Thankfully, her prediction of a slow night had proven to be false, as more and more customers began arriving, and soon Fenella found herself in the familiar fast pace of the previous nights, mixing drinks, inventing outrageous psychometric readings, and keeping the crowd entertained.
Still, tonight was a bit different, and she wondered if the brooch had something to do with it, or was it her growing comfort with the village community. She definitely felt more grounded than before. More confident.
When she picked up a car key for her next reading, she was surprised to feel a flicker of something, like a faint impression of urgency, of someone racing against time. The sensation was gone as quickly as it had come, leaving her uncertain whether she'd imagined it.
She covered her momentary disorientation by launching into a tale about the car key's secret desire to unlock a door to another dimension where everything was made of chocolate. The owner, a Guardian named Kri, protested loudly that her keys would never betray her for confectionery, no matter how tempting.
Throughout it all, Fenella found herself unconsciously touching the brooch, her fingers drawn to the amber stone, and each time she did, she felt that same subtle pulse of energy.
She must be imagining it—a mystical placebo effect.
"New jewelry?" Ingrid asked, her sharp eyes missing nothing. "It's lovely. A bit old-fashioned for my taste, though. Antique Scottish?"
"I believe so," Fenella said, her hand going to the brooch again. "It's a gift from Din."
Ingrid grinned. "That's nice. He must have brought it with him from Scotland."
"He did. He bought it for me when we first met half a century ago and kept it for all those years even though he had no reason to believe he would ever meet me again or that I was even alive."
"That's love." Ingrid sighed dramatically. "It's irrational."
Before Fenella could respond, another wave of customers arrived demanding drinks and entertainment in equal measure, and she threw herself back into the performance.
As the night wore on, she noticed something interesting. The faint impressions she was getting from objects seemed to be growing slightly stronger. It was nothing dramatic, just moments when she picked up an item and felt something. An emotion, a fleeting image, a whisper of memory that vanished before she could grasp it.
The brooch seemed to be amplifying her abilities even if only slightly.
Or was she simply becoming more attuned to her gift through practice?
Either way, she made sure to keep her actual impressions to herself, sticking to her invented tales. The last thing she needed was to accidentally reveal something private that should remain that way.
"Your wallet is judging your spending habits," she told one customer with mock severity. "It's particularly offended by that impulse purchase of a singing fish plaque last month. Where did you even hang it?"
"How did you know? I mean, that's ridiculous!" the man sputtered, his face reddening as his friends roared with laughter.
That had been pure coincidence, but Fenella had learned to run with whatever reactions she got. "The wallet never lies," she intoned solemnly, handing it back.
A singing fish was a stupid decoration, but it wasn't anything to be ashamed of. It was innocent enough.
She was just reaching for another object when the door opened, and a mane of dark hair caught her eye. For a wild moment, she thought it was Arezoo, proving her wrong about her mother's iron grip, but it was just a dark-haired immortal female, one she'd seen the two previous nights.
Poor Ruvon. She glanced toward the back table where he still sat with Din. At least he had company, even if it wasn't the company he'd hoped for.
The thought occurred to her that Ruvon, despite being more than a century old, seemed as young as Arezoo in some ways or even younger. There was an uncertainty about him, a hesitancy that spoke of someone still finding his place in the world. Maybe that's why he was drawn to her—not despite the age difference but because of it. In terms of romantic experiences, they might be more evenly matched than the numbers suggested.
Or maybe she was overthinking it. Maybe Ruvon just liked Arezoo because he was attracted to her. After all, men were simple creatures when it came to romance. They were either drawn to a particular female or not.
