Grace's fingers moved deftly, folding gold ingot paper into precise shapes, when the courtyard doors burst open. Werner stormed in, his cloak whipping behind him like an angry shadow.
Grace and her maid Jew exchanged a glance before rising to curtsy. Werner dismissed them with a slash of his hand and threw himself into a chair, his boot tapping an erratic rhythm against the floor.
Grace arched a brow. "Jew." She said, "brew His Highness some first-pick Tangerine Pu'er, it'll soothe his temper."
Then she glided toward Werner, her smile teasing. "Someone's future bride isn't to his liking, I take it?"
Werner's lip curled. "Herbert Campbell oversteps. A damned earl dares pawn off his unwanted daughter on me like I'm some beggar at a flea market."
Grace listened in silence, then drifted to her divination desk. Three weathered coins appeared in her palm as if conjured from air. She clasped them between her hands, whispered an incantation in the old tongue, and cast them onto the lacquered wood. Once. Twice. Six times in total, each toss recorded with a stroke of ink.
Werner, despite himself, leaned forward. The coins seemed to hum with latent energy, their positions unnatural—one balanced perfectly on its edge.
"Well?" He demanded. "What does it say?"
Grace's breath caught. The trigrams sprawled before her in a pattern she hadn't seen in years:
Hexagram 23: Splitting Apart.
Changing to Hexagram 2: The Receptive.
A king's crown crumbling to earth. A womb swallowing it whole.
Her fingers trembled.
Werner seized her wrist. "Grace." His voice was a blade. "Tell me."
Hearing Werner's voice, Grace's eyes refocused, her fingers lingering over the scattered coins as if reluctant to release their secrets. She exhaled slowly, smoothing her expression into neutrality.
"Forgive my distraction, Your Highness." She apologized. "But this reading... is unlike any I've seen."
Werner leaned forward. "Speak plainly."
Grace traced the trigrams with a fingertip. "The one you marry is fated to be a monarch's guardian—sworn to protect the throne with her life. Yet..." She hesitated, then met his gaze. "There are also signs of patricide."
The word hung in the air like a blade.
Werner recoiled as if struck. "Patricide?" He collapsed into his chair, mechanically raising his teacup to his lips. The liquid tasted suddenly bitter. "That—that timid mouse? Impossible."
Grace sipped her own tea, her composure unshaken. "Divination is seldom wrong, though interpretations vary. If she kills her father, it may be to defend the crown." She tilted her head, studying him. "You are not her father, Your Highness. Why should you fear her?"
A slow, calculating light dawned in Werner's eyes.
Grace kept saying. "Consider this--Herbert Campbell has already shown himself disloyal. A wife with no love for her family... is a wife bound solely to you."
Werner's mouth curled into a smile as dark as the tea leaves settling at the bottom of his cup. "How ironic." He mused. "Herbert sought to slight me, and instead handed me a weapon." He set down the cup with deliberate care. "I must remember to thank him properly."
Werner stepped closer, his usual arrogance replaced by an uncharacteristic gravity. "Grace," he said, his voice low, "when the time comes, you will personally oversee my future queen's education. I expect you to be merciless."
Grace rose from her seat and offered a flawless curtsy, though her eyes sparkled with amusement. "Of course, