“Do you remember that day at the fair when you won me the big Scooby-Doo?” she asked.
His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “How could I forget? I only threw rings at bowling pins for three hours to get the stupid thing.”
“Laurel reminded me about it the other day,” Emma said softly. “It was really … sweet.”
Thayer frowned. “You said it was stupid. You said carnival animals were full of lice.”
“Oh please, I loved it,” Emma murmured. For a moment she imagined herself as Sutton, receiving the stuffed animal, rolling her eyes to keep her diva reputation intact but later laying her cheek against the cheap plush toy and smiling at the thought of Thayer. She felt sure that her sister had secretly swooned over the gesture.
An image came to me of the Scooby-Doo sitting on my bedspread. Thayer and I had loved each other so intensely, but we’d only been together a short time. It just wasn’t fair.
Thayer reached across the table for Emma’s hand. For a split second she let him curl his fingers around hers—but then she pulled quickly away.
He flushed. “Sorry,” he said. “Old habits die hard.”
She was spared having to say anything else when Celeste, idly shuffling a deck of cards, emerged from behind a bookshelf. She was wearing a green lace jacket over a short, shapeless gray dress, and a large purple stone on a lanyard hung around her neck. The rings on her fingers glittered as she played with the cards. She stopped when she saw Sutton and Thayer. “Helloooo,” she said, drawing out the word.
“What do you want?” Emma asked, frowning. She wasn’t in the mood to hear more about her damaged aura today.
Celeste smiled at Thayer, her expression looking like it was somehow filtered through a soft-focus camera lens. “I don’t know if I’ve met you. Are you Sutton’s boyfriend?”
Thayer coughed and glanced at Emma awkwardly. “I’m Thayer,” he said, holding out his hand.
Celeste didn’t shake it. She slid next to Thayer and looked at Emma unblinkingly. “Sutton,” she said finally, “I think I’ve been sent here to give you a message.”
Thayer widened his eyes, clearly enjoying this. Emma remembered he’d said that Celeste had a celestial body. Typical guy. “A message?” she challenged. “Really? Who from?”
“From the universe.” Celeste’s gaze was distant. “I was heading toward the Student Center to meet Garrett when I felt an undeniable urge to come in here. I don’t know why—I wasn’t planning to visit the library. But something guided my steps, straight to you.” She leaned even closer. “I think I should read your cards, if you don’t mind.”
Emma stopped. She’d had her tarot read once before, when she and Alex had snuck into a New Age convention at the Cosmopolitan in Vegas. The psychic had been a slender woman with long dark hair and an accent that seemed to waver between Jamaican and Southern. She’d told Emma that she saw family difficulties on the horizon—secrets and lies exposed, a death—but that in the end Emma would gain financially. She and Alex had laughed about it. At the time it’d seemed like a good joke, since Emma didn’t have a family.
But she did now. And that family had difficulties in spades.
Emma chewed on her lip. She wasn’t sure she believed in fortune-telling. But she was out of ideas. And maybe, just maybe, the cards could tell her something. “All right,” she said. “Go ahead.”
Celeste said nothing, just started shuffling the cards. Emma couldn’t help noticing that, in spite of the faraway expression on her face, her hands moved with the speed and confidence of a seasoned cardsharp.
Celeste laid out the first card, which pictured a woman blindfolded and tied up in front of a row of swords. The drawing was simple and colorful, the woman’s face mostly obscured by the scarf around her eyes—but Emma’s skin crawled just looking at it. The woman was trapped, surrounded by blades.
“The Eight of Swords,” Celeste said carefully. “It indicates that you are incapacitated. That your options are limited and you cannot see a way out.”
Emma’s hands started to tremble, and she hid them under the table. Celeste drew another card. Two dogs stared up at the man in the moon. The face in the moon looked strange and unfriendly.
“The Moon.” Celeste turned her gaze up to meet Emma’s, her face serious and sad. “There’s madness around you, Sutton Mercer.”
The words sent a shaft of ice through Emma’s heart. The way she’d said it made it sound like it was Emma’s fault, like she’d generated insanity. She shook her head almost imperceptibly as Celeste turned over the third card. She didn’t need to have that one explained to her. The dark, skeletal rider carrying a black banner. That one was obvious.