Clifford flashes me a look, but I keep my face blank. It’s enough just getting to know my mother again. I’m not sure I’m ready for her friends. I watch him walk away and turn to my mother. I don’t want to rehash this morning’s argument, so I quickly interject. “I’m serious about my turn. What are my cards?”

She takes the peace offering for what it is and begins shuffling the deck. “You really want to do this?”

I shrug. “Sure. Why not?”

She lays them facedown in a complex pattern and starts turning them rapidly, her eyes scanning for things I can’t see. She points to one. “See this? The Eight of Swords. You feel stuck, bound, even though you have more freedom than you realize. And this? The Devil card—you’re a slave to your beliefs.”

She swallows, and I squirm in my chair.

“This is the Five of Swords. You’ve lost something very dear to you. You feel defeated.”

I instantly regret my decision to come here. I don’t want her seeing me, seeing into me. But she’s already moving on.

“This is Death and this is the Tower. Both indicate a shake-up in your life and a fresh start. And here, they are followed by the Lovers, a meeting of hearts.”

I slap my hand over the Death card, the image of a grim reaper in rose-red robes chilling me to the bone as it carries me back to the night Moony died and my dream. I refuse to go there right now.

“You know what? Let’s not do this after all.”

She sits back. “Catia, you don’t have to be frightened.”

“I’m not,” I lie. “I’m just not interested. I know what I’m experiencing. I don’t need you to tell me about it.”

“Okay,” she says with her hands up in surrender. She spins a card around to face me—the Devil. “When you look at this card, what do you see?”

I shrug, not wanting to play her game but feeling drawn in all the same. “I don’t know. A guy with horns and some naked people.”

“What else?”

I look closer. The people are wearing something after all—ropes. Colorful silk cords tie them to the Devil like the horses tethered to carriages here in the square. It is a mockery of the Chariot card. I tell her as much.

“What does that mean then?” She peers at me, expectation dripping from the corners of her eyes.

“It’s about power and control. In the Chariot, you have power. But in the Devil, you are under control because of your need for it.” I say it nonchalantly, with a tone that suggests anyone could see as much, but I feel the truth of it like a hum in my bones.

“Anything else?”