The lich fixed me with a flat glare. “I bet she asked about my dick.”
“Wow, you are so full of yourself. See? Snottiest,” I pushed him back so he couldn’t read my messages.
“Ya haram,” the lich said sweetly. I had no idea what that meant and stared at him blankly.
“Khalas,” Indra nudged him lightly, then to me he smiled. “He’s just showing off now.”
“What did he say?” I asked.
Indra frowned.
“Ya haram,” Cian said the words more slowly and with less of Akiva’s rolling accent. “It’s mocking; he basically said you poor thing. Then Indra asked him to stop. Khalas.” He said that slowly as well, like he was my new Arabic tutor.
“Can all three of you speak Arabic?” I wasn’t particularly offended by Akiva, but it would have been nice to know for myself what was being said.
“Yes. I’ll teach you,” Akiva bargained. “What did Aveline say about me?”
I very pointedly looked around him again, to Indra. “Can you teach me, if I want to learn?” I asked, mostly to piss him off.
“He can’t teach you Egyptian Arabic,” Akiva said, leaning forward to meet my eyes.
“I speak Gulf Arabic,” Indra explained. “I’m not from Egypt like him.”
I looked to Cian curiously.
“He can’t teach you either. He’s just picked it up from us,” Akiva’s tone was arrogant.
“He’s right,” Cian was grinning apologetically. “If I tried to teach you, it’d be a weird mix of their dialects and probably only correct some of the time.”
My eyes went back to Akiva’s and I twitched my mouth in a half-smirk. “She thinks you’re the biggest and wants to know if she’s right,” I told him, looking pointedly at his lap, then back to his face.
“Tell her yes,” the lich instructed, leaning back on the couch. “Shukran.”
“What?”
He grinned. “That was your word of the day. Shukran.” He said it slowly, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I still needed Cian to probably do it.
“What’s it mean?”
“Thank you.”
“Awesome. I’m telling Aveline the truth.”
He looked at me, nose scrunched in disappointment.
I pulled away, my elbow knocking into the arm of the sofa where I’d sat my bag. It fell, the contents spilling onto the floor. Wonderful. Two of the charms lay on the floor, along with both of my decks and an empty curio bottle.
With a sigh I shoveled my things back into my bag, though Akiva still managed to snag one of my decks before I could close the bag.
“This is your thing, is it not?” He asked, peering at the deck like it might spontaneously, magically combust.
“I suppose that’s one way to put it.” He held my less-favorite deck, and I didn’t mind. “Haven’t you met another summoner before?”
He looked at me, eyes wide in surprise. “No,” the lich admitted without hesitation. “Do you not know how rare your kind is?”
“I know, I know.” I reached out to take the deck from him and he laid it in my hand.
“Would you read for me?” The lich asked curiously.
“Depends on what you’re looking for. I’m not reading some detailed crap about your future or when you guys are getting married.” But I had already lowered myself to the carpet, legs curled under me, and unboxed the cards before looking up at Akiva pointedly. “You have to come down here too.”
He sat on the floor in front of the sofa, eyes on my cards.
“Do you need my blood or hair or something to make it extra accurate?” Akiva inquired, only half-joking.
“Yeah. I need Cian to stab you with a couple safety pins,” I grumbled, shuffling the cards. I wondered if Cian really would go get a safety pin, but when I glanced up I saw that he had not moved from his chair and only watched us. Once the cards decided they no longer needed more shuffling, I laid them into two separate piles. My hands hovered over the cards, the magic pulling at the two parts of the deck and bringing the cards upward into my hands.
Last I tapped the deck three times with one finger. This deck needed it, my other, older deck that I used so much did not.
Feeling like a bit of a show off, I held my hands together over the cards then jerked them apart, forcing the cards to arc into a spread on the carpet almost as if I had threads attached to them. When I looked up, I didn’t see the disinterest or dismissal in Akiva’s face that I’d expected. Instead he watched me closely, eyes fixed on my hands.
I wiggled my fingers, wondering off-handedly if he, too, was thinking about our activities from last night.
“Draw three cards. But–“ I reached out to grab his hand before he could flippantly do so. “Don’t turn them over. Just pull them towards you. Don’t just grab three. Find what speaks to you.”
“They are cards,” Akiva said patiently. “If they start speaking to me, I am going to be concerned.”
I snorted but let go of his wrist.
He gazed at the cards, taking a surprisingly long time. Most people ignored my instructions and grabbed at them. At last he pulled three gingerly from the spread and let them sit between us.
“Awesome.” With a twitch of my fingers I brought the cards Akiva hadn’t drawn to my hand and set them to the side. “Now…“ I pulled the three cards more comfortably towards me in the same way, flipping them one after the other.
“Strength, upright.” I pointed to the first card with its minimalistic design. “The Ten of Pentacles, upright.” I gestured to the second. “And the Knight of Swords, upright.”
“Do you have them memorized in any deck? I don’t see names on them,” Akiva mused.
“Yeah. The Rider-Waite-based decks are all similar enough that I can tell.” At his confused look, I went on. “I doubt you want an hour lesson in tarot decks, but my decks are based on one style. It means they have similar imagery and meanings.” To an extent. There were more intricacies to it
