A ripple of golden fabric. “Real enough. For now.”
My brain scrambles—mythic archetype activation, stress-induced visualization, sleep deprivation, an autonomic flare. None of those feel remotely adequate.
“You know my name,” I say instead.
“I have watched your wheel turn longer than you imagine.” Her head tilts. “You push hard for someone who has been taught she is too much and not enough.”
Heat crawls up my neck.
“You’re Fortuna.” Not a question.
Another soft, unnerving laugh. “They tell my stories here. My symbols are carved. Ships are built and statues welded in my honor. It would be rude not to visit.”
The reference to Charity flickers through me, but I let it go.
“I don’t know what to say,” I admit.
“Honesty is a fine beginning.” She shifts closer without moving. “You value truth. Even when you weaponize it against yourself.”
My throat tightens. “I filed the complaint.”
“Yes.” The word hums. “You pressed your shoulder to the wheel. It shifted.”
“Was it… the right decision?”
A lesser deity might smile, pat my head, and reward compliance. Fortuna simply observes, the air around her tingling with something like judgment and something like respect.
“You seek right and wrong as if they are clean lines,” she says. “As if choices are tests. The wheel does not test. It turns.”
“That is… not comforting.”
A flicker of a smile. “Comfort is not my trade.”
I almost laugh—almost break.
“I just want to know I didn’t destroy my future because I misread someone,” I say.
“You want to know whether those who benefit from your silence will punish you for breaking it.”
“That’s… yes.”
“They will be displeased.”
Ice drops through my stomach. “But you just said—”
“Displeasure is not ruin,” she cuts in. “Punishment is not destiny. You confuse difficulty with death. A habit learned from a world that convinced you survival depended on shrinking.”
The words scrape something raw in me.
“They can block me,” I whisper. “Blackball me. Cut off fellowships, letters—”
“Yes.”
“Then how is that not catastrophic?”
“The catastrophe,” she says, “would be disappearing again for their comfort. You have done this many times. It has never saved you.”
I can’t hold her gaze.
