Parrot arrived quite early to knock on Sophie's door. A strange feeling of dejavu settled on his shoulders. Hadn't he just done this?

Oh wait.

He had.

On Lealis's door. She had died. Parrot sighed heavily and didn't stop his rhythmic pounding.

In the few days Sophie had had, she made preparations. Most of her work was done spur-of-the-moment, but she had done a few "marked" performances in her time. The peddler. The chef. The captain. This did not make her confident.

She had gone into Lealis's cart and poked around. Most of the valuables had been pillaged already--by the very tekaa that camped on her land, no less--but Sophie found what she was after. Old Lea read the cards just the same as she did and it didn't take long to find what she needed. She took the deck apart and burned the cards she didn't need. She kept three.

One card she left in the kint.

One card she slipped in her deck.

One card she kept.

The night before, Sophie had not undone her braids or taken off her thick make-up. She awoke with dark rings under her bloodshot eyes that stayed even after she washed the paint away. She reapplied it, took down her hair, and dressed simply. She plaited her hair into a thick green single braid, wound into a bun and wrapped a cloth over it like she had in the old days, covering most of her head.

She looked older. She looked haggard, like she hadn't slept properly. Like she was haunted by something that would not let her alone.

"I don't understand," she muttered to herself, waiting for Parrot to arrive. She tried changing the emphasis. "I don't understand."

Parrot arrived with a grand commotion.

"I'm coming!" Sophie called, slipping the empty tea cup into a cupboard and latching it shut. She opened the door carefully, aiming to avoid getting pounded herself. "Showtime already, m'dear?"

Parrot's fist flew forward and made an offbeat noise as Sophie opened the door. He stared at her. She looked...awful different.

"You ready?" He asked in a very very quiet voice, confusion clearly written on his face. Jasper had said this was important so he couldn't just say 'you don't have to do this' but he sure wanted to. He looked as if he wasn't sure if he was disturbing her.

Now that parrot was in front of her, Sophie could see his face had a few bruises on it's right side. Other than that he looked mostly unchanged.

Sophie couldn't actually hear Parrot and she thought her hearing had preserved over the years almost as well as her teeth. She leaned forward a bit. She caught the tail end of a word--she thought it might be 'dee.' As in 'ready,' perhaps. She nodded, which was a fairly neutral response to whatever he had said anyway.

She stepped out of the cart, locking it behind her and making the key subtly vanish into her bodice. She looked up at him, seeing his face clearly. Sophie grimaced. "What sort of lefty thug roughed you up, kov?"

She narrowed her enormous eyes in suspicion. "That Kathis have to do with this?"

"Nope. Fell down." Parrot mumbled in a slightly louder voice, seeing that Sophie seemed to be her usual self. Despite the odd change to her face.

The air clung to the pair like a damp, warm, uncomfortably itchy blanket.

"Time to go. Follow me."

He lead her through winding alleys in much the same way Jasper had lead Havek just ten minutes earlier. Parrot felt sweat crawling down his back. He just hoped he wasn't too late.

The street they ended up on was one of the nicer ones in Old Rose. The paint on the houses looked less chipped, some of them had actual windows, and a few even had patches of neat grass on the front.

At the end of the street the door of a white house was just beginning to open.

"Shit." Parrot said, and glanced at Sophie, "Pretend you're not with me. That's him. You gotta stall him. And be careful." He sped up a little so it wouldn't look like they were together.

Sophie nodded discreetly and slowed down to let Parrot distance himself a little.

She breathed in deeply. She made for the white house, hoping to catch the target before he got too far away from the door. Sophie hesitated. She looked at the house, as if confirming a description or a thought.

"Pardon, sir," she said hoarsely at first. She cleared her throat. She still sounded weary, but there was a touch of firmness, the voice of someone determined. "Are you, are you Kathis? Please--I need to find him."

The man who turned around was in his late 40's. His hair had begun to grey from the original dirty blond it had been. He had a tired, paranoid aura that hung about him like a nasty smell.

"That's Mr. Kathis to you." The man said in a gruff voice, pulling out a pocket watch and looking at it, then looking at the street very quickly. "Can I help you? I was just on my way to somewhere..."

He pushed his weight from one foot to the other and pulled out a handkerchief. There was an odd shape by the bottom of his coat, but Sophie couldn't tell what it was.

He sniffed and looked the witch up and down. A very well built man passed his house and his eyes followed him nervously.

Lucius Kathis didn't like this at all. What was going on? He had to go find his daughter... his daughter might be in trouble...

