At dinner, Richard held his bowl and answered his sister absent-mindedly.
"What’s wrong with you today, big brother?" Evelyn pushed a Professor Rabbit in front of him. "Your head’s in the clouds."
"It’s nothing." Richard picked up the rabbit but didn’t eat it. "All right, there is something on my mind."
"Thinking about the Imperial Capital?"
"Mhm," Richard mumbled.
His mother, Margaret, walked in from the living room and glanced at Richard.
"Get some sleep early tonight," his mother said while cleaning some vegetables. "You haven’t looked well these past few days."
"Mhm."
That night, Richard slept more soundly than usual.
With his Sleep skill at Level 2, he fell asleep extremely quickly and slept deeply.
That night, he had a very long dream.
In his dream, it was the day the results were announced.
He couldn’t quite tell where he was.
It looked like the auditorium at Greenwood, but also like the Ashford Family’s grand living room.
Everything around him was bright and warm, and he couldn’t tell if it was sunlight or lamplight.
Someone unrolled a red announcement list before his eyes.
Imperial University, Preparatory Program for the Classics Department. The very first name was his.
Richard Williams.
He was overjoyed.
The happiness was so real it warmed him from his heart to his fingertips.
Then, people began to arrive, one by one.
Evelyn was, of course, the first to rush over, still holding that gingerbread rabbit wearing a little top hat.
"Congratulations, big brother!" she said, her smiling eyes curving into crescents. "I knew Professor Rabbit would get in!"
His mother, Margaret, followed behind. Her eyes were a little red, but the corners of her mouth were turned up in a smile.
His father, Rogers, had for once set aside his blueprints and clapped him firmly on the shoulder.
"My son’s made something of himself. Makes his old man proud."
Next came Mr. Hutton, holding a cup of tea so weak it was almost tasteless. He nodded at him. "I knew you could do it."
Then there was Mr. Holland, clutching a half-eaten chicken leg and grinning from ear to ear.
"This chicken leg was money well spent."
Warren, Hugh, and Mason were all there.
Grey, holding her dark blue umbrella, offered a warm paper packet from underneath it.
Lillian, cradling her glass jar, looked at him with her gray-blue eyes and said softly, "Congratulations."
His grandfather, his aunt, Lady Dawn and Charlotte, Coleman, Winterworth, Mrs. MacNeil...
And Clement, leaning on his copper-headed cane, said, "I bet on the right horse."
Smiling face after smiling face gathered before him.
"Congratulations."
"Congratulations."
"Congratulations."
Applause broke out.
It started with a few scattered claps, then swelled into one continuous sound, growing louder and louder, like rain, like the tide.
Everyone was smiling, clapping, and telling him, "Congratulations."
Richard stood in the center of it all, enveloped by the warmth of the sound.
He smiled and nodded back at them.
He opened his mouth, wanting to say "thank you."
But just at that moment, a corner of his heart suddenly felt empty.
It was like a table laden with food, but with a single empty bowl.
He couldn’t say what was missing.
The room was clearly full of people. Evelyn was smiling, his mother was smiling, Mr. Hutton was smiling.
He recognized every face, and he heard every "Congratulations" clearly.
And yet, he felt something was missing.
The smiles were still smiles, the applause still applause.
But there was an empty bowl, and it remained empty.
Richard began to clap along.
He nodded at every smiling face and gave thanks for every "Congratulations."
His smile was as warm and full as everyone else’s.
But the warmth filling the room didn’t touch the empty place in his heart. Instead, that emptiness began to spread, little by little.
When the applause was at its peak, another sound mingled with the chorus of "Congratulations."
He wanted to turn and see what it was.
Suddenly, the light all around him dimmed.
Richard opened his eyes.
The sky had not yet brightened; a blue-gray light filtered through the window.
He was lying flat on his back. He wasn’t sweating, and his heart wasn’t racing.
But an indescribable emptiness clung to the center of his chest, refusing to dissipate.
