Petra of the Shazastar is a thief on the run from an unforgettable past. But, like all thieves, her luck cannot last forever. When she is caught, she's given a choice: either face execution or become the fortune teller to the Mad Queen.
Not surpri...
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EVER SINCE MY SÉANCE FOR the Mad Queen, my nightmares have grown more haunting.
I have made a habit of laying my beddings in the balcony even if the weather has been getting colder, for the cold air keeps me up longer. Every morning Annabella discovers me in the same state: cold, raccoon eyed and frightened. Soundlessly she folds my blankets and puts them back on the bed and leads me to a warm bath.
The night before the carnival starts out no different, me laying on the cold hard ground of the balcony. And then I hear them... tortured voices, shrieking voices, high-pitched and menacing:
We know where you are.
My skin ripples with painful shivers and I am sure I'm being shredded apart with icicles.
Please! I scream in my head. Please! Leave me! Leave me! I am frozen still. No one hears my silent screams but soon the pain is too much for my consciousness to handle and I drift into blissful blackness.
I wake to a familiar scene: Annabella's concerned face, only this time she cannot hold her tears.
"Mio dio! I cannot bear it any longer Petra! I cannot sit back and see you suffer whatever this is!"
I get up from the cold ground and I'm surprised to see that there is not a scratch on me - perhaps it had all been a dream after all?
"I'm fine Annabella." I fumble over to the warm bath.
"You are not! You look like a corpse, perdono, but you do! We should tell Giovanni. He will know what to do. I'm sure."
"No!"
My leg has not even submerged in the bath water before I step away. "Why would we tell him of all people? If there was something wrong with me, which there isn't, I would go to a healer or a medic."
"He has this touch with his horses, even the most frightened ones -"
"Do I look like a horse?"
"That is not what I meant."
Exhausted from my lack of sleep, and not wanting to argue any longer, I snap, "Annabella I forbid you!"
The doe eyed maid looks away, but eventually relents and helps me with my bath.
"Have they finished setting up for the carnival in the piazza?" I ask.
