They were herded out of the transport and into some kind of dank, dark building. Talia had no idea what this place had once been but now it was a prison. No, a mausoleum. The people inside just weren’t dead yet. Not all of them anyway. They’d definitely passed cells on the way in here that had held bodies, not prisoners.

She moved closer to Harrow as their captors started shoving them into cells three at a time. A few people fought back. Cries of pain and the shotgun cracking of bone made her wince. 

There was no fighting back after that. 

“They’re all telepaths,” she murmured to Harrow as they were shoved into a cell along with Allen. 

The tall science officer nodded, his pale gaze on the door as it clanged shut. “I thought so.” 

“You can’t tell?” she asked in surprise. She wasn’t much of a telepath, but she could feel all the minds pressing against hers. Even Allen’s, but she walled herself off from the panic and pain he was broadcasting. Even with his attitude and the way he’d turned on her, she felt sorry for him. 

Something had happened to him somewhere to make him fear telepaths, which was the root of his anger and rage. And now he was surrounded by them, locked up with two. 

Apart from the fact she couldn’t feel anything from Harrow. Not even the normal chatter from a human mind as she would expect. 

He shook his head as he stalked across the small cell and sat on the end of the hard bunk. Allen had taken the other end, as far away from them as he could. 

“Not a telepath,” he said in a low voice as he pulled a deck of cards from his pocket and started to shuffle them. He was a card shark, so that wasn’t surprising. She’d been to a few of his poker nights, and watched him soundly beat the captain every time. 

Surprised, she looked at the side of his neck where the monitor disc had been. “You… they picked you up with their tests.” 

He shrugged. “Which was somewhat fortuitous given the efforts I made to be here. My guess is that their equipment is so sensitive they’re picking up anyone with any kind of telepathic-adjacent abilities.”

“Huh?” she asked, confused as he fanned the cards out in front of him on the bunk, then closed his eyes as he ran an outstretched hand over them. Quickly he selected four, placing them in two lines. One alone, then three in a line. 

“My best guess is that Allen here is psychic in some way,” Harrow continued, collecting the cards he hadn’t selected together and putting them to one side. Then he began to turn the others over, which was when she realised it wasn’t an ordinary playing card deck. Instead, the cards had pictures on them. 

“Three of swords.” Harrow pursed his lips as he tapped the first card. A heart pierced by three swords. “Heartbreak and sorrow, grief and pain. It signifies a heart damaged by the sharp blades of others hurtful words and actions.”

She knelt in front of the bunk, fascinated. She’d seen tarot cards before, but only in museums and in old films. She’d never met anyone who could read them.

Harrow tapped the second card. On its surface, a man lay face down, swords buried in his back. “Ten of swords. Deep wounds. Betrayal, loss and crisis. This is in the past position so these are old wounds. Historic, but with the three, still affecting the present.

She nodded, listening to the hypnotic roll of his deep voice. Their current situation fell away in the mystique of the cards and the spell Harrow wove. 

The next card was turned over and she frowned. She’d expected more swords or hearts or something. Instead the card had a building being struck by lightning, people falling from it. “A storm? Natural disaster?”

“Of a sort. The tower card,” Harrow replied, his expression focused. “When it appears change is comin’ and there’s no escaping it. It’s here to tear everything up, destroying everything in its way. The tower in the present position here? Then something is going to happen and its happening now.” 

“Oh hell, that’s not good. Is it?” She looked up at him, searching his expression for some clues. 

He shrugged. “The tower is neither good nor bad, it just means change. So it depends how a person reacts to change. Do they accept it, accept the tower has destroyed something built on shaky ground and rebuild stronger, or do they give into the chaos?” 

“Oh…” 

She watched in silence as he turned over the last card. Her breath escaped her lungs in a hard rush. This card she recognised. No one could mistake the sight of death on his white charger. 

“Oh my god.” She bit her lip. “We’re going to die, aren’t we?”

Harrow reached forward and gripped her shoulder. 

“The death card doesn’t mean physical death.” His gaze held hers, and she was enveloped in his calm somehow. “It signals transition. Transformation from one state to another. It means closing the door on the past and opening up to something new. Something better. To move forward transformed.”

She nodded again. “What does it mean? Is this reading mine?”

“It means something big is going to happen.” Harrow smiled at her and shook his head. “No. It’s not your reading.”

He turned to look at Allen. 

“It’s his.”