Sophie took a step back, hesitating for half a second. She bit her lip. A pocket watch was not cheap. Neither was the neighborhood. She knew he was suspicious of her, of Parrot. He was either well-off or playing at it. His paranoia was probably what drove him to Old Lea, who probably told him as much bad news as he wanted to hear. Her eyes widened as far as they could go.

"Mr. Kathis," she said, breathing sharply as she set eyes on him. "You look just like . . . I . . . I think I've got a message for you. From Old Lea."

Kathis froze where he stood.

"Old Lea? Where is she? What does she want?" Sweat dripped down the man's face. Maybe it'd been there a few seconds ago. The heat was oppressive after all.

But the way his nostrils flared, the way his hands twitched, the way his eyes glanced side to side weren't indicative of the weather. He was nervous.

"Does she want me to go to her?" His eyes were sharp and steady on the witch now.

Why wasn't it raining? He'd feel a lot better if this damn storm just broke...right now...it couldn't be a good omen... It felt like things were standing still. Holding their breath.

Kathis could feel his blood rushing through his body. An Omen...

Naomi...

"I don't know if you can," Sophie said quietly. She pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders and peered over her shoulder like she was frightened of being overheard. Or followed. She swallowed hard again.

Sophie leaned forward. Her mouth was set in a grim line. "I was with her when she passed."

"Dead?!"

A low moan came out of Kathis's lips and he almost seemed to sway. His face seemed to go even more pale than it already was.

"Was she killed?" His eyes were desperate now. Desperate to know more. This woman had told him of all the dangers in his life. Had warned him when to go out. Had helped him hide people, bodies, and more. She was his only contact to the Gods, and what they thought.

"How can I ever-- replace her? She-- What did she say!? What were her last words?"

His hands grasped Sophie's shoulders frantically. She could feel the strength of his fingers. The coat might hide his build, but this man was fit, despite being old.

She let out a little shriek--a high, stunted sound--as Kathis gripped her shoulders. It was real. She was genuinely surprised, but a smaller, calmer voice told her that she had succeeded. Sophie knew that there would be bruises on her shoulders tomorrow but she had captured her target and he came willingly into the trap. Somehow this did not soothe her as much as she'd like.

"Please! That hurts," Sophie said, gasping. She began to speak quickly. "She was raving, saying all manner of things, but she kept repeating--'he don't know, he ent ready yet.' She said it was coming near, slow but sure. She said she was gonna leave something for him, like a warning. She said I had to deliver it, 'cause he wouldn't be able to understand it, he'd need another teller to pick it out for him."

Sophie scratched at her bodice, her movements hindered by Kathis's grip. She managed to produce the card--Old Lea's King of Swords, though it was badly bent and crumpled.

"Afterward I found this," Sophie said. "She was clutching it. It . . . it took a long time to figure out that it was you."

Sophie looked away, ashamed of this, and frightened by it too.

Kathis let go like her shoulders were burning his hands. He looked frightened.

"Don't know what? En't ready for what?" He muttered as she spoke, "What's coming near? What's coming slow? A warning..."

His eyes were wide and afraid. He plucked the card out of Sophie's hands and stared at it without understanding.

"But what does it mean? What does it mean!?" He clutched at the card and held it up to his face. "Bells and Chimes I don't have time for this-- my daughter-- surely she means my daughter-- but what if she doesn't?! What if-- you said it was me? How did you know? Are you a seer like she was? I need help! I can pay-- I can--"

He glanced over his shoulders, "This isn't like her. She was usually quite clear with her warnings... what-- I don't-- I can't read the cards...There must be another clue...something you forgot to tell me."

He wiped the sweat from his face, "Her house. I'm going... I need to get to her house." He almost started off without Sophie and then stopped, grabbed her arm, "You. You're coming with me."

"She was normally clear with me, too," Sophie said. She couldn't help but put her hands around her shoulders and try to massage the hurt out of them. "She was acting so strange--we used to trade tales--yes, I'm what you'd call a seer."

She was just getting used to being a free and ungrabbed woman when Kathis snatched her by the arm as well.

"Ow!" Sophie squeaked before she could stop herself. "Of course I'll come! After making it this far--"

She trailed off.

Kathis walked incredibly quickly, and he seemed to know his way around just as well as any other Harbor inhabitant. Every once in awhile Sophie thought she could hear him mutter, "But what does it mean!?" under his breath. He was breathing hard by the time they got to the plot of land with all the different kints.

He pounded Old Lea's door open, making the entire structure shake.

"What-- What happened?" He gasped, finally letting go of Sophie. The kint was practically empty. The other tenants obviously worked on a 'waste not, want not' basis.

