Page 101 of Choosing Stella

Epilogue

The last client of the day left The Silver Thread smiling and carrying three pages of notes she’d written while I talked.

I considered that a successful reading.

I wrapped my deck in its black cloth, slipped it into my bag, and pulled on my wool coat before stepping out into the Victorian Quarter.

Christmas had attacked the entire block.

White lights climbed the old brick storefronts. Evergreen garlands looped over doorways, metallic ribbon flashed beneath streetlamps, and every shop window seemed determined to prove it could fit more gold, silver, crystal, or sequins into six feet of glass than the one beside it.

That made the strange flashes I’d been getting all afternoon especially useless.

Silver.

A burst of white light.

Something faceted catching it.

Then it was gone.

I had no headache or nausea, not even enough pressure behind my eye to make me worry.

I stopped outside a jeweler’s window where diamonds glittered under tiny spotlights and stared at the display.

“Very helpful,” I muttered.

A woman passing with shopping bags glanced at me.

I smiled.

She walked faster.

Apparently talking to invisible forces was less charming when I wasn’t sitting behind a tarot table.

Snow drifted through the light as I headed home, fine enough to melt against my coat. By the time I reached our front door, my hair was damp from the flakes.

Our Christmas tree glowed through the window.

That still did something ridiculous to my chest.

I stepped inside, kicked the snow from my boots, and heard Geo moving somewhere beyond the entry.

“Before you say anything,” I called, “I’m blaming Christmas for whatever my second sight has been trying to show me all day.”

Geo appeared from the living room in a dark shirt and jeans.

His gaze settled on me.

“That seems scientifically rigorous.”

I smiled.

“There you are.”

I stripped off my gloves and tucked them under the bag strap. Geo crossed the entry, took the bag from my shoulder, and leaned down to meet my mouth. One large hand settled at my lower back while the other somehow managed the bag, my gloves, and the receipt from the bakery downstairs from The Silver Thread that had worked halfway out of the zipper.

Living together had taught me Geo could carry an unreasonable number of things without noticing.