Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 171450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 857(@200wpm)___ 686(@250wpm)___ 572(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 857(@200wpm)___ 686(@250wpm)___ 572(@300wpm)
“You know Niamh,” Graves said.
She chuckled once. “I’m acquainted.”
“Then you know who I am.”
Rosetta took a seat before the cards. “I do.” Her eyes slid to Kierse. “You I’m less sure about. He has one energy, his own, and a darkness, a missing piece. However, you seem overlaid with many energies. As if you are not your own at all.”
Kierse winced at the assessment. “Is it better to be one or the other?”
“Depends on the person and what they want. Sometimes multiple energies is harmonious, brightening the world with golds and rose and heather. A sparking unity. Yours,” she waved her hand down Kierse’s front, “is less so.”
“We’re not here about ourselves,” Graves interjected.
“No? Because you are mingled in her energy as well. Wouldn’t you like to know how to untangle it?”
Kierse froze. “Can you do that?”
“I can consult the cards. We can find solutions,” she said a touch too eagerly. Kierse wasn’t sure she could even do it. Even if all that information about training everyone up was true.
“I thought you were a healer.”
“Of the soul,” Rosetta said, tapping her chest twice. “I could have put my work to use in one of these new monster hospitals. But that work now bores me. I do not need modern anything to do what I have done for many decades.” She waved her hand. “Plus, I work most effectively by cauldron light.”
“You mean candlelight?”
“That is for amateurs. Cauldron light if you’re doing it right.”
Kierse shot Graves a look, and he, too, looked amused. Well, at least there was that.
“We’re here about Dallas Llewellyn,” Graves said. He slid the note across the table that declared Dallas’s standing meeting with Rosetta.
“I don’t discuss clients with other people.”
“Well, she’s dead.”
Rosetta frowned. Her hands immediately went to the crystal ball before her. She touched it with barely her fingertips and yanked them back. A mask of shock crossed her face and then immediately vanished into grief. “Oh, that poor child.”
“Do you know who did it?”
“No,” she said in a hushed whisper. “No, I hadn’t been treating her long.”
“What were you treating her for?” Graves pushed.
Rosetta’s eyes lifted to his. “What did you want with Dallas?”
“Answers,” he said flatly.
“Mmm,” Rosetta said. “I can see this troubles you, but her death troubles me more. Who could kill someone of your ilk?”
“We’re trying to find that out,” Kierse said. “It didn’t look natural.”
“It’s never natural killing warlocks,” Rosetta said. “There aren’t many things that can do it.”
“No, there aren’t,” Graves said. “Which is why it’s imperative for us to discover who did this.”
“That isn’t why you’re interested.” Rosetta leaned backward in her chair, her hands folded before her. “She was no friend of yours. You aren’t avenging her death.”
“I never said that I was.”
“So tell it to me straight, warlock. What were you doing with Dallas Llewellyn?”
Kierse shot Graves a look, wondering how far they could let this go. Explaining that she was a lead on the Fae Killer was likely out of the question.
“We’re investigating an associate of hers and thought she would be able to direct us to his location,” Graves said.
“How do I know that you didn’t kill her?” Rosetta asked flatly. All her glitter and glamour seemed to melt away as the accusation hung heavily in the room.
Graves shrugged, unconcerned, holding his ungloved hand out. “I can show you if you like.”
She stared down at his hand. “I have a mind of steel.”
“I had no doubt about that.”
Rosetta slowly extended her hand into Graves’s. Her head snapped back, her milky eyes wide as she seemed to see everything all at once. Then she dropped her chin to her chest as she fumbled her hand free.
“What a ride,” she said around a cough. “What a ride.”
“You’re strong,” Graves said with appreciation.
The not strong enough hung between them. Kierse glanced back and forth, wondering if Rosetta was going to toss them out of her place and all answers would be lost.
“I believe what you showed me,” Rosetta said. Her hands went to the oracle cards, and she shuffled them almost absentmindedly, fixed on what she’d just seen. “I do not know who killed her. But I will answer three questions you pose if you let me read for one of you.”
Graves leaned back in his seat. “I can just pay you.”
“I don’t want your money. I find more pleasure in my own practice, and you are here for answers. So you follow my rules. Three questions. One reading. What harm could it do?”
That was a loaded question if she’d ever heard one.
“So who will it be?” Rosetta turned to Graves. “Knowledge at his fingertips or…” She tapped her lacquered nails against the cards. “The tangled web of energy at his side.”
“Me,” Graves said automatically.
“What?” Kierse asked surprised. “You don’t even like tarot.”
“I have a heathy respect for it, but I’ll accept its answers.”