She read the single word at the bottom: “Lamat.” A quick search through the book revealed that Lamat was the card of the One Who Shows the Way. Okay, then, it symbolized leadership. She didn’t think it referred to Strike, though. She didn’t see how the king could be at the core of Brandt’s inability to become a Triad mage.
Moving on to the light aspects, she read: “‘Lamat indicates harmony, clear perspectives, and the creation of beneficial combinations.’ Meh.” She shrugged and moved on. “‘The shadow aspects of Lamat are disconnection and the belief that there is only one right way, one exclusive system that can bring harmony.’” That resonated. More, when she added it to the concept of leadership, she came up with the distant, rigid, system-based former architect who had been prophesied to lead the magi against Cabrakan. Brandt.
Unfortunately, identifying Brandt as the core of the problem wasn’t news either. Disappointment gathered as she skimmed through the rest of the information, finding little of note except for the animal and elemental associations of Lamat: the rabbit, and fire. That suggested that Rabbit was involved with the core issue, or maybe its solution. But beyond that, she wasn’t seeing anything nearly as concrete as the mirror card had been, in terms of giving her a clue of what she was supposed to do next.
“Have faith,” she murmured. And she flipped the third card.
The image was unfamiliar, and very different from the first two, done in a watery blue green, with white accents, showing none of the yellows and blacks that were on the other cards. It was a moon card, with a white disk in the background. In the foreground was an arrangement of lines and shapes, just as on the others. But on this one, the combination of downward-arching lines at the upper corners and a circular pattern at the lower center combined to form the image of an angry, scowling face with a strange twinkle in its eyes.
“Chuen.” She flipped to the proper page in the book, and frowned when nothing connected. Chuen was the Monkey Trickster. Its light aspects were celebration, innocence, joy, and laughter; its shadow aspects were the destruction of old, useless patterns, the upending of known life, and the creation of a new one. Disappointment kicked. Frivolity sure as hell wasn’t going to connect Brandt with the Triad magic, and she didn’t see how mixing things up would help either. “Come on. Give me something to work with here!”
Frustrated, she paged to the front of the book, where it described the spreads. Maybe she had missed something, or made a mistake.
But when she figured out what she’d done, she just stared for a long moment. “Oh. Oh, gods.” This wasn’t good.
The tree-of-choice array was supposed to be laid out in a line from top to bottom, canopy to roots.
She had laid her cards from left to right, which wasn’t the tree-of-choice spread. It was the past-
present-future spread, which had nothing to do with the question she’d asked, and had everything to do with the person who had pulled the cards—namely, her.
The Divine Mother was her past.
The rigid, rule-following leader was her present, and he had put her world in disharmony. Brandt.
And her future was chaos and upheaval . . . leading to a new life.
She didn’t want a new life, she thought on a surge of pure self-pity. She wanted her old life back, damn it. She wanted to be a wife and mother first, with everything else coming after that. She wanted to be back in the pretty kitchen of the Pittsburgh house, with Brandt snoozing in their shared bedroom, the boys napping down the hall. Or, rather, with Harry napping and Braden planning world domination, toddler-style. She wanted to know that if she headed into the bedroom, her sleepy-eyed husband would snag her hand and pull her back into bed with him.
But that life was already gone, wasn’t it? She wasn’t just a wife and a mother anymore; she was a warrior. And even if the magi won the war and everything went back to so-called “normal,” she wouldn’t ever get her old life back. On some level she knew that. But that didn’t mean she wanted to think about what her new life was going to be like.
“Did the oracle work?”
She jolted at the sound of Brandt’s voice, the sight of him filling the pool house doorway. “Oh! I didn’t hear you come in.”
He wore black cargo pants and a black tee with square-toed boots. The outfit was almost, but not quite, combat gear, suggesting that it was time for their next and almost last option. Her heart thumped, but with an aching wistfulness rather than surprise. When he raised an eyebrow, she realized she hadn’t answered his question about the oracle.
“No. It didn’t give me anything.”
He got points for not even hinting at an “I told you so.” Or maybe her success with the etznab spell had made an impression. Instead of commenting on the cards at all, he said, “Strike’s ready to ’port us down to El Rey. He’ll leave us there to poke around for as long as we need.” He paused. “Jox suggested we should try getting a room at the same hotel or one like it. We could spend the night and see if it jogs some memories.”
“That makes sense.” It also made her want to weep. Instead, she carefully gathered her cards, stacked them atop the book, and cradled the small pile against her as she unfolded herself from the daybed. She didn’t look back at the pillows or the memories they brought.
She did, however, catch sight of herself in the big mirror beside the door. And for a second, she didn’t recognize the person staring back at her.
The Patience who had come to Skywatch with her sons and been shocked to find her husband there already—instead of on the business trip he’d claimed—had looked younger than her twenty-three years, soft-faced and bouncy despite her fighting credentials and Nightkeeper upbringing. The woman in the mirror had lost the softness and gained an edge that said she wasn’t just trained to fight; she had fought for real and emerged, if not victorious, then at least alive.
On some level, though, “alive” was about all she could claim. She wore jeans and a practical shirt, sturdy shoes, and a ponytail. And all she wanted to do was get through the next solstice, the next year, the next two years, and hope that tomorrow would be better than today.
Gods. Was that the person she had become?
“Patience? You okay?”
There was honest concern in Brandt’s eyes, but that was it. Chest gone suddenly hollow, she nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
She headed for the door, but instead of giving way, he caught her hand. And pulled her into his arms.
As she stiffened in shock and fought the too-tempting urge to burrow into him, he wrapped himself around her, enfolding her within the curve of his body and the strength of his arms. He splayed his hands, one spanning her waist, the other buried in her hair, holding her face tucked into the hollow between his neck and shoulder, with her lips almost touching the sensitive spot at the base of his throat.
She tried to pull away, but he held her fast, not squeezing too hard, but not letting her go either.
“Hush,” he whispered into her hair, though neither of them had made a noise. “Just give me a moment here, and take one for yourself.”
If she fought, he would let her go, she knew. And she should fight. She should yank away and tell him that it wasn’t fair for him to reach for her now, when he’d pushed her away so many other times before. She should tell him to make a godsdamned choice, that he either wanted her or he didn’t, that she couldn’t handle seeing desire in him one moment, distance the next.
She should tell him that she would be his partner in whatever way he needed her in order to gain the Triad magic, but only because it was her duty, that if it were up to her, she would walk away, not look back, because he was the root of her problem, not the branches of its answer.