I had three teammates, once upon a time.

Since I used the Sword suit, they used Cups, Clubs, and Coins, respectively. To say they were weak compared to me isn’t a boast; that’s just how it was. They had their strong points, and they were certainly adept fighters, but I was always on a different level. Looking back, I think they relied on me a bit too much, and I only encouraged that.

Really, I was foolish to not realize how different we were.

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“In a tarot reading, the first thing you do is ask a question,” Tarot explained, his voice soft. He and Suravi were sitting now, facing each other with legs crossed. In another time, Suravi would be a bit iffy about sitting on the dirty concrete, but right now, she didn’t particularly care.

“So I ask a question,” Suravi said, “and then the cards answer it?”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that; it’s more like the cards apply to your situation.”

Suravi tilted her head. “What if they don’t?”

“Oh, they always do,” Tarot reassured her. “You just have to look at them with the right point of view.” Flashing her a grin, he continued, “I’m especially good at that, so you’ll be fine.”

The right point of view…

It still didn’t make much sense to Suravi, but something was telling her that this was fine, that everything would be all right if she just went along with whatever Tarot had in mind. It was a bit of a warm feeling, clouding up her mind in a calm haze.

“So, Suravi, what is your biggest question right now?”

“What’s going on?” The words were out of Suravi’s mouth before she even knew she was speaking. “Um, that’s my question.”

“It’s a good one,” Tarot said, still smiling. “I’m a bit confused too. Let’s put our information together and try to figure this out.”

He shuffled the deck once more, narrowing his eyes as the cards flipped in his hands. When he was done, he took the top three cards and laid them out in a row, facedown, on the ground.

“These three cards are your past, present, and future, respectively,” he said, pointing to each card. “Now that we’ve thought of a question and put that energy into the deck, we should be able to answer it.”

He turned over the first card to Suravi’s left, then stared at it for a moment. Suravi leaned in a bit, careful not to get too close, and peered down at the card, but even in the moonlight, she couldn’t really make out what was on it. Tarot seemed to notice her confusion, reaching into his pocket again and withdrawing a cellphone. A few taps later, the phone was in flashlight mode, illuminating the card below.

“Sorry about that,” Tarot said. “I keep forgetting that humans can’t really see in the dark.”

Suravi jolted back, leaning away from Tarot. “You’re not human?”

Some of the haze had left her mind, and she finally wondered exactly why she’d chosen to follow this pink-eyed boy, a boy who apparently wasn’t even human, into a secluded area with no witnesses. There was a sound behind her, and she whipped her head around, but it was just a pigeon taking off. Slowly, she turned her head back to Tarot, her nervousness not leaving. It took her a moment to realize she was shivering. It was even colder now — how had she not noticed?

However, the moment Tarot spoke again, warmth filled Suravi once more, and her doubts were quickly forgotten.

“Calm down. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I might not exactly be a normal human like you, but I’m still a person, you know? And I want to help you, because I don’t think anyone else can.”

Right. He just wants to help. Why am I being so stupid?

Besides, he seemed to be the only person who knew what was going on…

Suravi sighed, leaning forward once again. “You don’t have to apologize. I’m just a bit nervous.” She paused, then continued. “You’re from that…Other Side, aren’t you? That place I fell through?”

Tarot nodded. “I am. There are a few others like me there. We were all born from the river running through the center, though I’d say I’m the nicest one.” He chuckled to himself, as if he’d made some kind of joke that Suravi didn’t fully understand. Before Suravi could ask him anything else, he continued, “But that’s enough about me. We need to do this reading if we’re gonna get anywhere.”

He shone the phone flashlight down at the flipped card, and this time, Suravi could see what was on it. It looked like some sort of circle in the sky, clouds and animals around it. There were symbols and lines on the circle, though Suravi had no idea what they meant. The whole picture was rather elaborate and detailed, but since these cards were for divination and not just playing, perhaps that was appropriate.

