In the bowel of New Orleans, I was the gatekeeper to the no-longer living.

The woman seated across from me leaned in, elbow resting on my rickety fold-up table. One manicured finger tapped the Death card, little puffs of smoke curling from her mouth as she sucked on a Marlboro Red like it was something a whole lot dirtier.

“I’m gonna die, aren’t I?” Her cheeks hollowed out around the cigarette as she spoke. “This right here? Skeleton can’t be any good, Miss Washington, can’t be any damn good.”

Tarot was an art I’d picked up from the other readers in Jackson Square years earlier. For me, it was a means to an end. I lacked the Sight that my peers possessed in spades. I lacked their ability to look at a card and see a tangled web of lust, lies, and love—I saw the cards’ illustrations, knew their meanings from years of study, and wasn’t opposed to taking a little creative liberty.

The better the reading, the higher the tip, which nicely padded the conservative fee I charged to encourage people to come to my table as opposed to one of the others.

In other words, survival of the fittest.

“No, ma’am,” I purred in a throaty voice, “not death.”

Her shoulders sagged with relief.

“Not always, anyway.” Her eyes went wide and, hiding a victorious grin, I shuffled the Thoth deck and selected another card from its midst. “The Death card symbolizes regrowth, a new change. The shedding of the old and the gradual shift into the new.” Turning the fresh card onto its back, settling it next to Death, I offered a genuine smile. “Lust, ma’am. Are you newly single?”

The woman’s mouth dropped open, her cigarette dangling. Even within the shadows of the towering St. Louis Cathedral, there was no mistaking her pink cheeks and rapid blinking. “Divorced.” She plucked the Red from her mouth and stomped it out on the cobblestones beside my table. “How’d you know that?”

Because I’ve seen you before.

Not her, obviously, but women like her. Men, too. They all carried that faraway gaze—some more cynical than others—that spoke to the man-made hell called marriage. A trap society whispered that you needed, that you should crave above all else.

I didn’t crave marriage.

Hell, I barely craved men at all—living on the streets for most of my teenage years meant that my breasts had been pawed at by disgusting assholes, my ass grabbed, and I’d been told one too many times that I was such a pretty girl and wouldn’t I look so damn good on my knees?

I’d be dead before I ever got on my knees for a man.

I hummed a sound of faux excitement in my throat, stroking a finger along the crisp edge of Lust. “The cards, ma’am. You’ve clearly come to N’Orleans for something new. You wish to get lost, and yes”—I pointed to the first card I’d selected, the Queen of Disks—“you’re prepared to spend some money on what you want. Disks represent external items. Material possessions, money, that sort of thing. But I would caution you against leaning too heavily into lust.”

Her eyes tracked the motion of my hands as I packed the cards against one palm and set them all down. “I want to be wanted.” Her hushed tone hardly concealed her wistfulness. “I want to feel again.”

“Don’t we all?”

At that, she blinked and pulled back, arms locking around her belly. Her chin tipped to the right, her gaze flicking to the line of Tarot readers bordering the square. It was a Saturday night, which meant money. Lots of it, if we did our job correctly—and clearly, I’d failed to live up to expectation.

She wanted the lies, the promise that she’d meet her “one and only” during her time in New Orleans. She just plain old wanted, and either I played the game and walked away with cash in my pocket or I went back to my apartment and stressed over making rent this month.

Put aside the guilt and tell her what she wants to hear.

Do it, Avery, just do it.

Self-hatred settled like soured milk in my stomach, as did the heavy reminder that I was no one. I had no family and few friends. I left little trace of my existence, save for the sight of my face as I strolled through the French Quarter. Runners like me were a dime a dozen in New Orleans, but even knowing that didn’t erase my bitterness for what could have been.

Avery Washington was just one alias I’d chosen in the last twelve years. I’d been Samantha Lovelace for most of my teens—a naïve little idiot who placed her trust in all the wrong people. Ruby Matheson during the year that I’d turned twenty—a little more jaded, but no less of an idiot.

It took me awhile to realize that people sought to protect their own interests, and no one gave a damn about mine.

