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Gunther groaned. “You should at least be a little bit upset, cousin.”
“Why? This is women supporting women.” She turned back to me with an eager smile. “What else? I want to know everything.”
Relief chugged through my veins. “Whatever Melinoe can do. Talk to ghosts. See nightmares. Cause nightmares. Drag a nightmare into reality. Inflict insanity.”
Camryn reeled back, placing both hands on the table to steady herself. “Whoa. I’m going to need a minute to process this.”
“Insanity,” Gun murmured. “That’s a heavy weight to bear.”
“Not much different from your cards,” I told him.
“I beg to differ,” Gun replied. “Our abilities are nothing alike.”
I eyed him closely. “Are you sure about that? I bet you have a card in that pack of yours that can inflict temporary insanity.”
His gaze dropped to the table. “Maybe,” he mumbled.
“And I’d wager one of you has a card that can invoke someone’s worst nightmare.” La Fortuna mages spent years trying to master the cards, but the process was arduous and dangerous and not all succeeded. Some only managed to master a handful of Minor Arcana cards. The more powerful mages like Gun and Cam, however, had multiple Major Arcana cards under their belts.
“Why didn’t you tell us before?” Camryn asked. She sounded more curious than angry or disappointed.
“It’s a secret I’ve had to keep hidden my whole life. Even telling you now is incredibly stressful.”
“Then why tell us?”
“Because the secret is out, at least among certain locals.”
“And because I caught you in the act,” Gun said. “Would you be telling us now if I hadn’t?”
“I was conditioned my entire life not to tell anyone for any reason, that the knowledge endangered both me and anyone who knew.”
Cam bumped his arm. “See? She was protecting us.”
“I was, because you two are my friends.” The word ‘friends’ sounded strange to my ears; it wasn’t one I said very often. I’d probably said it more in Fairhaven than I had in my entire thirty-five years combined.
Gun arched an eyebrow. “Are we?”
I looked him dead in the eye. “Yes, we are.”
Cam gaped at her cousin. “How can you even ask that? Being your friend doesn’t make you entitled to every aspect of her interior world.”
“Trust is the cornerstone of every relationship,” Gun countered, “especially for mages like us. We can’t afford to keep people close if we question their loyalty.”
Cam rolled her eyes. “She wasn’t withholding her identity because she planned to use it against you, you nitwit. You’ve got to look at the whole picture.”
The oven timer dinged.
I observed Gunther closely. “Are we good?”
He nodded. “How can I say no? As soon as the weather turns warm, I want to be in your moat with an inflatable unicorn.”
“You’ll be more than welcome.”
“I’m glad that’s out of the way,” Cam announced. “Let’s eat. I’m starving.”
I heaped the potatoes and broccolini into serving dishes and set them on the table, quickly followed by the main course. “Baked salmon with lemon zest for my special guests.”
Cam gazed at the dishes. “What’s for dessert?”
