Page 107 of Moonlit Fate

Patches, the ragged purple cat, one eye hidden beneath a bedraggled leather patch, sat on a small table. He emitted a low yowl. He looked forlorn, and I wondered if he missed Atticus as much as I did. When Atticus and I had first come to visit the seer, the feline had taken great delight in jumping up and perching on his shoulder, purring as if it were its rightful place.

“Quit moping, Patches,” I said softly, scratching the spot behind his ear. He blinked his single eye slowly, as if acknowledging the shared loss.

“Focus on what’s important,” Ilaric, who’d accompanied me today, said.

“Easy for you to say.” I felt anything but focused. How could I focus when I was so exhausted? Since the ritual, the forest had undergone an unsettling change, as if the energy had become distorted. It didn’t help that we were all inundated with the presence of the spirits Atticus and I had unleashed during the ritual.

Seren, bless her, had it so much harder because her magic called to them. That hadn’t stopped her and me from researching to find a solution. After getting nowhere with the books available to us, Ilaric had counseled me to visit the seer, but so far, we weren’t getting any answers. Being here was just as exasperating as I remembered, and it fueled my mounting unease.

“Why can’t you just tell me what to do?” I pressed the old man, the buzzing beneath my skin growing more insistent, fraying what little patience I had left.

The seer shook his head, his attention back on the bubbling mixture in front of him. “I can’t lead you by the nose, child. Free will is a delicate thing. Mess with it and the whole tapestry of the future changes.”

“Surely there’s a way?—”

“Even a simple thought can shift fate’s path,” he said, stirring the concoction. “Knowing too much is as dangerous as knowing too little. It’s about balance. Always balance.”

“Balance.”

“Now you understand.” It felt like he was talking more to his potion than to me.

Ilaric leaned against the wall, arms crossed, the look on his face suggesting he had heard this all before.

Patches moved to perch on a stack of scrolls next to me. The cat watched the seer with an almost judgmental twist of hislips before turning his single eye toward me. He made a soft chirruping noise, which I took as a call for attention.

“All right, Patches.” I sighed and scratched him behind his ear again. His purr vibrated through the silence, a comforting sound amidst my confusion.

Patches bumped his head against my hand. That simple act caused the pile of scrolls underneath him to lose their precarious balance. As the cat gracefully leaped to safety, parchment scattered in all directions, sending a cloud of dust billowing into the air.

“See?” The seer gestured broadly at the mayhem. “It takes so little to upset the equilibrium. What was once order is now a mess of discord. Just like everything around us, girlie.”

“Great analogy,” I muttered as I picked up a crumpled scroll and carefully rolled it back up. The seer didn’t seem to care about the disarray.

“Let’s not forget why we’re here,” Ilaric said. “Remember the importance of your choices.”

“Right,” I said, straightening. “My choices.” But I still felt clueless about the decisions pressing down on me.

Patches, now settled among the mess he’d made, looked up at me with an expression that seemed to say, ‘What’s next?’

“Thanks for the help,” I told the cat dryly. He blinked slowly as if acknowledging the humor in our plight.

“So what now?” I asked, trying to stay calm. “According to you, I’ve got a mess on my hands. What am I supposed to do about it?”

The seer leaned back in his chair, eyeing me with that unnerving gaze of his. “Clean it up. It won’t be easy. You’ll need to make sacrifices, let go of long-held beliefs, break old habits.”

“Vague much?” I snapped, even as Ilaric’s stern look warned me to temper my impatience.

“Inner healing, self-work,” the seer continued, ignoring my tone. “That’s how you’ll see your path forward clearly. There’s a lot at stake. I hope you are in a position to handle it.”

With a sigh, he started pouring his potion into glass bottles, grumbling about “kids these days” and their inability to “follow simple instructions”.

“Can you give me anything concrete to work with?” I pressed, clenching my fists. “Somedirectionat least?”

“Nothing is concrete,” he retorted, and I could tell from his furrowed brow that he was holding back a lecture. “Each whisper in your ear has the power to reshape the future. Every decision you make changes fate, and let’s face it, you’ve made some terrible ones recently.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” His words stung. I thought about Atticus, about the ritual, and how fear had kept my heart caged.

“Your fear, your negative feelings, your lack of trust—it’s holding you back,” the seer said, and damn it, he was right.

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