LITMIR.BIZ

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working with them, but you… If you hold fast to your purpose and set out on your perilous journey, then my crystal will have an interesting story to tell. And I and my sweet pet will probably get our revenge at someone else’s hands.»

      «Where is your pet?» Janet didn’t know at first who she was talking about. Except for the pearl barrette shaped like a sea serpent, which she’d only now noticed in the fortune teller’s hair. It was so white that she couldn’t see it, though the color of the hairpin seemed faintly similar to her own. The pearl snake seemed to crawl up and down her strands.

      But by pet she probably didn’t mean it. The crystal ball vibrated under her hands, taking the shape of a watery snake with blue scales and a large pearl in its forehead. It clung to her arms, but hissed angrily at Janet.

      «Do not be afraid, on the road to the country of the elves you will meet much more dangerous creatures than a sea dragon!»

      The fortune teller wanted to comfort the girl, but instead frightened her out of her wits. Janet jumped up and ran for the door. A long train tangled beneath her feet, which only increased her fear. Janet felt as if someone was grabbing at her feet, keeping her from a strange house full of strange creatures and charms.

      Forgetting about Nyssa, who was asleep in the chair, Janet ran out of the house. The town was still asleep. None of the people who had fallen asleep on the road moved. Janet carefully avoided them. She looked around, trying to determine where her carriage and guards remained. She and Nyssa had left the carriage in the square, so that was where they should return.

      Janet had to wander for a long time before she found her way back. She had only been to Rhodolit a few times and couldn’t remember which roads led where. The stars in the sky above the city reminded her of the fortune teller’s dress. They seemed to line the sky in a track, lighting the girl’s way. It was moments like that, when you thought you just needed to hold out your palms and the stars would fall into your lap.

      «Why don’t you hold out your hand and see?» Someone suddenly whispered to her, hiding behind her. Janet looked around, hoping to see the stranger in the mask of golden leaves again. But he was gone. Only some thin silhouette was as a shadow on the sidewalk. Strange, the shadow was visible, but the master was not. The shadow was moving, in strange broken movements.

      From somewhere came the sounds of a song, like a magical counting rhyme. It seemed as if the stars themselves were singing it.

      «Put your palm down,

      And we’ll fall

      The queen must

      Not to be with him alone

      And let him go back

      To his human house!»

      Janet put up her palm and felt small golden sparks land on it, really like stars. They shone, but they were not warm. The starbursts seemed purely illusory, because the little stars immediately dissolved into the skin of her palm. The lines of fate on her palm left glittering traces.

      «You have a golden fate, but a dangerous one,» someone whispered in her ear, leaning over her shoulder. Janet had already realized that if she turned back, she would see no one but a swirling shadow that no one had cast.

      The guards in front of the square were asleep. One of them had managed to fall asleep in a standing position, leaning on his spear. Janet accidentally caught his cuirass, and he began to sink to the ground. His armor clanked longingly.

      There was someone in the square. Not asleep! There were some silhouettes moving. Were there people? No. Janet saw a lady in a sumptuous scarlet dress, and around her were stunted, ugly creatures, dressed as groomsmen and footmen. The lady’s scarlet train was so long that it seemed to flow in a wave across the square. Her curly hair, too, grew so much that it flowed over the ground, as did the train. It seemed to Janet that they turned suddenly into living black snakes, one of which hissed wildly, pointing its head in her direction. The girl hurriedly hid behind a corner. There was a threat from the creatures in the square. She could feel it. It was better to stay out of their way.

      A gilded carriage also stood in the square. Fire seemed to be shooting out of the horses’ nostrils, and the blankets on their backs were wings folded behind them. Janet blinked to drive away the illusion, but it didn’t go away. The horses still seemed fire-breathing and winged to her.

      «That’s enough!» The lady handed some young man, Janet thought it was Quentin, a whole purse of gold. As soon as it passed from hand to hand, jingling coins rained down on the young man’s palms. Each one looked like a gold moon with a woman’s face, like the emblems in the fortune-teller’s house. The coins seemed to sing a mischievous song. They slipped from the boy’s hands and rolled across the sidewalk. He rushed to pick them up.

      «They’re quick,» he complained.

      «They are as nimble as you are,» said the lady indifferently. The lady’s voice was ice-cold, and her train of fire stretched across the square. Janet noticed one coin bouncing and rolling toward the edge of the square. It did indeed have a face the size of a tail of coin carved into it. The chiseled lips rounded as if they were about to sing.

      «And now you give me my order!» The lady held out her hand, her fingers were unnaturally long and thin. It looked as if the membranes between them were laced together. Or was it just a fancy piece of jewelry? Janet did not know what to think.

      «Here, ma’am,» the young man handed her not colored ribbons but some sort of jars. He did not appear to be a peddler, but a druggist. So she had mistaken the young man for Quentin.

      «Will that be enough for one unruly mind?» The lady inquired, peering at what appeared to be living worms inside the vials.

      «It is more than enough!» The young man bowed.

      «You said it the last time too,» the lady scolded him.

      «But this potion is stronger. And if it isn’t, you’ll have to work it out for yourself, and it’ll cost him his head.»

      «I’ll trust you one last time! Off you go!»

      The young man bowed again.

      Janet bent down to pick up a coin that looked like a living disc of sunshine rolling right at her feet. The coin did not burn her fingers, though it seemed a real flame. The face on the tail winked at its new mistress. Or did it just seem that way?

      Janet looked out at the square and saw no one else in it. No lady, no groomsmen, no footmen with monstrous bodies. The square was empty. On the stones of the sidewalk, where the train of fire stretched, there was no ashy trace of the recent burning, either.

      Could it be that her visit to the fortuneteller had influenced Janet in such a way that she began to see strange things? The girl stepped into the empty square. Somewhere there should be a carriage waiting to take her back home, but there wasn’t. Janet walked through the empty square and turned nervously at every sound. Sometimes she thought she heard someone calling her name.

      Suddenly she bumped right into Quentin. He was there all of a sudden, like an elf popping out of a snuffbox. A second ago the square was empty. And now he was standing right in front of her. There was a teasing grin on his face. And his box was gone.

      Janet stared at him, not immediately startled when she heard a noise behind her. A carriage was hurtling across the square toward them.

      «Look out!» Quentin covered her as the gilded carriage raced past.

      «There are two great frogs instead of grooms,» said Janet, stammering. It seemed to her, somehow, that Quentin could confess everything she’d seen. «Tell me, did you see it, too?»

      Quentin was strangely silent. The freckles on his face blazed with the fire of shame. He even shuffled unsteadily from foot to foot. Janet noticed how unusual his shoes were: they had upward-curved toes, buckles shaped like crescents of the month, and bright green leather inserts, as if they were

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