When I see the picture, I exhale. There’s no grim reaper, no hangman’s noose, nothing particularly ominous. The card is upside down, but when I turn it around, I see a girl, blindfolded, holding a pair of swords, their blades crossed in front of her.

She looks strong, I think, but when I glance up, the fortune-teller is frowning.

“The Two of Swords,” she murmurs.

“What does it mean?” I ask.

Sandra tucks a strand of purple hair behind one ear and assembles her face into a mask of calm, but not before I catch the worry darting across her features. She takes the card, pursing her lips as she studies the image.

“Tarot can be read two ways,” she says, “upright and reversed. The meaning changes depending on which way the card is drawn. But the Two of Swords is a difficult one, no matter how you draw it.”

She runs her chipped pink fingernail along one sword, stopping where it hits the other.

“Upright, this card signifies a crossroads. You will have to choose one road, but when you do, the other will be lost. There is no victory without defeat, so you do not want to choose at all, but you must. And no matter what you choose, you will lose something. Or someone.”

Jacob tenses beside me, and I try so hard not to think of him, of his growing power, of Lara warning me again and again to send him on. But maybe it isn’t about Jacob at all. Maybe it’s about the Emissary, about me.

“But your card was upside down,” Jacob whispers, “so that means the opposite, right?”

I voice his question, but the fortune-teller only shakes her head.

“Not exactly,” she says. “This card doesn’t have an opposite. It’s like the crossed swords themselves. No matter how you look at them, they form an X. Reversed, the Two of Swords still signals the same challenge, the same choice. It means, no matter what you choose, you cannot win without losing, too. There are no right answers.”

“Well, that’s stupid,” mutters Jacob. “You can’t just change the rules based on the card. She said there were two readings—”

I shake my head, trying to think.

“Can I draw again?” I ask.

“No sense doing that,” Sandra says with a shrug. “It’s your card. You picked it for a reason.”

“But I didn’t know what I was picking!” I say, panic worming through me.

“And yet, you chose.”

“But what am I supposed to do? How do I know which road to choose if neither one is right?”

The fortune-teller eyes me steadily. “You’ll make the choice you need to make, not the one you want.” Her mouth tugs into a crooked smile. “As for your future, I’ll tell you everything I can,” she says, adding, “for twenty bucks.”