Kathis sat down shakily, putting his hand over his mouth. Oh Gods. This was so much worse than he had thought today would be.

Sophie let herself be dragged. He was hooked like a fish, but she couldn't let herself be confident yet. When he pounded Old Lea's kint door, she mused on how this was the second time within ten days she'd seen this happen. Old Lea was a popular little biddy.



"The cycle of life, that's what," Sophie said wryly. She did not appear to find much humor in it. "Old Lea is dead. But the rest of us are still breathing."

Sophie squeezed inside. She was small and fit easily into the kint, as easily as she ever had. She was suited to the life of a spoke, in body as in mind. She touched a beam. She paused, remembering something. "We were just talking, you know. I was telling her old stories. There was a pot of tea going. She put down two cards, turned over, but the third . . . she started, you know, quick. Like she'd been shocked bad by something. Then she started rambling, mostly the same things. She caught hold of me."

She raised a hand to her jaw, as if remembering Old Lea's frantic touch. Sophie looked Kathis in the eyes.

"That's when she said I had to warn 'him.' You. I was so worried, all I could think about was calming her, gettin' her to bed, but I remember her exact words, clear as the sound of a bell. 'You must read the message,' she said, 'he won't be able. Only you will know what it says.'"

Sophie shook her head slowly. "And I didn't think a thing of it. I thought she was crazy--me, never having read a word in my life.

"I put her to bed and she was so still. I suppose--I suppose now she had died then. The card was in her hand. I . . . didn't know at first. It's just one card of three. A pip, all it is is a stand-in, a representation card for a person--a man with power or enemies, that's usually the king of swords."

She sighed. "If only I had thought to look at the other two before everyone ransacked the place. I suppose they might be here still but . . ."

Sophie scowled, gesturing around her. "I couldn't even find the deck proper. It's vanished."

Kathis got more and more agitated as she spoke, and by the end of it he was fuming.

"THIEVES! COWARDS!" He roared, "THIS IS MY LIFE WE ARE SPEAKING OF! BROKEN SPOKES!" He turned over the only table in the room and then kicked at the wall.

"Naomi-- She's been out for at least ten minutes-- no, fifteen! There must have been something about Naomi--" His eyes caught sight of a piece of paper on the floor. A card.

"THERE!" He shrieked, "An Omen! Read it for me, witch!" The card was moving violently in his unstable hands. It was a card labled 2 Mazze, and it depicted a man in red boots.

(( [2 Mazze (Dominion), when reversed: The erosion of power and influence. Failing to articulate goals or establish a vision for the future. Being caught off guard, due to an inability to come to grips with the impact of past decisions. Obstinate and irresponsible leadership. Loss of interest, clarity, or faith in a venture.] ))

Sophie had been surprised by the labels on Old Lea's cards. She had not thought that Old Lea could read. Very few cards had any sort of labeling on them at all, since so many card-readers were in truth illiterate. Sophie's own deck, though very nicely painted (if she did say so herself), had no words at all. As a young girl, her daoa had beat a million pictures into her head, and one of them, thankfully, had been the man in the red boots, which stood in for the more commonly used two of wands of any lower deck. 2 Mazze actually had a meaning when reversed, untrue of many of the pips in her other decks.

She plucked the card from Kathis's hands rather deftly and examined it, shock in her wide eyes. She had carefully avoided the table. "I don't understand," she said breathlessly. "I looked everywhere . . . this is not a good card. It is a card of precarious positions. Your future is clouded and you are bound as if in the grip of a snake. The more furiously you struggle, the tighter the snare.

"But this card also . . ." she paused and swallowed, as if dredging up an old meaning she had not had opportunity to use in many years. "It also gives a choice of two paths. One wild as a beast tearing through the land, destroying both what it loves and fears alike--the other guided by wisdom and clarity, though difficult to follow. I think that Lealis . . . I think that she wants you to choose one path over the other."

Kathis was sweating profusely, and Sophie could almost smell the fear coming off of him in waves. He was pacing as she spoke, and he could barely hear what she was saying. His mind was wrapped around Naomi. Death. Decay. Naomi. Death. Decay. Naomi.

"Two paths! Two paths-- Death and Life. Isn't it always so? My wife left me and walked the path of death-- but I will not let that happen to my Naomi. Never to my own daughter. I would protect her-- I would protect her. Bring out your deck, witch. Tell me how I shall flay this newest suiter-- Tell me how to kill him so that his soul will be punished for dealing with my daughter in such a way."

