Lies and Prophecy by Marie Brennan Read Free Book Online

defeat. More, it meant quitting wasn’t going to make me any happier. Maybe the opposite. I didn’t like the idea of giving up on anything.
    So what would I get by sticking with it? That was the second half of the branch. I turned last card over, hoping for an improvement.
    Death.
    After a moment of staring, I laughed. This was the problem with divining for yourself. You got invested in certain expectations, and the upsetting of those expectations could be … well, upsetting.
    I wasn’t some head-blind freshman, though. I knew Death, in its divinatory sense, wasn’t inherently bad. Still, its presence in the spread surprised me. Profound change, even to the point of beginning a new life. Was that what lay behind door number two? I stuck with Grayson’s class, and came out the other end a different person?
    It seemed excessively dramatic. This was just a class, after all. But maybe it wasn’t; maybe it was a stepping-stone to something bigger. Like Guardianship. Which should have been pleasing. My gift, however, working through its impressions, wasn’t sure that the change foretold was even one I was going to choose for myself. That worried me. My mother seemed a likely candidate for the one pushing change on me, and I knew where she wanted me to go.
    Lies, damned lies, and prophecy. On the other hand, forewarned was forearmed; the reading didn’t mean my mother would win out, and it might help me prepare to resist her.
    If I was right about it being her at all. I wasn’t sure of that, either.
    Frowning, I swept the cards together, preparing to stow them once more in their box. As I moved to tap them straight, though, something caught my eye.
    The Moon.
    I pulled it free, staring. The Moon hadn’t been anywhere in that spread, had it? Sometimes cards stuck together, though—fate’s way of telling you something was more complicated than it looked. Only, which card had the Moon been stuck to?
    An involuntary shudder ran through my shoulders as I looked at it. Deception. Danger. Hidden enemies. Was it an obstacle, or something linked with my past? The reversed Chariot took on a more ominous cast in my mind. Not just a quitter, but unprepared.
    That word echoed up from the instinctual depths of my gift. Unprepared. For what? I had no idea. But whatever was coming … I might need to become a different person, if I wanted to be ready for it. Somebody like a Guardian.
    Or at least somebody who could cast a circle properly.
    I shook my head and shoved the Moon into the middle of the deck, where I wouldn’t have to look at it. That interpretation was a house of cards, both literally and figuratively; I wasn’t at all sure I had it right. And there were lots of things still unexplained. It had carved itself into my memory, though. This was going to be one of those readings that kept prodding me at odd moments, I could tell.
    It had given me this much, at least: no way in hell was I quitting Grayson’s class. Whatever the rest of it meant, I didn’t want to accept defeat.
    And I definitely wanted to be prepared.
    ~
    Common courtesy meant most students placed shields over their dorm rooms, to keep everyone from sharing in the drama and adventures of their neighbors. The minute Liesel walked in, though, she caught the brunt of my frustration and annoyance. “Problems?”
    She’d been out doing a volunteer shift for Open Door, one of the campus peer-counseling groups; I hated to unload my problems on her, too. But after two years of rooming together, I knew Liesel wouldn’t ask if she weren’t willing to listen. “Parents. Of the maternal variety.” I sighed and yanked my hair into a fresh ponytail. “She called a little bit ago. I told her about Grayson’s class, and made her day. But then I brought up Julian.”
    Liesel didn’t need me to explain why that was a mistake. She sighed, setting her bag gently on the floor. “Why