He's completed the final gesture for a spell, and I can practically feel everyone in the club holding their breath alongside me as the martini glass in his hand starts to shake, and my half-drunk mocktail evaporates in a floating mass of orange-colored bubbles.
"This," Cad says proudly, "shall prove once and for all that you are our god's chosen woman."
Shit, shit, shit.
"Call our god, Mariposa," he urges. "Tell him to show his face to you through this glass—-"
His words make me gasp, and the hundred or so other members of Sub Rosa gasp with me as well.
"Don't worry," Cad quickly assures me. "This is your glass, so you're the only one who'll see his face, and if he shows it to you, then this glass will glow red, and everybody wins! Woohoo!"
I want to kill him so bad, but the crowd around us obviously feels otherwise as they cheer and burst into applause. I have a feeling a lot of them just want to see me fail, and while the realization tempts me to do exactly what Cad says, just so they'd stop looking down on me—-
This is not how I want my god to reveal his face to me.
I want it to be his choice.
I want him to do it for the right reasons.
And so I hear myself say, "I'm sorry—-"
Boos rise from the crowd, but I force myself to ignore the racket.
"This isn't—-"
The martini glass suddenly starts vibrating powerfully, and Cad releases a whoop of glee.
"It's happening!"
What in the world—-
"I knew it," Cad yells at the now-silent crowd. "Our god is now going to glass-slap you all with the truth—-" A pinkish glow envelops the glass, and Cad exclaims, "It's happening!"
He looks at me expectantly. "Can you see it?"
My stunned gaze flies back to the glass, and my world spins off tangent the moment an image crystallizes into view.
Cad looks at me expectantly. "Can you see it?"
I try to speak, but my lips are trembling too hard for the words to come out, and I can feel blood rushing to my head. Fast. Too, too fast that I feel I'm about to lose consciousness any moment.
"Well?"
"Are you sure you got the spell right?" I hear myself ask.
Cad shoots me an offended look. "I'm drunk, not stupid! Of course I got the—-holy shit, it's red! You see him now, don't you?
Yes, I do.
I see him just fine, and it's like what Eros told me not so long ago.
His face makes people cry...
Because the face staring back at me is none other than Professor Lucious.
End of Book 2