He grabbed her wrists and slammed her against the walls of the kint. He loomed over her, glaring down into her eyes crazily. "You must help-- you must help me! I can't do this alone! I can't!" He stared into her eyes as only a madman could.

Old Lea had conditioned him very well. She had never once said anything about life and death, but the good old natt put his own meaning into her vague, mystic words. Still, Sophie almost didn't have to fake her trepidation. Her heart had given her a terrible start, when once again Kathis snatched at her, pinning her down. She wondered if he had ever treated Old Lea thus. Sophie noted that never once had he asked her name. Kathis struck her as the type who saw every witch as a seer, whether she practiced or not.

"Let me and I'll fetch them here," she said, a little fierce, a little frightened. She could not get her voice to crack, it was already too broken in from tea and tobacco and various abrasive spices. She settled for breathless, gasping. "I'll read them for you, true and without charge. Because Old Lea wants--wanted--this to be done and she was good to me when few were so. I owe her this, I honor my promises. I won't abandon you."

Kathis's grip tightened for a moment and then he let her go. His face was red and sweaty. There was a loud crack of thunder, but still no rain. Old Rose was holding its breath.

Eerie, Sophie thought to herself. If she didn't know better, she would think that something of incredible importance really was happening. Even as she slipped out of the kint she kept up her act; Kathis seemed the type to follow her around if he got jumpy enough.

Her cards, of course, were waiting for her on the table as she unlocked the door. She thumbed through, quickly, to see where she had left the last card. Old Lea's cards were just a hair smaller than her deck, the one representing the mind. This would make it easy to find.

Sophie rarely used this deck. It was a very traditional, very old-fashioned deck that went back in the family, in the tribe, really, for generations. It was not her favorite, being much too complicated for anything resembling every day use. Many of the cards had two names, especially the trumps. Every card meant something reversed or in conjunction with other, specific cards; it didn't technically matter how the cards were read, not really when you were working. Sophie's daoa had told her stories of spokes communicating with these old cards instead of letters or spoken messages in times of danger. It was good to learn the old ways, for that reason.

She breathed deeply. Kathis was truly a terror. How long had it been? Jasper better hurry. Sophie waited a few moments, to give him time to sit and shiver. Not too long, or he'd come after her; somehow the last thing Sophie wanted was for him to come into her kint.

Now. It was time to return. Sophie locked the kint door behind her again, and entered Old Lea's cart again.

"If you would," she said softly. "Set the table right and we can begin."

Kathis's hands shook as he righted the table and sat down.

"Please begin. This is urgent. I have... I have things to do."

Thunder rumbled outside loudly.

Sophie shuffled the deck in her hands, moving the small card to the lower half. There was really nowhere to sit. She supposed Decko had gotten to all the chairs--addicts were such packrats. She tried to look mysterious.

"It'll take more'n one," Sophie said, trembling a little. "Three's the traditional number, good for this case. I'll lay out the cards once. For me to read. I lay them out a second time; that'll be for Old Lea. Her voice. Third and final spread is yours."

She spread out the cards, slowly, carefully, one by one. She stopped at nine. It didn't matter what these were. The Queen of Eyes, XVII. The Star, the four of eyes . . . she gave a little gasp at XI. Strength, reversed, and trembling put down the last few. None were labeled, the images cryptic and indecipherable. The four of eyes disturbed Sophie a little; its true meaning indicated a jealous guardian, especially in conjunction with the three of staves, which represented succor and relief to be destroyed. These little coincidences were to Sophie for the most part rather entertaining; this time, not so much.

"I am here," she said, pointing to the queen. "The seer, usually a witch of maturing years. Old Lea herself stood the same place. Here is a younger creature, sweet and lovely."

There she indicated the Star.

"They tell me that an outside force weakens that which is represented by the Star--the King of Cups, pictured here, preys upon her. The Star is almost always a woman. This here--" she gestured to the ten of eyes "--is a sign of trust and friendship. She does not know that she is in danger. She believes that she is with a friend, someone she has known for a while."

Sophie leaned forward, scowling, as if seeing something new for the first time. Her brow furrowed.

Kathis could hardly sit still. Outside, the first fat droplets of rain could be heard spattering loudly on the earth. Another crack of thunder roared through the windows. Sophie could feel the hair on her arms standing up. Kathis was looking madder by the moment. He was muttering rapidly under his breath, and Sophie couldn't quite catch what she was saying.

As the rain really started falling, Kathis took out a long, slim knife in a single fluid motion. He suddenly looked much calmer.

"Pray continue." He said with a quiet smile, not looking up from the knife he was lovingly caressing. He took out a worn rag and began to run it over the blade.