Page 214 of Divine Fate

He slips out of his old one and into the new. “Right. Because I wasbuyingthem,” he winks. “I love it, darling.”

Baelfire quickly unwraps his gift and lights up when he sees the nice camera. I asked Kenzie for help picking out a good one, and he’s already turning it on. “Fuck, this is nice.”

“I took a few pictures on it already,” I add innocently.

“Really?” he asks, holding it up to see past photos. “I’d love to see what you—oh, fuck.Fuck me,that’s so damn hot.”

“Wait, are they nudes?” Crypt demands, trying to grab the camera from Baelfire. “Let me see.”

“Fuck off, these are mine,” Baelfire grins, shoving the incubus away before switching to the next one and groaning. “I knew you’d look good in leather.”

“Okay, we’re all going to see those photos at some point. Right?” Everett demands, looking at me hopefully.

I laugh and tell Silas to unwrap his next. He does, and pulls out several thick-ass tomes written in the ancient fae. He skims the covers and looks at me in surprise. “These are…?”

“Grimoires that are thousands of years old. Felix found a few of them and happened to tell me about it first. You’ll have to translate them to new fae from ancient fae, but I figured you wouldn’t mind.”

“I truly don’t,” he smiles, already browsing the first dusty grimoire like an excited child on Starfall morning.

“Nerd,” Baelfire snorts.

Finally, I turn to Everett and pull his gift out of my pocket void, handing him the papers carefully.

He realizes what he’s looking at and goes still. “You…it’s fully translated.”

“I know holy tongue now, so you’ll know the truth about the prophecy you were given as a kid.”

Everett swallows hard as he squints at the page to read it without his glasses.

I already have the lines memorized.

Favored of Raan, ye walk alone,

Divine blood binds thine fate unknown,

Ye telum-bound, cursed, long misled,

Vice of ice and thine keeper dead,

Yet death’s child returns, ichor crowned,

Lost heart to bind, five fates bound.

My beautiful, scarred ice elemental looks at me, relief and surprise on his face. I think he’s surprised how harmless the prophecy was all along—just a statement of what would happen, and of course as obnoxiously rhymey as anything else written in the holy tongue.

Everett kisses me, pocketing the prophecy with a raspy voice. “Thank you.”

The party goes on as Quinn announces it’s time for me to unwrap the rest of the gifts they brought. With my quintet at my side and people I care about all around me, I remind myself once again of my new mantras.

I’m alive. I deserve to be happy. I choose my own fate, and it will always be them.

The End