Page 13 of Obsidian Prince

She would focus on finding a good path for Ben and Pete. Her own love life would have to wait until she met someone new.

There seemed to be a hint of something that might help Ben and Pete in the direction of her favorite client, Janice Willoughby, and her rabbit-kin children, some of whom were Ben Harper’s students. The possibility didn’t seem very solid, though. Given time, Liliana hoped a better solution would come into existence as probabilities shifted.

A more immediate problem had to be dealt with, in any case. The day when four assassins of the Order of the Wolfhound would come to kill her favorite red wolf was almost here.

For the next few weeks, when they met in the woods for training, Liliana encouraged Pete to use combat practice to work out some of his sadness from Ben turning down his marriage proposal. He took her advice to heart. He fought as if a demon lived inside him.

Combat practice was good therapy. The spider-kin knew that from long experience.

Pete sparred with his friends so intensely that he injured Doctor Nudd. A broken ulna was nothing that the goblin's own medicines and magic and a few days' rest wouldn't cure, though. There were still a few days until the Wolfhounds would come. Doctor Nudd had time to repair the damage.

Pete was mortified that he hurt his mentor, but Liliana was delighted. She was even more delighted that he might have injured her if she hadn't foreseen it. The Celtic wolf had become a far more formidable opponent since that first day they met when Pete tried to kill her. If their one-on-one battle took place now instead of back then, Pete might even defeat her.

The red wolf's death, that Liliana had seen as certainty a few months before, now was a tiny flicker of unlikely possibility. In combat, nothing was ever certain, but as long as he had his sword on the night in question, Pete's survival was now as close to certain as such things ever were. Pete would live, Lou Willoughby, Janice’s husband, would live, Doctor Nudd would live, and the assassins from the Order of the Wolfhound would die.

Liliana still hoped to be there, herself, to fight at the side of her favorite red wolf, but none of the future visions she saw included her. She did not know why, yet, but it made her glad that Pete would be able to hold his own, even against four trained killers.

In the meantime, she had neglected her business by taking time off. Several customers had been put off for weeks. She had to make up for it. Liliana spoke with as many as five or six customers a day, where normally, she limited herself to a maximum of four. That many social interactions and that much exploration into their lives with her fourth eyes could be exhausting. She welcomed the distraction, though. As long as she searched the lives of her customers for the best paths toward happiness, she avoided thinking about the handsome Fae prince who had no heart.

One day, a brand-new customer called to make an appointment. Liliana’s phone number was on her sign so that happened sometimes. She knew nothing about the woman except her name, Arel Magoro. Her name wasn't enough to let Liliana find the woman with her fourth eyes. She had to know what she looked like. The prospect of seeing a new customer made her nervous but provided an excellent distraction.

She looked around her business space. Every mystic knick knack was clean of dust and placed for optimum visual impact on her new customer. Brightly colored scarves hung to decorate every surface. Her clocks were polished clean and ticking merrily. The little shop that she’d created from the dining room of her house looked exactly as it should. She gave the crystal ball a last quick polish with her sleeve to remove a smudge. According to her clocks, it was 9:58. Her new customer was due at 10:00.

Liliana sat in her chair at the small round table with the crystal ball in the exact center and three chairs waiting to be filled by customers on the other side. At precisely 10:00 AM and about thirty seconds, just after the clocks all stopped chiming, someone knocked on the door. The spider seer smiled. She liked punctual customers.

She opened the door. There were three women. Only one woman had spoken to her on the phone. No more than two customers had ever come to see her at the same time, except when she met Pete, Sergeant Giovanni, and Detective Shonda Jackson. They accused her of murder and Pete tried to kill her. The similarity sent a frisson of nervousness up her spine.

There were three chairs on the client side of the table, but the third was just meant to be a place for people to set their things that was not on her table.

The new clients were tall athletic women. The one who appeared to lead was past fifty, but more fit than most twenty-year-olds. She was a lovely woman with skin as dark as burnt oak, high round cheeks, and a shading of iron gray threaded through her braided black hair. Another of the women looked enough like the oldest that she must be her daughter. Her hair was in shoulder-length dreadlocks. The third had dark brown hair and dark olive skin, about the same shade as Liliana's from her Greek and Egyptian heritage. She held herself a lot like Liliana did when lots of people looked at her, as if the air around her were heavy.

Liliana bowed them into her workspace with the usual dramatic flourish of graceful arms and flowing sleeves. "Welcome. Madame Anna sees all. Only the truth of what is, what was, and what might be." She used the proper customer voice with the singsong intonation. She wanted to make a good impression on her new customers in spite of the uncomfortable feeling they gave her.

She sat down in her wooden chair on one side of the little round table and gestured a graceful invitation to her new customers to sit in the other chairs. Rather than sit in the third chair, the daughter stood behind her mother with muscular arms crossed in a way that made Liliana think "bodyguard." She had a good stance, solid, grounded, and balanced, with knees bent and weight shifted forward. If Liliana tried to harm either of the other two women, she had no doubt that the daughter would react in time to protect them.

Liliana approved. It told her that the women were wary of her, but if they knew anything about her nature, that would be sensible.

Looking into their faces for so long overwhelmed her. Fighting the instinctive desire to retreat into a corner, she looked into her crystal ball instead. People expected her to look at the ball, so it had the benefit of making both her and her customers more comfortable.

She started her routine with a gesture to the curtained windowsill. The decorated box with a slot on top that people put money in sat there. Few merchants still dealt in cash, or the modern equivalent, transferrable pay cards, but she did. She had no interest in digital banking or setting up accounts, even in the anonymous computer currencies. Liliana did not own a computer or have much clue what to do with one. Neither did she have a birth certificate or any other form of official identification that she could use to set up an account in person at a bank. The increasing dependency on digital forms of payment made things tricky for her for a time, until the pay cards came along. There were many times when people didn't want all the information about what they purchased, where, and when to be recorded. Pay cards were untraceable. Only the amount deducted from people’s banks and put into the card was tracked. Once in, the card could pass from hand to hand indefinitely, until it was used to purchase something. Then, the money passed back into another bank’s accounting system.

"Pay me what you feel is fair for truth that cannot be seen by other eyes,” she intoned. “I see what is, what has been, and what might be. Ask and the truth shall be yours."

This was when customers asked her questions. Liliana waited.

The three women looked at each other.

"My daughter worked security at The Mirror club in Raleigh," the elder woman ventured. The woman's voice was a melodious alto, the voice on the other side of the phone that had set up the appointment, Arel Magoro.

"Oh." Liliana licked her lips. She fiddled with her sleeves under the table. "I am sorry about your employer," she said to the standing woman.

The daughter snorted. "I doubt that."

Liliana glanced up. It had been a long time since anyone doubted her word.

Arel Magoro gave her an apologetic smile. "My daughter came to work early that morning. She saw the security footage before the military confiscated it."

"Oh." The spider seer took a breath. She leaned to the front of her seat, weight partially on her feet, so she could spring up to run at any moment if needed. "I had no quarrel with Lady Daphne and her nest until they tried to kill my best friend. I am sorry things happened as they did."

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