I will find another love.
I am studying art, not alchemy.
“You wanted to see new life. This is it—thousands of new lives,” he explained.
“Why did they write these?”
“This is only half of what was written, the chosen future.” Raphael pointed to the flames. “The other half, the past, gets tossed into the flames. Purple for a past you mourn, cyan for one you hold fondly, yellow for one you were neutral on.”
“And black?”
“Black is for the one you hated. It tends to be popular.” He held out his hands, and I offered him the parchment. “So the companions to these might have read,I am studying alchemy because my father wants me to. This one perhaps,I have no one,and this:I am engaged.”
Thousands of papers like these formed a sea around us. I studied the crowd, wondering who each parchment belonged to. Some wept, some were grinning widely. Several embraced.
Raphael led us closer to the flames. “Most of it happens during the day,” he explained. “But the festivities continue all night long. It’s more the symbol—this day knows more betrothals and separations than any other in the year. People leave the city, people arrive. All kinds of new beginnings are sacred.”
New beginnings. There was something seductive about the phrase. I wondered which flame my past would belong in.
“Parchment? Quill?” someone asked us.
I looked down. A boy no older than twelve held out scraps of paper and a fistful of quills primed with ink.
Raphael handed over some silver and gave me two scraps of my own. To my surprise, he took two as well.
“What if I don’t know what my future is?” I asked.
He arched a brow at me. “Skyflame isn’t about turning anyone into an oracle. It’s about choosing for yourself.”
He took out his quill to demonstrate, scribbling something across the paper on his palm. He crumpled the paper before I could see and let it disintegrate into purple embers. Then he wrote another. His new future.
“What does yours say?” It wasn’t written in the common tongue.
He let it fall to the ground. In another moment, it would be impossible to find again. “No cheating. You first.”
I held the quill, uncertain. There were so many things I could write. Pasts I mourned, ones I hated, ones I still wasn’t sure what to think of. But nothing felt quite right.
Raphael easily read my indecision. “You can think about it. There’s more to see.”
I slipped them into the pocket of my dress and wandered until some yipping caught my attention.
“They have animals here?” I led us over.
On the far edge from where we’d entered, several pens of animals had been set up. Not livestock, but domesticated creatures: dogs and cats, some old, some young, some with split tails or wings, some utterly ordinary looking. A winged cat with glittering turquoise pearlescent fur and wings stared at us from atop one of the kennels. “Are they all exotic?”
“They’re mutts, mostly.” Raphael bent to pet one of the animals, a fat dog that barely reached his knee. “Some decades ago, someone realized the night of new beginnings made people want to welcome more companionship into their lives, so many began to adopt. It’s said to be a lucky thing.”
“That explains why it’s so empty.” While there were still easily a dozen animals, the space was large enough to fit closer to a hundred. I sank to my haunches and offered a hand to the pup that kept nosing around Raphael. “She likes you.”
Raphael lowered himself next to me. He scratched under the dog’s chin and her tail thumped, the white tip a little beacon in the dark. “Does she?”
The king of vampires, bending to pet a dog. How was this the same male who so easily spat vows of violence against his enemies? I couldn’t help but smile at the gentleness of his touch.
Another hound pranced over to me. His interest was, similarly, mainly on Raphael, but since Raphael’s attention was occupied, he settled for me.
“I had hoped I’d be a zoamancer when I was a little girl,” I admitted. “It wasn’t prestigious, but I thought there could be no greater pleasure than getting to talk to a pet.”
“That’s not often a well-regarded gift,” he noted.
