The bed had been made during his absence. She now sat on top of the counterpane, his mother’s empty diary still open before her. He tried to gather himself. But how did he find the right words for something like this, even if he had a hundred years and piles of dictionaries as big as the pyramids?
She waited—and kept turning the blank diary, page after page.
“About Kashkari’s dream . . . remember that he does not take it as the future written in stone.”
She gazed at him—and turned another page.
But this time, there was writing on the page, his mother’s familiar, neat hand. “The diary!”
She looked down, surprised.
“Let us read that first.” Please.
She nodded. He sat down next to her, put his arm around her shoulders, and kissed her on her temple.
31 August, YD 1013
A most fantastical day.
I slipped out of a command performance of Titus III, evaded my ladies-in-waiting, and hurried to the Emporium of Fine Learning and Curiosities, Constantinos’s shop. As I walked into the shop, the vision repeated itself an unprecedented seventh time.
This time, I saw clearly the distinctive ring on the hand wielding the stylus.
When the vision had faded, I lifted my own hand in shock. On my right index finger is an identical ring that had been wrought for Hesperia the Magnificent. There is not another like it in all the mage realms.
The woman is me.
I laughed. Well, then.
“We have read this before, haven’t we?” she asked.
He too recognized the diary entry, a pivotal one that they had read together the night of his Inquisition six months ago. He did not know why, but the hair on the back of his neck stood up.
Once I had a vision of myself telling my father that a particular Atlantean girl was going to be the most powerful person in the Domain. Then, when I saw the girl in truth, I told him what I had seen myself tell him—since one cannot deliberately change what has been seen to happen. He was terribly displeased to be faced with the possibility that he, a direct descendant of Titus the Great, would one day no longer be the absolute master of this realm.
But this time I would offend no one.
I found the book, dragged it to the table, lifted the stylus from its holder, and vandalized the book as I had done in the vision.
In the margins of the book, his mother had written, There is no elixir, however tainted, that cannot be revived by a thunderbolt. Nearly seventeen years later, those very lines would spur Fairfax to bring down her first bolt of lightning.
The one that changed everything.
Only when I was finished did I remember the desk calendar. In the vision it is always 25 August. But today is 31 August. I looked at the calendar on the desk. 25 August! The device had stopped working a week ago.
I am not often cheered by how right I am: the ability to see glimpses of the future is frustrating and hair-raising. But at that moment, I was ever so thrilled.
On impulse, I opened the book again, turned to the section for clarifying draughts, and tore out the last three pages. The recipes given on those pages are riddled with errors. I was not going to let some other poor pupil suffer from them.
The end of the page. And the end of the record of this particular vision, too, the previous time. But this time, when they turned the page, the writing continued.
“Abominable book, isn’t it?” said someone.
I jumped. It was a young man of about my own age, very handsome, with kind, smiling eyes.
“I am—I am going to buy this book,” I mumbled, thoroughly mortified. Why had I not seen this coming?
“That will be a much greater crime,” he said. “I cannot possibly permit you.”
I could not help but smile. “Did they teach you from this book?”
“We had to bow before it too, as if it were the Epiphanies.”
My eyes must have bulged. He laughed. “I was kidding. It didn’t become quite that absurd, but the book is atrociously overrated and only good for a stepping stool.”
“But still, I damaged it. And I should pay for it.”
“Buy a few good books then, to compensate the bookseller.”
Struck by divine inspiration, I asked, “Do you have any recommendations for good books?”
He did. We spent a happy half hour browsing through the aisles. All too soon my pocket watch began to throb, reminding me that it was time