“That’s the Wheel of Fortune,” Tarot explained. “It represents cyclical change, going around and around. Things might be great one day, but nothing lasts forever, and that might sound a bit scary. Still, all of us will occupy every spot on the wheel at some time in our lives, so we’d better get used to it.” He tapped the card, then pointed at himself. “See how it’s facing me? That means it’s inverted. You were at the bottom of the wheel, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, I suppose that’s accurate,” Suravi muttered. She straightened her back, her voice growing a bit louder. “I was in, um, an accident. I don’t really know how it happened, but I was in a car with my mother and my sister, and then…”

Strangely enough, it wasn’t too hard to speak of the crash. Her voice barely shook, and when she pictured what’d happened, it was in third-person, as if she was watching someone else bleed to death.

Tarot’s gaze softened. “I take it that’s how you got blood all over your clothes?”

“Yeah, but I’m not bleeding anymore. I don’t get it; I should be dead…”

But I’m not.

“And your mother?” Tarot pressed. “Your sister?”

“They were sitting up in front,” Suravi said, her voice almost a monotone. “Then the front of the car got crushed…”

“And you don’t know if they wound up here too?”

“Yeah,” Suravi said with a sigh, relieved to know that this boy shared her thoughts, that she wasn’t crazy for thinking her mother and Sabi might have survived what should’ve killed them. “At first, I thought I was in hell.”

Tarot shook his head slowly, then said in a soft voice, “There’s no way you’d ever wind up there, love. You’re a good person. I can tell.”

“Thanks, but…”

Thanks, but I don’t feel like a good person right now. The words wouldn’t come out, but Tarot seemed to understand, giving Suravi a gentle smile.

“It’s okay,” he reassured her once again. “We’ll find them.”

Before Suravi could reply, Tarot looked back down at the cards, then turned over the middle one, the one that symbolized the present.

On the card, there was a long-haired man dressed in medieval European attire, holding a long sword and looking out at the horizon. Above him, a flock of birds flew further into the sky. Tarot gave the card a hard stare, then turned his intense gaze to Suravi.

“That’s the Page of Swords,” he said after hesitating for a moment.

Suravi frowned. “Is it bad?”

“No, it’s just a bit odd,” Tarot explained, “especially when put alongside what you were saying earlier. The Page of Swords is a diplomat, a messenger between two sides, tasked with accurately relaying one camp’s communications to the other.” His eyes narrowed. “However, his position gives him a lot of power. It is his words that speak for his camp, and he may do what he pleases with the information he gains. He may even seek to one day disrupt his employer’s plans. This is what gives him another name, one used by certain players: The Spy.”

At the word spy, Suravi felt the cold again. This time, though, it seemed to come from within. Tarot was staring directly into her eyes, his expression unreadable, and though Suravi quickly averted her gaze in embarrassment, she could still feel his stare burning into her head.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she began, “but I’m n—”

Without warning, Tarot swiftly moved forward, reached out, and softly placed a hand on Suravi’s chest. “You’re not hiding anything, but this is.”

Suravi lurched back, falling onto her elbows. “What the hell are you doing?”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

The warmth in her head was mostly gone now, with the chill of the concrete seeping into her arms. All her earlier doubts were creeping back into her mind. How had she cast them aside so easily?

“Calm down, love,” Tarot murmured, withdrawing a bit. “I was ju—”

“Just what?”

Tarot shushed her. “Please calm down. We don’t want anyone to hear us.”

“You don’t want anyone to hear us,” Suravi hissed, trying to push herself up on shaking arms. “Also, it would be nice of you to explain why the fuck you just touched me like that.”

“Oh, come on.” Tarot rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t like I groped you. I was just testing a theory.”

“And exactly what theory was that?”

“You know how I mentioned the Spade Trump Card before?” Tarot didn’t give Suravi time to reply. “I was wondering how you hadn’t noticed it, despite having it with you, and now I know why. It’s inside you, underneath your skin, somewhere around where I touched you.”

What?

Suravi immediately put a hand into her shirt, feeling her chest for bumps or anything that would indicate the presence of a card, but there was nothing. Exactly how would somebody implant a card in her chest, anyway? That would definitely at least damage her tissue or something. Then again, none of tonight had really made sense, so perhaps it was best to chalk everything up to magic, since that was apparently real.

“You won’t be able to feel it,” Tarot said, confirming her suspicions. “I can sense it, but that’s about it. Still, you probably want it out. I’ve got some friends, sort of, and they’re like me. If we go to the Other Side, I’m sure they can figure something out. You want that, don’t you?”

Tarot stood up, offering Suravi a hand. A way out.