Richard sat up. It took him a moment to recognize the cracked ceiling above him.
The roomful of "Congratulations" had vanished, the table of smiling faces had vanished, and even the empty bowl had vanished.
He glanced at his panel.
The progress bar for Sleep Level 2 was full.
The deep sleep he’d had that night had pushed it over the finish line.
Even with such a long dream, his body’s recovery during sleep hadn’t been hindered in the slightest.
He invested his Points. Sleep Level 2 → Level 3.
Richard closed his eyes, feeling the changes within his body.
Sleeping · Wild Sleep.
Fall asleep quickly in any environment and achieve high-quality recovery. Can retain danger Perception during light sleep.
As the trait activated, Richard immediately felt a difference.
He could feel that his ability to fall asleep had grown once more. He had truly reached the point where he could fall asleep the moment his head hit the pillow, and his sleep was both deep and stable.
And that ’string’ of alertness to danger while in a light sleep.
Even while asleep, that string inside him would remain taut. The slightest disturbance in his surroundings would awaken him before he was even consciously aware of it.
He sat on the edge of his bed, hesitated for a moment, then reached into his drawer and took out his Tarot Cards.
Mrs. MacNeil had taught him that Divination could sometimes interpret dreams.
Richard placed the Copper Disc in the center of his desk and sprinkled a small pinch of Dangling Star Sand onto it.
He lit a Candle and placed it on a far corner of the desk. The flame stood steady.
He began to shuffle the cards.
’What is the meaning of this dream I had?’
He let the question seep into the cards, little by little, following the rhythm of his Quadruple Breathing.
On the seventh shuffle, he cut the deck and drew the first card.
He turned it over.
The War Chariot·Upright.
An armored warrior stood in his chariot, driving white horses. With a pull of the reins, he charged forward irresistibly.
Richard stared at the card for a while.
The War Chariot represents will and control, forcing two horses—one black and one white, each pulling in a different direction—to work as one, charging toward victory on sheer momentum.
But his dream had none of that "charging" energy.
In his dream, he was standing still in a warm place, with only that one spot of emptiness.
The War Chariot and that dream were completely unrelated.
Richard frowned, set the card aside, and reshuffled, asking his second question.
’Where did that emptiness in my heart come from?’
On the seventh shuffle, he drew a card.
He turned it over.
The Empress·Upright.
A voluptuous Empress sat on a cushion, a field ripe with wheat behind her, a symbol of abundance and fruition in her lap.
Richard grew even more confused.
The Empress represents nourishment, being surrounded by love, lacking nothing, and being completely fulfilled.
He had asked about "emptiness," but the card he drew was all about "fullness."
He had asked "what is missing," but the answer was "nothing is missing."
It was completely contradictory. Richard’s brow furrowed even deeper.
Not ready to give up, he shuffled the cards a third time and asked his most direct question yet.
’Was that dream an omen?’
He turned over the card.
The Fool·Upright.
A traveler with a light bundle stood at the edge of a cliff, his face tilted upward.
He was about to take a step off, his entire being radiating the eager hope of one who has yet to face the world.
The longer Richard stared at this card, the more confused he became.
The Fool represents a new beginning, innocence, a leap of faith into a journey with an unknown future.
This card, at least, seemed to be about him.
A person about to leave home and rush toward a whole new world.
But what did that have to do with the dream being an omen?
The War Chariot, The Empress, The Fool.
All three cards were crystal clear, and as upright as could be.
But when he laid them out together, he couldn’t discern any coherent narrative.
Richard leaned forward, using his Rationality skill to deconstruct the three cards, to break them down and forcefully piece together a logical chain.
After the third attempt, he gave up.
There was a chasm between these three cards and his dream that he simply could not cross.
The ring of Dangling Star Sand in the Copper Disc had remained perfectly still at the edge the entire time.
It hadn’t grown cold, as it did when danger was near, nor had it gathered toward the center, as it had during the divination for the ebony box.
