The thing about Death, the tarot card, is that it doesn't always mean death, exactly. But then, around here, death rarely meant death, anyway. There are lots of different kinds of death, from the great ender, to the small, internal death. I remember reading something about that. I think it went, 'I die a little inside, every time we say goodbye.'

So Death, as a card, means something more like, 'something ends,' than 'someone dies.' The knight of swords came up in the cross position.

"Who could that be?" Catriona said.

"Kieran," I whispered, "or Zephan."

Catriona didn't say anything, but continued turning the cards. The five of pentacles appeared above, the devil below. The queen of swords appeared in the recent past.

"That's you," I said to Catriona.

"Flattering," she said, "but not necessarily true."

"It's always you," I said. The queen of swords was an intelligent woman that you could turn to with your problems. There wasn't anyone else in my life who fit that role, so it had to be Cat.

She turned the next card, the near future. It was the five of wands. I frowned, trying to remember what that one meant.

"Problems," Cat said, supplying me with the answer. "But you don't know where they've come from." The next card was the questioner. It was the knight of wands. "Influenced by a young man," she said, glancing from the knight of wands to the knight of swords, "another one."

I felt warmth rise into my cheeks and knew that I was blushing.

"You can tell that by these cards?" my mother asked, leaning over to look at them.

"This one," Catriona pointed at the knights, "and this one. See? They're both young men, but very different. Swords represent air, the mind. The confident, social aspects of humanity. Wands are fire. Passion." She turned the next card, somewhat absently. "The moon. You cannot see things clearly." The next card was the king of cups. "Another man, Laurel?"

I shrugged. Cups were water, emotion. They could represent someone, or something who was somewhat unorthodox, different. I wondered who I knew like that. The king was an older man.

"Jack," I said eventually.

"The giant man?" my mother said, disapprovingly.

"Just because they're in the cards, doesn't mean they're romantically involved," Catriona pointed out.

"No," I tossed my hair out of my face, "we're politically involved." An awkward silence filled the room.

"Last card?" Cat asked. It was the card that signified the next half year. I nodded. She turned the card over. "Judgement."

The thing about Judgement, the tarot card, is that it only tells you that it's happening. It doesn't tell you who will be judged, or who will do the judging. The most notable absence, though, of all the things the card doesn't tell you, is that it doesn't say if, when the judgement comes, you'll be enough.

"Catriona," Karlotta said, once Cat had left, "seems to have been really good for you." She said the words slowly, as though they felt strange, in her mouth. But she said them.

"She has," I said. "She's taught me a lot."

"She clearly cares a lot about you."

"I know." In many ways, Catriona was the only mother I'd had. She loved me, and took care of me, and taught me how to take care of myself. She sympathized with me, and was always ready to give me advice. She was the mother of my heart, and of my mind, but the mother of my flesh had still rejected me, and no amount of caring could make up for that.

"I could never have done what she did."

"I know." Behind my eyes grew hot and I felt the sharp itch tickle the back of my eyelids. I looked away from her. I didn't want her to see how easily the tears still came. Didn't want her to know how deep the wounds went.

"I don't just mean because I was personally incapable of understanding your abilities," she said, "I mean that she could teach you, and help you in ways that I couldn't because I'm not like you."

"I wasn't angry about being sent to Cat," I said, hoping that I could make it come out in some kind of intelligible form, "it's that you sent me away."

"I am sorry," she said.

I nodded.

I was reading the book that Zephan had given me. I came across a passage which detailed the ritual for tying the spirits of the dead to the land. It was disturbing to read. The fact that they had done that kind of thing so casually made me think that the rest of the Fae were right to get rid of them. There was a footnote on that page and, reading it, I felt a new layer of fear flood through me.

* It is for this reason that the royalty is routinely burned until their body is dust upon death. It is thought that, if a king were tied to the land, then the next king would have incomplete power over his subjects, given that the land's allegiances would clearly go to one of their own.

Zephan said that he'd read this book. Assuming he'd paid any kind of attention to the text, he knew that royalty was cremated so that the Deadly Aristocracy could not work their magic on them. No wonder he hadn't seemed overly concerned about me raising the king. He even specifically took me to the Hall of the Dead. He showed me the king's ashes, knowing that I would not be able to raise him.

If he knew that I couldn't raise the king, then Kieran appearing suddenly not to be in a rush would let him know that we knew too. Only Zephan wasn't supposed to know about any of that.

I had to warn Kieran about it. I had to let him know that Zephan was probably already a step ahead of us, working the political game, and he was already more of a master at it than Kieran was. Kieran seemed to lack that talent Zephan had of hiding his true emotions and lying through his teeth. It was a skill all politicians had, and Kieran was woefully behind in the game.

The problem was, I didn't know how to contact Kieran. Jack was our only go between, the only person who could travel between the worlds, and he wasn't here. I didn't know how to call Jack into this world any more than I knew how to cross into the next, even if I did have a passport.

I gripped the medallion tightly in the palm of my hand. I hadn't taken it off since Jack gave it to me. It had seemed easier to keep it on than it did to remember to put it back on, every time I went back to Faerie Land.

There had to be a way to contact him. I just didn't know what it was.

I spent hours walking around the house in an agony of tension, trying to find a way to get to Kieran before Zephan made a complete fool of him. It had been my idea to push Kieran into playing politics and now it looked like I'd played him right into Zephan's hands. I'd never forgive myself if, because of my advice, Kieran failed in his attempt to gain the throne.

"Hello?" I heard Jack's voice ring out from my kitchen and I nearly fell over in my haste to get to him.

"You're here," I said, grabbing his arm. "How did you know?"

"Know what?"

"To come. We have to warn Kieran."

"What?" Jack asked.

"Zephan knows about the king."

"What? How?"

"That book he lent me," I said. "There's a passage in it that explains why you cremate royalty. It's so necromancers can't use them."

"And you think, because of that, that Zephan knows you can't raise the king?"

I nodded.

"Okay..." Jack said. "Fair enough."

I stepped into his open arms and we fell into the other world.

"Where is he?" I asked.

"He should be around here somewhere," Jack said, looking around the library.

"Kieran?" I called. No one answered. "How did you know to come, anyway?" I asked.

"I didn't," Jack said. "I was just checking in. Like I said I would."

"Right," I nodded. We'd come to the end of one of the aisles and turned to go down the next.

I had a brief moment, a fraction of a second, to notice what was in front of me before something smashed into my face.

Lights exploded behind my eyes.

Pain pulsed outwards from the impact.

Then everything went dark and silent.

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Uh oh.

Do you think Laurel was attacked for what she knows?

And by who?

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Til next time,

x zuz