Of course I want it. I just want things to go back to normal. I want to go home.

The warmth was creeping back in again, but before it could completely engulf Suravi’s mind, one final thought came to her.

None of that will happen if I go with him.

It was quiet, almost intrusive in comparison to the other thoughts in her mind, and yet it stayed there, growing louder and louder.

And before she could even think about the consequences, Suravi felt one word slide from her mouth.

“No.”

The moment she said it, the warmth completely evaporated, leaving behind only coldness and a sudden feeling of clarity.

That, and Tarot’s foot, pressing hard into her stomach.

He smiled again, but this time his smile was cruel, sharp as a knife. “Funny how you think you’ve got a choice.”

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Jessica had been a magical girl for three weeks, and in all honesty, it was terrifying. Her battles were nothing like her sister Addie’s tales of heroic clashes between good and evil — they were messy, sometimes bloody, and they never seemed to end as well as she’d hoped. The Shades always got away; sometimes they were injured, but that wouldn’t stop them for more than the time it took to go back to the Other Side and regenerate in the river. Sure, Jessica had purified several monsters, but the Shades could always make more, and she’d even heard from Addie that monsters sometimes spawned from the river, just like Shades did.

Maybe that was fitting. Shades were just monsters in human form, weren’t they?

There was a long cut on Jessica’s side, still not entirely healed, and it sent waves of pain through her with each footstep, but she had to keep going. She sure as hell wasn’t going to let the Shades take another Trump Card.

A few minutes later, Chip was back, fluttering back to her usual perch on Jessica’s shoulder. “Tarot’s trying to block out the Spade Trump Card’s signal, but I managed to spot him from above. I don’t think he saw me.”

Jessica narrowed her eyes. “And the girl is with him?”

Chip nodded, though it looked a bit silly in her pigeon disguise. “From what I saw, they’re sitting in an alley, doing something with his cards. He’s using his voice on her, though she seems to be resisting it a bit.”

“So you still think she’s not a magical girl?”

“If she were, she’d have known not to follow a Shade into a back alley,” Chip muttered. “She probably just found the card somewhere.”

Jessica grimaced. Another civilian was being dragged into this mess, and if Jessica didn’t act fast, the girl would likely die — that is, if she wasn’t already dead by now. In spite of her best efforts, Jessica hadn’t really managed to save many people over the last three weeks. More often, she’d come all the way to wherever there was an attack just to see corpses and perhaps a departing Shade.

She usually tried not to look at the corpses, but they haunted her dreams nonetheless.

The one time she’d actually saved someone, not just stalled for time to (hopefully) let the civilians escape, had been at a bookstore down in the Castro district, where she’d fought Tarot right in front of the old man who owned the store. It’d been an awkward fight, what with her trying to avoid setting the place on fire and everything, but Tarot had drawn his Fool card, leading to his weakest transformation, so Jessica scraped out a victory that day. Afterwards, she’d checked the old man for injuries. He was shocked at first, but then he showered her with praise, thanking her over and over — until Chip flew in and modified his memory of the incident, after which he yelled at Jessica to stop loitering and get out of his shop.

It shouldn’t have hurt. She wasn’t a magical girl for praise or gratitude, so it shouldn’t have mattered, and yet…

Whatever. He lived, the bookstore wasn’t destroyed, and that’s what really matters.

Shaking off her worries, Jessica followed Chip, who had flown off her shoulder and into the streets. Chip was fast, so Jessica started running, though the motion made the pain worse, and reached into her back pocket, pulling out her own Trump Card. It would be easier if she transformed now, instead of having to waste time transforming in front of Tarot.

Or was she just making excuses so that the girl would never see her as she really was?

No. Lucky Clover is who I really am, not this bundle of the wrong parts.

“Ace of Clovers, show my hand,” she whispered, and in the blink of an eye, fire consumed her whole body.

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Suravi let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding in as Tarot lifted his foot, but her relief was short-lived. One moment, she was on the ground, trying to push herself up; the next, Tarot had grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet, putting his other arm around her neck. He held her firmly against his body, and in a brief moment of hysteria, Suravi could only think about how this was the closest she’d ever been to a boy.

