Page 85 of World's Okayest Oracle (Reluctantly) Seeks Demon

“Yes?” Breath bated, she waited for him to propose returning to the library together.

“I watched your entire prophetic session just now,” he said to her surprise—and frankly, disappointment. “I came in just after you entered your oracular flow state.”

Well, that would explain why she hadn’t noticed his arrival. While channeling even limited Power, she retained only the barest thread of her own consciousness.

She lifted a shoulder, embarrassed. “It was just normal human life stuff. I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

“You didn’t. And that’s part of what I wanted to say, Gwen. What I tried to tell you last night as well.” He removed the pomander from her now-healed palm and took that hand in his too. “I know you think your smaller visions aren’t valuable, Gwen, but Edie would disagree. I do too.”

“Thank you.” She huffed out a short, humorless laugh. “That’s very kind.”

His frown pinned her in place on the sofa. “Not kind. Honest. Do I lie to you, Gwen? Have I given you any reason to doubt my word?”

“No. But…” Her cheeks aflame, she shifted restlessly. “My normal visions must seem totally inconsequential to you, given the power you wield and observe on a daily basis.”

Another firm headshake. “On the contrary. Having now seen one of those normal visions, I can very much understand the value of what you do and how you do it.”

“How I do it?” Her face scrunched in confusion. “With my athame, you mean? After snacking on cheese?”

A slight, affectionate curve of his mouth replaced his frown. “You do it caringly and with generosity of spirit. You do it without demanding money from those who have none to spare. You do it for the vulnerable, not those who already possess more than enough power.”

She wasn’t built for compliments. She had no idea how to handle them other than batting them away from herself as swiftly as possible.

“But…” Her eyes dropped to their joined hands. “Bigger visions—more powerful oracles—can save the world, Hugh.”

Not that she envied that particular talent and burden anymore, after having wielded it for a mere handful of days.

“Sometimes, yes, a very powerful vision might help save the world. Offered to the wrong recipient, though, it might alsodoomthe world.” His lips tightened at the grim reminder of all those missing, kidnapped oracles, who even now could be prophesizing for insurrectionists. “And your smaller visions save individual people on a daily basis, which means the world tothem. Are you saying they’re all wrong to be grateful, Gwen? Do you claimto know the impact of your prophecies better than their recipients?”

His stern tone truly did things for her. Things that had her shifting on the sofa again, and not only from discomfort at the admittedly valid points he was making.

“I’ll gladly address your desire,” he told her, “but not yet. I have one more thing to say first.” His hand on her cheek guided her eyes back to his. “My sister would have liked you. A lot. And the more time we spend together, the easier it becomes to see what Eloise probably knew from the very beginning.”

“What’s that?” Gwen whispered hoarsely, her sinuses prickling at the colossal compliment he’d just bestowed upon her.

His thumb skated over her cheekbone in a wash of gentle heat. “You’re respectable in a way the Blacke family never has been, no matter what my parents, Josiah, or anyone else might believe. You embody the meaning ofSemper rectior, even if you wear none of its gilt trappings.”

He wasn’t letting her dismiss his words. And confronted with the stalwart sincerity in that low, solemn voice, her world trembled and subtly reshaped itself beneath her fuzzy-socked feet.

She’d spent decades convinced of her utter uselessness to the world and those she loved most. But what she’d believed wasn’t actually true, was it? It hadn’teverbeen true.

Her work had assisted the most vulnerable in a way most oracles didn’t and non-oracles couldn’t. She’d made the lives of those in her community a little better every day for decades, exactly as he’d told her. And that wasn’t nothing, was it? Didn’t their lives have meaning?

If so, didn’therlife have meaning, whether or not she ever channeled a vision of apocalyptic power again?

Twenty years after leaving Delphi Academy, why was she still judging herself by the standards of the most privileged and powerful rather than her friends and neighbors?

Her blurry eyes closed, and her breath hitched in a stifled sob. Because the gray pall that had smothered the foolishly persistent, bright joy of her heart for decades…it had thinned with his words. Begun drifting across her horizon under the brisk wind of his conviction, making way for the first beams of sunlight she’d experienced in more years than she could count.

“Gwen, honey.” His sweeping thumb interrupted the path of a stray droplet. “Please don’t cry.”

When her saline-tipped eyelashes lifted, water limned her world in rainbows.

“I’m not sad,” she told him. “Just grateful for you. Grateful to be here with you right now, in this moment. No matter what happens next.”

“I feel the same, but…” Worry still etched across his brow, he pressed a butterfly-light kiss against her temple. “You’re okay? Truly?”

“Check here.” She laid her palm over his heart, where her emotions lived within him. “Feel for yourself.”