Fortune turns with a finality that makes the wooden planks of the stage feel less solid beneath my feet and strides away. Smoke clings to the hem of her robes. Ash kicks up in small spirals behind her, tiny fire ghosts vanishing before they land. The flames along the path bow as she passes. She disappears into the veil of smoke and flickering torchlight, swallowed by shadow and flame. Gone, as if she were never really here at all.
I rub my cheek where the heat lingers, skin tender and stinging.
The crowd’s unblinking eyes cling to me like spotlights. But I barely feel them now. I’m too stunned. Too rattled.
And I need answers from her before I can even start to piece together what’s happening—why the crowd is frozen, why Declan and I were pulled here, why the Wheel of Fortune card suddenly feels like it’s lighting a fire inside me.
What does it want from me?
What doesshewant from me?
What do I need to remember?
…why the Tower chose you.
The words echo in my chest, louder now that she’s gone.
I stumble forward a step. “Wait,” I call out, my voice cracking. “I need your help!”
The words hang in the air, unanswered.
My heart lurches.
I slide off the stage, the Wheel of Fortune card still clutched tight in my hand, edges digging into my palm, and chase after her. My silk skirt drags across the sand, my lungs burning, smoke and ash painting the back of my throat. The path she walked is still visible. Embers glow faintly in the dust, the air around them rippling with leftover heat.
The wheel only turns when something is about to change. It brings upheaval, transformation, consequences—good and bad. It doesn’t ask for permission. It just moves. And once it does, nothing stays the same.
The heat thickens the farther I push into camp, weaving between tents. The air shimmers before me, rippling with heat as if reality is warping at the edges.
My sandals crunch over charred earth as I chase Fortune’s path. The faint scent of ozone and scorched sage curls into my nose.
Up ahead, the singed edge of her robe flutters around the last line of tents, trailing her like a dying comet.
“Please,” I shout. “Just tell me what I’m supposed to do. How I get us home?”
I round the corner, heart in my throat…
But she’s gone. All that’s left is her heat, distorting the air in uneasy waves.
The scorched black path opens onto endless dunes, edges softened by wind and moonlight. No footprints.No sign of her. Like she walked into the desert, and it swallowed her whole.
The card thumps against my palm like a cursed heart. It brought me here. It tore my life wide open. It’s the one constant in a series of events I don’t understand, pulling me toward something I begged for a thousand different ways—only to realize too late I might not survive it.
Like Fortune said, the wheel is set to turn. I just have to remember…
A shout echoes behind me. Then another and another, rolling into a rising clamor.
I spin, skirts tangling around my legs, heart lurching against my ribs.
The stillness is broken. Whatever magick this world has that took effect when Fortune appeared and held them all in place has snapped, leaving panic in its wake.
When they realize it looks like I simply vanished into thin air, maybe—hopefully—it’ll add to the Story Witch mystique. If I can’t control the story, I can at least let them believe the magick is mine.
Ten
I sprint through the maze of tents and burst out in an aisle directly behind the audience.
A man in the crowd spots me. He stands, his voice cutting through the confused chatter. “There she is!”
