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The moon was dark. that night, so all the light came from the oil lamps on either side of the table. The light gave a kind o halo to the twin's hair, and made the edges of my hair glow where they fell into my eyes. Or maybe I was just tiered. I remembered the fortune that the gypsy woman had read for me in her battered deck of cards, and just as swiftly put it out of my mind. That was then; this was a different time; different cards, and certainly different readers. I coughed, and they looked at me calmly.
“So what do we do?”
“We'll tell you what they mean; but you need to shuffle them and lay them out.” Saki said. Suki fanned the cards, then closed the fan; putting the cards in a neat stack, leaning forward, she set them precisely down in between my hands, which were on the table. I covered them with my hands and exhaled slowly.

The cards felt full of magic under my fingers. Closing my eyes so I wouldn't be tempted to look at the images, I shuffled the cards, then laid them out out on the table. As I did, the twins came around, the table, perched with their chins on my shoulders, whispering the meaning and the name of each card as I laid it down. The first card showed a man; timeless, holding the tools of magic, one hand pointing to the sky the other towards the earth. The Magician. The card, that in theory, indicated me. Supporting that card was a knight bearing the sigil of a five pointed star- the knight of pentacles. Henry, I would guess. Then the page of cups, and the page of wands. The twins. These three curved in a supportive arch below the first card. Above it, came the king of swords; a forceful fellow I took an immediate, irrational dislike to; Cedric. Bridging the gap between the magician and the king of swords came the image of a tower, shattered by lightning. The tower, disaster.
“That's not enough.” I hissed between my teeth, and one more card slid from the deck to land atop of it. The five of wands; a card of contest and confrontation. A wave of pain over took me, a flower of sharp agony though my chest. I doubled up, and my head hit the table.
“Xan!” Quickly, the twins backed me away from the table, and got me more or less to my feet, and into bed.