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escritoireazulIn a decade, she is Alice, and she is the Cheesemonger, and she has twined her control throughout the city. She had thought the challenge would last forever, but it has been too easy, her fortune built on secrets and – when she is alone, she allows herself a smile – cheese.
She is visiting Benthic College, her thoughts on the past and the future, fortunetellers and their secrets, when it happens. She cannot find her fortuneteller at the great Mahogany Hall, and it is, she finds, a disappointment.
From the shadows, a slender hand catches her sleeve, and Alice finds herself led into the shadows.
They stand so close they could kiss, this fortune a whisper in her ear.
“They have turned on the city,” she murmurs, her breath warm against Alice’s cheek. “You could stop them, if you will.”
There is no need for a response --
she has been thinking of this for months, watching the secrets and the lies and the spies, and growing disillusioned with her world
-- but Alice says it without hesitation, and seals her own future with lips and tongue.
“I will.”
For three quarters of an hour, they are together, in a lovers clench if anyone cares to look. Then Alice is left alone with her secrets and her thoughts and a small vial of Cantigaster venom.
She is left alone with these things and a terrible, destructive plan.
