“Has she mentioned returning to Skye?” Thorn asked.
“Nay. I get the feeling she’ll go back only if she doesna have another choice.”
“So we arrived in time.” Thorn scratched his jaw. “Interesting.”
Thorn saw conspiracies everywhere, so Warrick didn’t pay him any mind. “She doesna realize what kind of man Ulrik has become.”
“Why would she? He’s done nothing to her.”
“No’ yet.”
Thorn’s lips twisted. “No’ until she unbinds all his magic.”
“It’s been nearly three years since she first helped him. Why has he waited to have all of his magic released?”
“Perhaps she can no’ do it.”
Warrick shook his head. “Nay. If that was it, he wouldna care if the Dark took her.”
“Then maybe he’s scaring her into helping him.”
That was certainly a possibility, and one he didn’t like in the least. “I’ll ask her.”
“Ask me what?” Darcy questioned as she came into the front of the store.
Thorn leaned a shoulder against the wall. “We want to know why you’ve no’ unbound all of Ulrik’s magic yet.”
Her fern green eyes moved from Thorn to Warrick and back to Thorn. “The first time I touched the dragon magic within Ulrik I was knocked unconscious for an entire day. The second time, it shot me across the room, banging my head against the wall.”
“You didna stop though,” Warrick said.
“No. I kept going. I saw flashes of dragons whenever I touched the magic, and I was intrigued. It took months and dozens of tries before I was able to touch the magic and finally help Ulrik.”
“Then what?” Thorn pressed. “Why did you stop?”
“Because it nearly killed me.”
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
After Darcy’s revelation, Warrick was stopped from replying by her first client of the day. Thorn disappeared out of the back unnoticed, and Warrick quickly ducked behind the curtains to the back before the client could see him.
The lights were dimmed in the store. Warrick kept the lights in the back shut off, and it allowed him to watch Darcy throughout the day.
She was warm and friendly to everyone who walked into her shop whether they were regulars or people off the street. Darcy had a way about her that set others at ease instantly.
He was captivated by her. By the way she tilted her head as she listened to her customers, by the way she gently ran her fingers over their palms, and how her forehead furrowed slightly when she saw something in her readings she didn’t like.
Not that she told her clients. That’s the first thing Warrick noticed. Darcy was careful never to spill too much information. She kept things vague, letting the customers decide what step to take next in their lives.
Some of her clients were easier than others. Warrick saw her shoulders tighten with two different customers. After the first one left, Darcy rested her head on her arms on the table. After a moment, she rose and walked to the back with him. She opened the small fridge she had tucked next to her desk, the light from within illuminating her haggard expression.
“What is it?” Warrick asked.
Darcy drank the entire bottle of water before she turned to him, clicking on the desk light. “I saw an accident coming soon. It’ll claim her life.”
When it happened again, Warrick didn’t bother to ask. He knew Darcy saw something terrible. It affected her deeply, and he couldn’t imagine how hard it was for her not to tell them. When the last client left, he decided to ask her. He came out of the back as she locked the front door and flipped over the sign so it showed CLOSED.
“Why do you no’ tell them what you see?”
Darcy pushed away from the door and returned to the table where she put away the stack of tarot cards. “I made that mistake once. I thought it was my job to help people and steer them away from danger.”
“And it’s no’?” he asked, confused.
“No.”
“Then why do you think you have the ability to read their palms?”
She sat heavily in her chair and shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ve asked myself that thousands of times. The first time I told someone they were going to die, they averted disaster on multiple occasions. Every time they would return to me and want me to read their palm again so I could see what was coming next.”
“Did you?”
“Yes,” she replied softly. “It got so bad that the person wouldn’t leave the house until I did a reading. Eventually, death comes for all of us. And it did for this person as well, no matter how hard they tried to divert it.”
Warrick didn’t know what alerted him that the person had been someone close to her. “You knew this person well, didn’t you?”
“It was my mother.”
“I’m sorry.”
Darcy shrugged and tossed the empty bottle in the recycling container. “It was a hard lessoned learned.”
“Is that why you left Skye?”