It just lay there peacefully, as if to say: ’There is nothing to warn against, and nothing to point toward.’
Richard gathered the cards, shuffled them again, and asked from a different angle.
This time, he drew The Sun·Upright, The Justice·Upright, and The Hermit·Upright.
Once again, they were three cards that couldn’t be more upright.
Richard rested his hands on the edge of the desk, staring at the cards spread out before him for a long time.
He tried a different method, interpreting each card individually as it related to his current moment.
The War Chariot.
’Am I not mustering all my strength to head for the Imperial Capital right now?’
’Everyone’s expectations, several forces twisted into one, are pushing me forward irresistibly.’
’That is the War Chariot.’
The Empress.
’Am I not surrounded, protected, and nurtured by the people around me right now?’
’The roomful of "Congratulations" in the dream, lacking nothing, full of everything.’
’That is The Empress.’
The Fool.
’Am I not about to leap into the brand new world of the Imperial Capital with a light pack on my back?’
’That is The Fool.’
The next three cards were the same.
The Sun—’Right now, I’m walking the brightest path of my life.’
The Justice—’The cause I planted with that essay I wrote is now bearing fruit, one by one.’
The Hermit—’I’m guarding a bellyful of secrets that can’t be told, fumbling along the edge of the Curtain alone.’
Richard let out a long breath.
The cards hadn’t been fooling him. They had been honest from start to finish.
He was the one who had brought a Prophet’s question to a Detective’s tool.
The cards only ever read "what has already happened" and "what is happening now."
They couldn’t read the future.
Meanwhile, Old Big was doing something he usually hated to do.
Performing a divination for himself.
When people perform divinations for themselves, they always have selfish motives. They want to hear good news and fear hearing bad news.
With one tremor of the hand, the stones become impossible to read accurately.
Lady Mary used to say that the stones don’t lie; the one who lies is you, in your haste to hear good news.
In his entire life, Old Big had rarely performed a divination for himself.
Today, he wanted to.
Those followed all night by the Black Hound almost never survived the month.
The Black Hound hadn’t followed him all night, but it had crouched by the small river at the East of Waste Rock Lane and watched him for a long time.
After the Echo Society’s network was disturbed, no one was closer to that web than a coroner who performed autopsies every day.
He flipped through the registry, cross-referenced it with the Canal Map, and pieced together over a decade’s worth of death notices, one by one.
He was about to touch the thread.
Old Big took the Copper Disc out of a cabinet and placed it in the center of his workbench.
He then took out a handful of Talisman Stones.
He clutched the twenty-odd stones tightly in his palm.
He closed his eyes and, just as his teacher had taught him, focused on his question until it was perfectly clear in his mind.
Not asking about others, only about himself.
’What... will become of me?’
Old Big opened his eyes and cast the handful of stones into the Copper Disc.
The stones rolled around in the disc.
He leaned down to read them, once, then again.
The Wheat Ear rolled out of the disc; the harvest would no longer be his.
The Double Ring rolled out of the disc; relationships would no longer be his.
The New Moon, too, rolled out of the disc.
Change, growth, the days to come—all had rolled outside the disc, landing on the cold surface of the workbench.
The Hammer also rolled out of the disc.
Action... he would have no more actions to take.
The four most important stones had all rolled out of the Copper Disc.
Only two stones remained in the center of the disc.
A Water Drop: unfinished business.
A Spiral: repetition.
The two stones lay steadily in the center of the disc, very close together, neither one leaving.
Old Big sat at his workbench, staring at the two stones in the center of the disc for a long, long time.
A Divination Master is a Detective, not a Prophet.
He had remembered his teacher’s words his entire life.
A Prophet asks what will happen. A Detective asks what has already happened.
Divination only ever reads what has already happened and what is happening now.
It can’t read the future.
This meant that what his divination had revealed was about to become an established fact.
His thread had reached its end.
Old Big stood up and burst into hearty laughter.
"Fine."

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