Page 45 of A Fate Everlasting

Hugo glanced between us. “You know her?”

The woman’s eyes flicked up to mine.Hungry.“Oh, I don’t know her,” she said, voice syrupy and slow. “But I know what she is, and what she has.”

The room felt smaller, the air thicker. I forced my expression to stay neutral. “And what’s that?”

She hummed, tapping a finger against her bottom lip, pretending to think. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

I stiffened. “If you have something to say, say it.”

Her feline grin widened. “Oh, sweetheart.” She leaned in slightly, her voice dropping to something just above a whisper. “I’d tuck that little thing away before someone less friendly notices.”

She reached forward, a blur of clicking nails and sharp teeth, her fingertips nearly brushing my necklace. A crackle of something burned the space between us. She hissed, recoiling instantly, shaking out her hand like she’d been shocked. Her grin widened.“Well! Aren’tyouinteresting?”

Dorian didn’t waste time. “We need information. You had a customer in yesterday. Black hair, about this high.” He gestured slightly above his height. “And he brought a deck of cards with him.”

“Ah,” the shopkeeper hummed. “Yes. I remember him.”

“Do you still have them?” I asked.

She let out a knowing chuckle, shaking her head. “No, my dear. He wasn't selling them. He was simply appraising them.” A cold rush of dread crashed over me. The cards weren’t here anymore.

Hugo’s jaw tightened. “Why was he appraising them?”

“Never you mind.” Her nails clicked against the counter again, her gaze settling back on her paperwork like we were nothing more than a mild inconvenience. “If you aren't here to purchase something, I suggest you leave.”

Dorian started to argue, and my attention had snagged on something behind the counter, a ledger. It was thick and leather-bound, and would maybe tell us something more.

She was distracted enough. I let my hands brush lightly against the counter’s edge as I slipped behind it. I scanned over the ledger, Dante’s name at the bottom:

Dante Darkblood. Item: The Arcana Deck. Status: Appraisal. Collateral left: The Fool.

A single Arcana card. He left a card, tucked into the spine of the ledger.The Fool.The very card I’d drawn the night I arrived in the poker game. It seemed like a cruel joke. A message.

“You shouldn’t have touched that.” I jumped, the shopkeeper’s black eyes gleaming. I barely had time to grab the card before everything lurched.

The room shifted, the candles flickering violently as if the curiosity shop had drawn a startled breath.The Foolcard burned ice-cold in my palm. A heartbeat that wasn’t mine throbbed against my skin.

“Strange thing, you are.” The shopkeeper studied me, impassive. “Walking among the dead, wearing a body that should have been left behind. Tell me, girl. Do you even know what you are?”

Shadows peeled from the walls, not just shadows but hands, gripping, clawing, wrenching me back. I felt them, not just onmy skin, but inside, leeching, pulling at my thoughts, my memories.

“Dorian!” My scream tore through the dark. “Dorian,please!”

A crack of light split through the air, and the shadows vanished. I stumbled forward, gasping, straight into Dorian’s grip.

“Get up,” he said, voice tight. He glanced at his watch. “Forty-six hours left, and Dante’s got a hell of a head start.”

He didn’t move for a moment. His hand hovered at my back, as if unsure whether to steady me, or shove me onward.

20

The air in Elsewhere was not meant for the living or the dead. It scraped down my throat like rusted metal, sinking into my bones with a hollowness that was more than exhaustion.

I placed my fingers to my wrist. Nothing. Then on my neck, just below my ear. There it was, the faintest flutter, like a bird trapped under skin. That couldn’t be right. I was being paranoid.Imaginingthings.

The city loomed, its skeletal structures rising and crumbling in tandem, as if time had abandoned this place long before we arrived. Shadows stretched thin and clung to doorways, wraiths, whispering in tongues I didn’t understand, their voices curling through the stagnant air like fraying threads. But they weren’t the worst of it. No, it was the Daemons, the beautiful ones, that unsettled me most. They were the Luminari who had chosen to Fall.

“Any other bright ideas?” I called ahead to Dorian. He did not turn, but the scowl on his face was palpable.

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