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“I EARNED MY FAIRIES, YOU NECTAR-SHILLING RATFACE!”
“—Prince Cyrus’s favorite color? I need to go to the tailor later for a new shawl.”
“—could grate a radish against those new muscles of his—”
“The Seer isfinallyhere!”
A fatigued sigh scrapes from my throat. One nightmare after another. I should be thankful for being in demand, though. The public route up the Seer’s tower involves two hundred stairs crawling with slippery vines and no railings. It’s a hazard on a sunny day and a death sentence on a rainyone. The fact that these ladies marched up here in the foggy dawn just to hear what I have to say—well, in these tumultuous times of throne-changing, that’s job security.
First in line is a gap-toothed girl, standing inches from where the door had been. She bows low and begins reciting the formal greeting: “I seek your wise words, Sighted Mistress. Your connection to the Fates is blessed and—”
I wave her in, already tired. “Yes, yes, let’s get this over with.”
She scurries across the threshold. “This is so exciting. My friends have all had fortune readings from you and they said it was the most interesting experience and you were such a strange delight—oh, strange in a good way, of course….”
We settle in the center of the room, on opposite sides of a carved marble table hefted up by four serpentine dragons. A tea set and a stack of fortune cards are set aside, to be used upon request.
The girl—Sicene, she called herself at some point duringher chatter—looks around the room wondrously. “It’s so empty here—not that that’s bad. It’s clean, I mean. Simple living is healthy living, as my father used to—”
I clear my throat. “What would you like to see?”
“Oh, yes, um. I’d like to know what the future holds for me with regard to His Highness Prince Cyrus. If that’s possible.”
I hold out my ungloved hands, palms up. “Give me your hands, and we’ll begin.”
Sicene happily does, and I close my eyes. In my mind, unrooted to the earth and somewhere only the stars fathom, another pair of eyes opens.
Sicene, shopping in the Palace District with her sisters, their chattering effuse.
The royal caravan parading down a cobblestone street. Prince Cyrus’s reflection fills the carriage window. He’s the loveliest thing she’s ever seen.
Gold—a flash of the palace ballroom? A tinkle of music echoes, muffled and distant.
I search a while longer but there isn’t much else. The Fates are wholly unconcerned with this girl. It’s about what I expect; we’re not all princesses or plucky orphans or, stars forbid, plucky orphan princesses, with grand destinies to fulfill.
My tongue searches for something cryptic to offer her. “You might have an enlightening conversation with Prince Cyrus.” Sicene’s talkative, and if I mention this, she’ll have the confidence to do it. “They might be the only words you ever exchange, but if you find therightwords, he will treasure them forever. Don’t lose hope.”
Tiny gasp escaping her, she clutches my hands tightly. “I won’t! Happy to even be in histhoughts.”
I indulge her rambling about potential conversation topics for a while longer before shooing her off. She throws a generous offering in the fountain on her way out.
After Sicene, the pattern continues: patrons filter in, their hands falling expectantly into mine. Their hearts belong to the prince, but their hunger belongs to me. “Do you see love?” most ask, too shy or coy to utter anything more specific, even though everyone is here for the same reason.
As I traverse more threads, I build out a better scene of the ball: twirling gowns, outlandish masks, enough towering cakes to feed our army. A gent in a golden fox masksticks out in particular—the subject of every attendee’s attention—and I’m confident enough that he’s Cyrus that I suggest to a few patrons to seek out this person. “For good luck,” I say, to be enigmatic.
I get insufferable patrons, too, like Lady Mirabel, who doesn’t like my outspokenness but still puts silvers in the offering fountain like the rest of them.
“You think you’re being funny, witch,” she says, “but the only thing you’re showing off is your jealousy. You have to cause asceneto be noticed, while His Highness can enrapture a room with just his gaze! Oh, I bet deep down, you don’t evenwanthim to find his bride.”
“Ooh,you caught me.” I wave my fingers spookily, snickering as she shies away. But my spirits are doused as a bright glow zooms into my face and squeaks at me. Glittering dust tickles my nose; I sneeze. “No fairies in the divining room!”
Mirabel scowls but makes a gesture to shoo it away. When it doesn’t leave, she takes a golden vial from her purse and drops a golden bead of ambrosia onto her thumb. The glowing fairy descends onto it and, in a blink, licks it clean before buzzing tipsily out the window.
I then take great pleasure in giving Mirabel a terse reading about how she’ll drown herself in drink and embarrass herself. She flounces off after spitting in my face.
Next is a surprising patron: Lady Ziza Lace, niece of the Lord of the Fourth.
Before her newsletter, Ziza was best known for her many near-engagements, a list reputed to be longer than Auveny’s tax records. Her reputation spans both sides of the sea; she often travels to Yue to visit her father’s side of the family. Iheard she planned to be a spinster after finding every suitor unworthy of her hand. Now in her thirties, with successful ventures of her own, I don’t expect her to be interested in the prince.
