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Outside the wind howls louder.

Damon looks to the circular window in the ceiling of the temple. It shows nothing but dark and snow. “But nine days gives us some time yet. And it would be foolish to travel in this weather. Perhaps on the morrow I will go into the centre of Ceruleum and see if there is word about how long this storm will last.”

Perl is not sure when Tobi joined their group, noticing him now, only when he speaks. “If it’s future telling you need, my mother can help. She taught me to tell the future with Arcaneum cards. I know a little of it myself and when I practiced it in the forest it was strangely accurate.” He looks to Perl. “Perhaps because of the magic power there. But my mother is better. You will not get a more accurate glimpse of the future, unless we go and track down Copperhead Circus and ask the Old Goat. She could tell you anything you wanted to know and she was never wrong. But my mother is almost as good.”

Perl wonders if Mareena already had some prophetic power in her from Old Archillia that could be why the Shard of Ur-Durik found its way into her. And perhaps her gift of the sight could also be the reason the Shard so easily broke her mind. But he says nothing about it.

“I simply want to know when this snowstorm will stop,” Damon says.

Tobi grins, “You don’t need The Old Goat for that.” He calls across the temple, “Let us ask her.” Tobi calls out to his mother and Mareena rises and walks over, her long skirts gliding on the polished floor.

Tobi says, “I think Elric was helping her speak to Harok. I dread what they are saying, you may need to protect me.”

His statement makes Kerik laugh. “I will protect you, brother,” he says. “Even from a Forest king and your own mother.”

By the time she reaches them, they are all laughing and Perl thinks that Tobi has his own kind of magic. A mortal magic. A cleverness with people that is quite strikingly powerful.

They make a space for the reading on the plinth in the centre of the temple, Damon taking the ring and kissing it, before slipping it onto his own finger.

Mareena takes out some arca cards from a pocket. The deck looks old. The backs are marked with the sun and the moon. Alios and Gaari in the old religions of this part of the world. Brother Sun and Sister Moon in Archillia.

Mareena cuts the deck and turns the first card. The demon. The drawing is simple. A figure scrawled in black, with a man’s body and the head of a boar-like beast.

Perl feels everyone tense. All except Tobi who says lightly, “How fitting.”

Mareena moves it aside. “It is simply appearing here because that is all we speak of. It is good, It means the spirits are listening.”

Perl looks around. Harok and Elric have come over to join them. There is no sign of Doroth. Perl does not know when he left, but perhaps it is better that he does not see this ritual being carried out in the centre of a temple.

Mareena takes a few of the cards from the deck, rubs them between her hands and sets them out saying, “A day hence, a moon hence, a year hence.” When she turns the card for the following day it reveals the triumph of night.

Elric says, “Wonderful. It could mean the storm will continue,” he says it in Artemian and then in Ambolk.

“The storm,” Harok says in Ambolk, “will continue.”

Beside the month hence Mareena lays the calidrius bird — healing, illness or injury.

“Healing,” Mareena says, determinedly.

“What will we heal from?” says Elric. “Who will heal? Lukas?”

Mareena raises a hand to shush him and turns the third. One year hence. The Mistress of Lies. The Unknown. Death.

Mareena stares at the cards for a moment then simply says, “The weather will not break in time. The journey will be hard but you must leave as soon as you can.”

But Perl does not think that was what the cards told her.

Damon says, “Very well. I will begin preparations. We will leave as soon as we can.”

“No,” Elric snaps. “Did you hear her? We must ride for Attar at dawn.” He says it in as commanding a tone as Perl has ever heard from him.

Damon turns to him looking vexed. “We need food, supplies, fresh steeds, coin. We will leave as soon as we have all we need.”

“You are delaying on purpose,” Elric snaps back. “You do not care what happens to him. You left him.”

“Of course I care what happens to him,” Damon rages back. “I am a soldier. I have led many invasions and I know what the wrong weather can mean. It would condemn us to death to attempt such a journey unprepared.”

“We are not an army and you are no General.” Elric’s cheeks are pink.