His Fortune Fae relations explained so much about him, particularly his penchant for secrets. He knew things others didn’t, giving him an advantage underlined in a myriad of liabilities. No wonder he kept me in the dark so often; he didn’t want to influence my choices, and yet, for some reason, he’d taken some of my decisions away from me.
Such as our mating.
“You bit me that day to prevent something else from happening to me,” I said, ignoring his rock comment for the moment. “Gina told me I had two paths, that I was already in your sights.”
“His sights,” Shade corrected. “Yes.”
My brow furrowed. “Are you saying she wasn’t talking about you?”
“She was, in regard to the paths,” he replied. “But I can’t tell you more. The rest you’ll need to learn on your own.”
“Why?”
“Because there are some choices I refuse to take from you, Aflora. This is your destiny to follow, not mine to dictate.”
“Yet you stole my ability to decide when you bit me that day,” I pointed out. “So you’ll alter some of my paths, but not all of them.”
“I alter the ones I’m destined to alter,” he replied, slipping his palm upward to cup my cheek. “Our paths were meant to intertwine. I just upped the timeline.”
I wanted to ask him what that meant, but I knew he wouldn’t tell me.
Fortune-telling was a tricky game. If he told me too much, he risked disrupting the balance and changing our fates to an unforeseeable future. Which was why he mostly focused on facts I already knew, detailing the past decisions and how they’d already impacted our lives.
But he carefully avoided anything that could explain what tomorrow held for us both, despite the fact that I could sense he knew perfectly well what to expect. Or, at least, he had an inkling.
Because that was how Fortune Fae worked—their visions didn’t often make sense, the images a cluster of thoughts that may or may not form a coherent prediction. And from what I gathered of Shade’s comments, there were multiple avenues for our futures to take. He only dictated the ones he could control, like that day outside the coffee shop.
“The rock,” I said slowly, returning to his question and giving him a reprieve from the fate discussion. I cleared my throat. “It, uh, showed me something devastating. The fire.”
His brow came down. “The fire?”
“Yeah. At the Death Blood Education Building.” I closed my eyes to consider what I’d seen and relayed the information to him. He remained silent the entire time, allowing me to tell him what I saw, how it felt, the horror of realizing I was trapped inside someone else, and the eventual kiss against the rock. “He said he’d see me soon, like he knew I’d have that vision.”
I shivered at the memory, my blood running cold as I opened my eyes again after several minutes of reliving the nightmare.
“How could he know that?” I asked. “Or was it…? Did my mind change it?”
He shook his head slowly, his expression holding more mysteries that I longed to decipher. “He must have placed the memory in the rock, knowing it would fall into your hands.”
“How is that possible?” It didn’t make any sense. “There’s no way he could have known I’d pick that rock in class or that we’d be playing with psychometry.”
“Unless he planted the idea in Headmaster Irwin’s head,” Shade suggested grimly. “Did you pick up the rock, or did it fall into your hand?”
“I…” I paused, thinking back on how I selected the item from the box. “I told you—it was th
e only thing that fit…”
“Because the other items were enchanted not to,” he replied, falling to his back. “Fuck.” He pressed his palms to his eyes and muttered a string of curses.
“You know who he is,” I said. “Don’t you?”
He didn’t reply.
Because of course he wouldn’t.
“Shade, I need to know who he is.”
“You already do,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Or you should, anyway.”