Page 65 of Midnight Conquest

Rosselyn assumed she asked to see her palms, so turned her open hands onto the table.

The old woman flipped Rosselyn’s hands back and forth, inspecting one palm then the other, her wrinkled fingertips chasing the lines across her skin. “Regardez, you see this line?” she said in hushed tones.

Rosselyn nodded and leaned forward.

“Do you see how this splits? How this first section of the line is weak, and this new split is deeper, stronger?”

Rosselyn nodded again.

“This confirms what I read those many years ago.”

Rosselyn thought back to the first time she saw the Romani people in Aberdeen. She and Davina had come to have theirfortune told for the first time. “Oh, are you referring to the reading where I drank tea, and you looked at the leaves?”

“Oui.” Amice grinned. “Do you remember what I said?”

Rosselyn pondered a moment. “You said the shape of a bird flew from a box or a cage in the tea leaves.” The memory was vague, but there.

Amice patted her hand in approval. “I remember this because I saw something else of which I did not tell you. Back then I did not think you were ready, but now you are.”

Rosselyn tilted her head in anticipation.

“The bird in the cup flew toward a wagon or a cart, and the truth seeped into my old bones. You would be one ofus!” Amice’s eyes sparkled as she grinned.

The whispered words fell upon Rosselyn’s ears, but they floated in the air like smoke, forming shapes too elusive to grasp.

“One of us,” Amice repeated. “A Gypsy.”

“Me?”

Amice nodded and reached for a stack of thin, painted tablets made of worn wood. As she shuffled them, Rosselyn caught glimpses of vibrant images rendered in weathered pigment. Amice drew one tablet and laid it down: a picture of two happy children riding a horse beneath a blazing sun.

“You are a free spirit, loving life, and you are not afraid to take risks,” she said, beaming.

She pulled another from the stack and set it beside the first. This one depicted a somber man in black robes looming over two children who bowed before him.

Amice frowned. “But you feel trapped by the confines of authority and rules.”

Shaking her head, she drew a third tablet—this one showed a woman inside a wreath, surrounded by animal heads in eachcorner. A slow smile returned to the old woman’s face.

“Ah, and this confirms everything. This means you will finally achieve your dreams. You will break free from the bonds of rules and see the world!” She gazed at Rosselyn with a keen glint in her eye. “Is this not your dream?”

A lump formed in Rosselyn’s throat, and a moment passed before she could whisper, “Aye, thatismy dream.” She cleared her throat and blinked away the tears gathering in her eyes. “How could you know this?”

“This is what I do, child.” Amice laid down one more card, showing a moon in a dark night sky with wolves howling between two pillars. The old woman’s mouth fell open, one hand landing upon the card while the other pressed to her heart. “I feel a great and painful secret you harbor within yourself.”

Rosselyn bit her lower lip to keep it steady.How could she know this?

“You must settle this before you leave, I am sensing.”

The pressure in Rosselyn’s chest became unbearable. Tears burst forth. “How can you see this? This has burdened me for over a year since the truth came to me.” She sobbed into her hands, releasing the weight she had carried so long, then wiped her cheeks with her sleeve. “Telling this secret could hurt so many people. And yet keeping it inside is destroying me. I fear I’m losing my sanity. What am I to do, Amice?”

Amice gathered her tablets and shuffled them slowly, eyes closed in concentration. A thread of hope bloomed in Rosselyn’s heart. Perhaps Amice truly held the answers she so desperately needed.

The old woman fanned the tablets across the table. “Choose three tablets for what will happen if you donottell your secret—and three more for what will happen if youdo.”

Rosselyn nibbled her thumbnail, studying the array. She selected three that seemed to pulse with unspoken truth and slid them toward Amice. “If I donottell my secret,” she whispered. Amice placed them aside, then gestured for the next set. Rosselyn chose three more. “If Idotell it.”

Amice turned the first set over: the moon card again with the howling wolves between two pillars; a skeletal figure bearing a scythe; and a horned beast towering over two chained figures. The old woman covered her mouth, her eyes widening. “Keeping this secret, child, will result in many deaths.”

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