Suravi opened her mouth to scream, but Tarot let go of her arm and punched her hard in the stomach; instead of noise coming out of her mouth, there was bile. She crumpled in his arms, losing her balance, but he held her upright, seemingly refusing to let her drop to the ground.

“There’s no point in screaming,” Tarot said, not looking at Suravi, but rather at the exit of the alley. “She’s already here.”

Suravi didn’t move. Her throat was burning, her mind whirling too fast for any coherent thoughts to take form.

“You can stop hiding now,” Tarot called out. “I know you’re here.”

When nothing happened, Tarot tightened the arm around Suravi’s neck, cutting off her air. “Come out, unless you want to see her die.”

With a sigh, the “she” Tarot had been speaking of finally stepped around the corner, into the alleyway, and Tarot loosened his grip, allowing Suravi to suck in a grateful breath, then turn her eyes to this mystery girl. She was a tall white girl who looked to be about Suravi’s age, bright orange hair bouncing in perfect waves down her back, but that wasn’t what caught Suravi’s eye. What really stood out was the girl’s outfit — green with hints of pink, with plenty of frills and a large bow in the top center, and four-leaf clovers everywhere: on the ankles of her boots, the wrists of her gloves, wrapping around her neck as a choker. The girl looked almost unrealistic, like she’d walked out of some cartoon instead of just around the corner.

Sticking out her arm and pointing her finger at Tarot, the girl exclaimed, “Hold it right there! You’ve done quite enough tonight, threatening an innocent civilian, but it ends here. I, Lucky Clover, wi—”

“Enough with the speeches,” Tarot sneered. “How long have you been practicing that one?”

The girl narrowed her eyes, then drew her arm back, curled her hand into a fist, and slammed it into her other palm. “I, Lucky Clover, will incinerate your evil soul.”

Tarot made a show of rolling his eyes. “Riiiight. Just one thing: how are you going to get closer without risking this girl’s life? I could kill her at any moment, Nick.”

The girl — Lucky Clover? — glared harder at the sound of that name, but said nothing.

Tarot grinned. “Exactly. Now, as much as I’d like to stay and hurt you a bit, Suravi and I have places to be.” He moved his head close to Suravi, until his lips were almost touching her ear, and whispered, “Isn’t that right, love?”

And in a moment of pure emotion — fear, outrage, desperation — Suravi craned her head down and sank her teeth into Tarot’s arm.

The next moments were all a blur. Suravi heard Tarot cry out, felt herself drop to the ground, landing hard on her knees, but there was no pain yet, only adrenaline. With a strength she didn’t know she had, she rose up, then shoved Tarot as hard as she could, toppling him over.

Tarot wasn’t down for long, but by the time he was back on his feet, holding one of the cards he’d been using for the reading, Suravi was a good distance away. When she reached Clover, the strange girl smiled, then motioned towards the exit and the street beyond. “Go ahead and run. I’ll fight him off.” Seeing Suravi’s dubious look, she continued, “Don’t worry. He’s not the only one with magic.”

It was then that everything caught up to Suravi — the exhaustion, the pain, the taste of blood in her mouth — and a wave of dizziness washed over her. It was all she could do to spit out some of the blood before she crumpled against the wall.

Clover gave her a worried look, then sighed. “Okay, just stay there. I won’t let him hurt you.” She stepped forward, raising her hand. “Into my hands, Clover Rod!”

There was a flash of light, so bright that Suravi flinched, and when she opened her eyes again, Clover was holding what seemed like a wand with a clover blossom on top in her hand.

When Suravi turned her gaze to Tarot, he’d somehow changed — now he was wearing a white cloak, gleaming in the light of the moon, and the clothes he’d been wearing were gone too, replaced by sharper white ones.

“The Moon,” Tarot said, holding up his card; the last card, the one that symbolized Suravi’s future. “It stands for illusion, deception. Things aren’t as they seem. Listen to your body and the magic in it, and you’ll know the right way to proceed.”

“That’s a load of bullshit,” Clover snapped.

Tarot shrugged. “Maybe with anyone else, but with me, it’s the truth.”

He ran forward then, lunging at Clover, and the two clashed as Suravi looked on.

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I agree with Lucky Clover on this one. Tarot is bullshit.

Even so, the fact that a Shade has multiple transformations intrigues me. It just goes to show that they can do more than we think they can.