discover the truth.”
“Wait a second. So Disa was this famous Seer—and she was human at the time?”
“Yes.”
“Okay . . . so you two met her, where, at her shop?”
Niall shook his head. “She was the daughter of a wealthy merchant who kept her well provided for in a home near the center of town. That was where she gave her readings.”
“Did she ask for money for her services?”
“No. But people seemed to enjoy giving her expensive gifts. Even Vayl had given her a diamond necklace and a pair of matching earrings in gratitude for her efforts.” Wow, she sounds like some kind of slick talker. Maybe I underestimated her.
Niall went on. “At any rate, we went to visit her on a cool October evening. Vayl had just been through an episode of abject misery during which he had not left his apartments for perhaps three or four days. Now all he could talk about was seeing Disa, getting a good reading, finally uncovering some real details. He became so eager and excited to hear about Hanzi and Badu that he forgot why he had invited me along in the first place.”
“You will be polite?” he asked me as we tied our horses to the rail in front of Disa’s house that night.
“Only until she raises the shade of my dead grandfather, and then all bets are off,” I joked. He didn’t laugh.
We used a massive boar’s head knocker to signal our presence at the entrance of a three-story town house that rose straight from the street with no architecture or garden to relieve its simple, white plainness. Its brown-painted windowsills were recessed, and without benefit of a light closer than the one halfway down the block, they seemed even to my vision like hollow eye sockets staring from the pale face of a dying man.
Disa came to the door after a prolonged bout of knocking. She had thrown a thin, white robe over her chemise. I didn’t think this boded well for my companion. How could the Seer not have foretold his visit? But this detail escaped him. He grasped both of her hands in his. “Tell me about my sons,” he demanded. “I cannot wait another moment. When will I meet them and where?”
I expected her eyes to go blank, her mouth to slacken as the truly Gifted’s will when the Sight is upon them. Disa just snatched her hands back and drawled, “Vayl, if it were that easy, don’t you think you’d have found them long before now?”
He looked at me then, and I could tell he remembered why I was there. “May we come in?” I asked.
She clearly wanted to refuse us. But then Vayl would know for certain. So she said, “Of course.”
She gestured for us to enter, and we followed her into a small room dominated by a round table covered with a floor-length black cloth and surrounded by ladder-backed chairs. Five black candles formed the table’s centerpiece. She lit these and then asked us to sit, one on either side of her.
I had a moment to register the long black curtains drawn across the two windows, the fireplace—its mantel empty, its hearth bare though it had been an extremely cool fall—and the white, floor-to-ceiling shelves containing all manner of mismatched bric-a- brac, from china teacups to pottery urns to a vase full of wilted flowers. And then I turned my attentions to Disa. She had made a new plan for her client.
She leaned toward Vayl, her robe gaping open to reveal a distracting view of her neckline. “Since I, and in fact all of your Seers, have had such a difficult time deciphering the whereabouts of your sons, may I suggest a different tack?”
Such was Vayl’s obsession that his eyes never wavered from her face. “What is it?” he asked.
“Let me try to contact your father. I believe he could tell us what we need to know.”
Vayl sat back. “My . . . father?”
“His name was”—she closed her eyes and rested her hand atop Vayl’s—“Nelu, was it not?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“I can feel him,” she said without opening her eyes. “Let me reach out, Vayl. Let me see if he has spoken to Hanzi and Badu.”
“Yes,” he said again, tears springing to the corners of his eyes.
I was not so taken in. Charlatans aren’t stupid. They’re simply not smart enough to follow the law. So I watched closely as Disa “fell” into her trance. As she “contacted” Nelu, who had, miraculously, just spoken to Hanzi and Badu that very morning. They had not been reincarnated as Vayl’s last Seer had intimated, but still wandered in the Spirit World, waiting for their time to return. Which meant Vayl could talk to them anytime he wished. Through Disa.
“Now,” Vayl croaked, his voice so cloaked in tears he sounded like an entirely different man. “Please, let me speak to them now.”
Suddenly, though no logs stood to receive it, a fire lit in the hearth. A teacup flew across the room and smashed against the wall. And Disa spoke in a voice not her own. A young man’s that said, “Papa?”
Vayl cried, “Hanzi?” as both windows flew open. The curtains billowed. Another item flew off the shelf and rolled to the floor. When I looked, I realized it was the vase, and the flowers had somehow revived to their former splendor. I glanced back at Disa and thought, My, but you have talented feet. And is that an accomplice whose excitement I sense just beyond the boundaries of this room?
