Page 3 of A Barista's Guide to Love & Larceny
“Mi scusi,” the professor said, touching her lips lightly with two fingers. “I’m not quite sure where that came from.”
An uneasy feeling crawled into Dani’s stomach as the pomegranate faded from her mind. While many of the intricacies of how her ability worked remained a mystery to her, she’d noticed certain unignorable patterns over the years. The colors, for one, seemed to be connected to the emotions of whoever she was talking to, with the usual associations—shades of red for anger and annoyance, green for jealousy, and so on. But they only showed when the person was actually speaking; nonverbal signs of her ability left her mind color-free.
She’d also ascertained that her ability was more likely to work on someone she was interacting with directly, though there didn’t always seem to be a rhyme or reason for when it triggered. She could go a whole conversation with one person without it ever activating, or she might be peppered with colors in a group setting when she wasn’t even talking. Typically, what people blurted out were the truths behind white lies or unfiltered, brutal honesties, like what Silva had just said about her grandmother. No one had ever told Dani their deepest, darkest secret upon meeting her—at least as far as she knew. Over the years she’d learned to roll with the randomness of it all.
Either way, it wasn’t something she wanted the professor to takean interest in, so she busied herself with adjusting the chain on her necklace, an amethyst pendulum she’d worn for years.
“Well, it sounds like your grandmother was an acquired taste,” Geneva said, ever the diplomat. “La ruota is too, I’d say.”
“Some of us are still acquiring.” McKenna laid out two minors in the center of the table, snapping the corners in frustration. “Your go, Adrian.”
Adrian took his hand out of his pocket and grinned. “Excellent.” He didn’t bother to discard and draw, simply pulled a card from his hand and threw it onto the careful array they’d been building throughout the round. It was the Tower. “Game over.”
McKenna cursed so hard Dani checked the tip of her braid to make sure it hadn’t turned white again. Professor Silva chuckled, and Geneva began to gather up the cards as Adrian raked in the bills and coins.
“He always does this,” McKenna said through gritted teeth. Gingerbread hopped uneasily to her shoulder. “He acts like he doesn’t have shit and then cracks the board wide open.” She slumped back in her chair and threaded her fingers through her crimped hair, grabbing at the roots. “It isn’tfair.”
“It’s a card game,” Adrian said. “There’s no board.”
“It’s okay, Kenz,” Dani said, eager to prevent a beheading this early on. “We’re only partway through the night. There’s still time to turn it around.”
McKenna turned to her, embers of anger simmering in her eyes, and Dani braced herself for a reprimand:This wouldn’t have happened ifyouhadn’t showed up late.But when the other girl looked at Dani, actually looked at her, those embers went out, and she laughed instead, a high, hummingbird sound.
“You’re right,” she said, in that breezy way of hers. “There’s still plenty of time.”
McKenna hailed from a small, closed-minded town that hadprovided no avenue for her to pursue her dreams of becoming a fashion designer and found no charm in her fae tendencies. Dani, on the other hand, had taken to her and her foibles from the moment they’d met on their very first day at Fox’s Leap. The girl had been in the middle of an explosive argument with her mother as first-year orientation was about to start, making it impossible not to overhear them. It seemed her mom hadn’t thought to tell her until that moment that she’d forgotten to pay for on-campus housing, which meant McKenna didn’t have a place to live. Dani, who was still looking for a roommate to split rent with, had made a timid approach. She’d half expected to walk away with scorch marks, but the other girl had jumped at the offer with sunny gratitude.
It had been a gamble on both their parts, but luckily, they’d bonded quickly over a shared hatred of vapid icebreakers and having parents who often forgot to be parents. Their easy chemistry and the lack of colors in Dani’s brain when they talked had made her feel safe enough to tell McKenna about her ability—though the shots of marshmallow-flavored vodka they’d done that first night in their apartment hadn’t hurt, either.
“Let’s play,” Adrian said.
McKenna winked at Dani, and Dani glanced at Professor Silva, who was watching them now with interest. The uneasy feeling in her gut turned into a hot, heavy coal of apprehension.
“Everyone ready?” Geneva asked mid-shuffle.
“Ready,” Dani said. She couldn’t disguise the tension in her body as Geneva passed seven cards to each of them. Her proximity to the others was enough to gradually bring their guards down and exaggerate their body language, including their tells: Adrian had a tendency to fiddle with runes in his pocket when he was hiding something, Geneva conveyed everything by what she was doing with her lips, and Katya’s knee liked to jiggle if she had a really good hand.
Dani didn’t think any of them had ever realized what they weredoing—but if Silva was watching closely enough, she’d definitely notice a difference in their behavior before and after Dani had arrived. Yet another thing that wouldn’t have been a problem if she hadn’t been late.
Dani cleared her throat and tried to look captivated by Geneva laying out three cards in the center of the table: the Queen of Cups, the six of Wands, and the Star.
“Oh shit,” McKenna said under her breath.
“What’s the Star do again?” Katya asked.
“It means the Fool ends the game with no winner,” Geneva said, “and the Moon wins if the Hanged Man has already been played.” She set out the next row of cards, five that they could swap from: the three of Wands, the World, the King of Pentacles, the eight of Pentacles, and the ace of Cups.
La ruota had highly conditional rules; the Queen of Cups meant that Cups was the most valuable suit this round. The goal was to have the highest-scoring hand possible under the round’s conditions. If either Dani or McKenna drew the Moon, they would wait until they had as many Cups as they could before they played it. Whoever had the highest total points from all rounds won the most cash at the end of the night.
“Dani, you start us off,” Geneva said.
Everyone picked up their cards. Dani’s hand was unexceptional. She discarded the two of Swords and picked up the Page of Swords instead. She swapped the Page for the three of Wands in the center, leaving the Cups card to see who might take it.
It was Adrian’s turn. His eyes flicked between his cards and the ones on the table, runes untouched in his pocket. He discarded two cards, drew, and then traded the Chariot for the ace of Cups. Geneva went next with the nine of Pentacles; she didn’t have anything promising judging from the way she chewed on her lower lip. Katya’s legs stayed still as she switched out the Page of Swords for the two ofWands. So far, no one had drawn a significant card. Out of the corner of her eye, Dani saw McKenna smirk.
Professor Silva seemed to see it, too. She glanced at Dani, then down at her cards. Dani studied her own hand with a single-pointed focus. She hadn’t seen what the professor acted like before, so it was up to McKenna to judge the difference to figure out her tell—but under no circumstances could Dani allow Silva to connect her with what was happening, especially after the whole grandmother slip. She knew what happened when adults, no matter how well-meaning, found out about what she could do. Even the ones who were supposed to protect her couldn’t help but use it to their advantage.
Silva played the eight of Wands, then sat back with an unreadable expression. But Dani didn’t relax.
