“Pshht. I’m not going to kill Cassiopeia here.” She heaved thechicken under one arm tightly. “Just a small sacrifice to see what’s going on.”
Without any more explanation than that, she nicked the bird beneath her breast where there were several feathers missing. Cassiopeia gave a squawk as Euphemia gathered a few drops of blood on the flat of her blade then set the blade on the clay plate. After smearing salve from a jar onto the small wound, setting Cassiopeia down, and then tossing a handful of grain from a bucket to her, she returned.
Carefully, she tapped the point of the blade. Three drops pooled into a tiny circle. Scurrying to a cupboard against the wall, she opened a drawer, rummaged around.
“There it is,” she grumbled and returned to the worktable. Beaming mischievously, she opened her fingers to show me what lay in her palm. A silver-gray triangle I recognized at once.
“Dragon scale?” I asked, my heart tripping faster.
“Indeed. From a noble dragon who fought a warrior’s death. Blessed by the gods.”
She took the coin-sized scale and dragged it through the blood, pulling a line of red this way and that.
“Hmm,” she said, still spreading the blood in tiny crisscrossing lines across the white plate.
“What do you see?”
I knew from past experiences with Euphemia that she had the sight. Perhaps not as clear as my bunica, but she was given the gift toknowthings before they happened. How she devised anything from a few drops of chicken’s blood, I had no idea, but I wasn’t going to argue. There was a distant whisper growing in the back of my mind, a call to listen from the magic that lived in my blood.
“Yes. I wasn’t mistaken. A journey for you, my dear.”
“To the afterlife?” For that was the only journey I could imagine taking.
She drew a circle around the center and lifted the dragon scale from the plate, staring intently. “There is death, most certain. I am not so sure it is yours. Hmm.”
She lifted a clear vial of oil on the table, uncorked it, and let three drops hit the blood-smeared plate. The oil spread in a nebulous pool and strange shape, tinged pink around the edges.
“Can you see if it is me now?” I asked impatiently.
“It is not yours.” She met my gaze, expression grave. “The most important thing I see is your freedom.”
“I will be free?” I asked in earnest disbelief.
She nodded definitively, her dark eyes pinched with pain. I slumped back and watched Cassiopeia pecking at the grain. Her pain was for me. A death, a long journey, and then my freedom.
“So I must die,” I whispered.
“Nonsense,” she snapped. “But possibly,” she said just as sharply. “A part of you must die, I think.”
I blinked in confusion. That made no sense at all.
“Heed what I tell you.” She leaned in and pointed a bony finger at me. “You must live and watch for the opportunity. It is coming. I see it. Trust Euphemia.”
She was likely simply distracting me from taking my own life, and yet, I couldn’t help but grasp onto the smallest hope it could be true.
“Come. Those behemoths out front will think I’ve ferried you away somewhere.”
“If only you could,” I murmured, following her back through her house.
There were voices in the main shop. Thea said something, then a male with a deep voice replied. I readied myself to meet Grigor’s ire for disappearing from sight, knowing he would report it to Valerius, when we stepped through the curtain of scarves.
I froze just on the other side, taking in the tall, gallant figure of theyoung senator from last night. He wasn’t dressed in the fine blue toga of the night before but a shorter, simple white tunic with a blue sash around his waist. Somehow, he looked more attractive now than in his finery. His eyes widened at the sight of me, seeming to be equally surprised.
“Lela,” he said softly.
A shiver trembled down my frame. I liked the sound of my name on his lips.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
