the theory, the idea that the Celestial Coven was connected to Milo’s Global Guild mission? Maybe it was when I swam through the ocean Amara had left in Benjamin’s head. Maybe my telepathy caught something I missed.

“And you’re gonna tell me? Actually divulge everything?”

“You want everything?” Milo turned, grinning and holding up an enchantment. “Let’s see if you can handle all of it.”

---