Lila swallowed hard. The witch's words hit too close to home. She had spent the past year drifting, leaving her job, her apartment, and even the people she cared about behind. She'd told herself it was to find clarity, but all she'd found was more confusion.

"I don't know where I'm going," Lila admitted, her voice breaking. "I thought I knew what I wanted, who I was. But now..."

Isolde leaned forward, her gaze softening. "That's why you're here. To see what lies ahead."

Before Lila could respond, Isolde reached beneath the table and retrieved a worn wooden box. She opened it to reveal a deck of tarot cards, their edges frayed and their surfaces faded from years of use. The air seemed to hum as she shuffled them, the sound of the cards sliding against each other oddly soothing.

"The cards don't lie," Isolde said, spreading them out in a fan on the table. "They reveal what you need to see, even if it's not what you want to hear."

​​​​​​​Lila stared at the cards, her heartbeat quickening. She didn't believe in this sort of thing. At least, that's what she'd always told herself. But something about Isolde's presence, the atmosphere of the shop, made her question everything.