I’d become Avery Washington ever since I’d caught sight of a suspicious-looking man following me home one night, sing-songing my name like he wouldn’t mind taking me into a dark alley and abusing my body for his pleasure. He’d been a stranger who stalked the readers in the square before being arrested on an assault charge. Even after the cuffs were locked around his wrists, I’d been terrified to walk the shadowed streets alone. But there’d been no one to protect me then just as there was no one to protect me now.

A name change did only so much.

Ice skittered up my spine, and the self-hatred slipped away.

I met the woman’s eyes, ignoring the flash of hope in their depths. “You’ll meet him.” Her soft gasp bounced off my steel heart. “You’ll meet him exactly as you envision, and you’ll be wanted, ma’am, just as you dream.” With hardened resolve, I tapped the Queen of Disks card once more. “But love will continue to elude you if you focus on the material things. Seek more than just the external, and you’ll discover the man who waits for you.”

“But where will I find him?”

It was with a sense of good timing that the bells of St. Louis Cathedral chimed on the hour. Midnight.

“Church. You’ll meet him at church.”

The woman’s lips peeled back in a grimace, revealing crowded front teeth. “I don’t go to church.”

“If you want to meet this man, you will.”

She didn’t like that, I could tell. But aside from casting a quick glance at the imposing structure behind her, she didn’t fight back. Her fingers dipped into her purse, scrounging around for what I hoped was my tip.

A crinkled dollar bill fluttered to the table.

Clearly, I shouldn’t have taken inspiration from my surroundings.

“Have a good night.”

She didn’t return the sentiment, only drew up her jacket and hunched her shoulders as she skirted around the other readers. I watched as she gave a little jump when a homeless man sat up on a wrought-iron bench and stuck out a tin can in her direction.

I didn’t need to hear her to know that she’d responded with something offensive.

The man reared back, can to his chest, his expression lost to the moonless night sky, and I felt the familiar stirring of anger.

I had been that man, begging for a dime, a sandwich, a scrap of hope.

My knees cracked as I stood, my flimsy lawn chair teetering on its hind legs before I settled a hand on the dirty fabric and righted it again.

Don’t. Don’t go over there and get in someone else’s business.

The woman’s voice carried on the upwind breeze: “Don’t touch me, asshole.”

Yeah, there was no way I could let that slide. It was one thing to ignore the man, to step around him and lift your chin and pretend he didn’t exist.

Another thing entirely to make eye contact and act like a dick.

“Avery.”

Involuntarily, my shoulders twitched at the sound of my name coming off the lips of my regular neighbor, Tabitha. Didn’t matter that I’d been “Avery” for three years now, sometimes I still didn’t answer when called. You aren’t Laurel anymore, just remember that.

Easier said than done.

“You might want to go home.”

“Why?” I met Tabby’s gaze. “You hear something?”

She touched her chest, right over her permit, and then pointed in the same direction my client had taken.

The woman had moved on from the homeless man and had stopped to talk to a different guy. The flickering gas lamps did nothing to hide his imposing physique—tall, broad, narrow waist. He stood like a soldier or a cop or anyone, really, that I did not want on my radar.

With one hand latched onto his arm, the woman turned back and . . . pointed. At me.

Oh, shit.

“Get out of here, Ave.”

Yeah, Tabby didn’t have to tell me twice.

That was sort of the thing about operating a Tarot card stand illegally on Jackson Square. I wouldn’t recommend the no-permit stint, but hey, I’d managed to do well enough for the last few years.

The pin of my fake badge stuck me in the breast as I jerked my chair closed and shoved the table’s accessories into my backpack. Candle (unlit), Tarot cards, crystals, pendulum. The backpack’s zipper sounded unnaturally loud when it jammed, and I tugged, and—screw it.

I slung the strap over one shoulder.

Grabbed the chair by one pointy leg.

Made a hasty swipe of the plush-velvet tablecloth and tossed the heavy fabric over my arm.

Time to go.

Implausible as it was, the air seemed to thicken as he stepped up behind me like some sort of crazy scene out of a horror movie.

A masculine hand landed on my shoulder, fingers broad and strong.

I didn’t scream—I’m not a screamer.

But all words stuck in my throat, and then there was nothing but the sound of his baritone drawl.

“Going somewhere?”