Lavinia Starwhisper's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

The widow was back on the step, and Lavinia had not yet remembered how to lie. Lavinia Starwhisper sat behind her reading table with the door barred and the shutters half-drawn. Her fur was the wrong color for a fox, a dusty rose that had never matched anything but the flower behind her ear. She had told the widow that the Sun card meant joy. Three days later the widow's house was ash. Now the widow knocked again, wanting another reading, and Lavinia had none to give. Every card she drew came up reversed. Someone had cursed her sight, and until she found who, she could not trust a single fortune she pulled, including the one she most needed: the reading that would finally tell her where a rose-colored fox had come from. She spread the deck. Ten cards, all upside down. She swept them off the cloth. The last honest client was the key. He had smiled the whole hour. He had paid double. She could picture the smile. She could not picture the face above it, or the coin in her palm. The memory slid sideways every time she reached. She tried the tools she trusted. She lit a pinch of dried sage and read the smoke. The smoke bent away from her. She took her own left palm and traced the lifeline. The line stopped at a smudge she could not see through. So she chose the last method left. She would read an object he had touched. The payment. Whatever it had been, it was somewhere in this room. She searched the shelf. Coins, buttons, a pressed violet, a bone die. She held each one and waited for the pull. Nothing pulled. She reached the small clay bowl by the window and stopped. Inside sat a single fruit she did not remember accepting. It was shaped like a teardrop and streaked with green and gold. Glittering flecks moved under the skin when she turned it. Her hand went numb. The fuzziness in her head cleared like a wiped pane. She saw the client's hands setting the fruit in the bowl. She saw the smile. She saw, past his shoulder through her open door, a lavender stone tower wrapped in roses. She had never been to such a place. He had. He had come from there. The vision snapped shut. The fruit was cold in her palm, heavier than before. On the step, the widow knocked a third time. Lavinia did not answer. She wrapped the fruit in a scrap of black cloth and tied it tight. Her hands shook. She had a thread now. It led away from her table, away from the widow, toward a castle she had only just learned existed, carrying a payment she was fairly sure she was not meant to keep. She pinned the rose tighter behind her ear and reached for her cloak.