“By all means,” Isobel answers, surprised.
“Some readers do not like other people touching their cards,” Marco explains, recalling details from his divination lessons as he gently lifts the deck. “And I would not want to be presumptuous.” He turns over the top card, Le Bateleur. The Magician. Marco cannot help but smile at the card before replacing it in the pile.
“Do you read?” Isobel asks him.
“Oh no,” he says. “I am familiar with the cards, but they do not speak to me, not in ways enough to properly read.” He looks up from the cards at Isobel, still not certain what to make of her. “They speak to you, though, do they not?”
“I have never thought of it that way, but I suppose they do,” she says. She sits quietly, watching him flip through the deck. He treats it with the same care she showed with his journal, holding the cards delicately by their edges. When he has looked through the entire deck, he places them back on the table.
“They are very old,” he says. “Much older than you, I would venture to guess. Might I inquire as to how they came into your possession?”
“I found them in a jewelry box in an antiques shop in Paris, years ago,” Isobel says. “The woman there wouldn’t even sell them to me, she just told me to take them away, get them out of her shop. Devil cards, she called them. Cartes du Diable.”
“People are na?ve about such things,” Marco says, a phrase oft repeated by his instructor as both admonishment and warning. “And they would rather write them off as evil than attempt to understand them. An unfortunate truth, but a truth nonetheless.”
“What is your notebook for?” Isobel asks. “I don’t mean to pry, I just found it interesting. I hope you will forgive me for looking through it.”
“Well, we are even on that matter, now that you have allowed me to look through your cards,” he says. “But I am afraid it is rather complex, and not the easiest of matters to explain, or believe.”
“I can believe quite a lot of things,” Isobel says. Marco says nothing, but watches her as intently as he had regarded her cards. Isobel holds his gaze and does not look away.
It is too tempting. To have found someone who might even begin to understand the world he has lived in almost his entire life. He knows he should let it go, but he cannot.
“I could show you, if you wish,” he says after a moment.
“I would like that,” Isobel says.
They finish their wine and Marco settles their bill with the woman behind the bar. He places his bowler hat on his head and takes Isobel’s arm as they leave the warmth of the café, stepping out once again into the rain.
Marco stops abruptly in the middle of the next block, just outside a large gated courtyard. It is set back from the street, a cobblestone alcove formed by grey stone walls.
“This will do,” he says. He leads Isobel off of the pavement and into the space between the wall and the gate, positioning her so her back is against the cold wet stone, and stands directly in front of her, so close that she can see each drop of rain on the brim of his bowler hat.
“Do for what?” she asks, apprehension creeping into her voice. The rain is still falling around them and there is nowhere to go. Marco simply raises a gloved hand to quiet her, concentrating on the rain and the wall behind her head.
He has never had someone to try this particular feat on before, and he is uncertain he will even be able to manage it.
“Do you trust me, Miss Martin?” he asks, watching her with the same intense stare from the café, only this time his eyes are barely inches from her own.
“Yes,” she says, without hesitation.
“Good,” Marco says, and with a swift movement he lifts his hand and places it firmly over Isobel’s eyes.
*
STARTLED, ISOBEL FREEZES. Her vision is obscured completely, she can see nothing and feels only the damp leather against her skin. She shivers, and is not entirely sure it is due to the cold or the rain. A voice close to her ear whispers words she has to strain to hear and that she does not understand. And then she can no longer hear the rain, and the stone wall behind her feels rough when moments before it had been smooth. The darkness is somehow brighter, and then Marco lowers his hand.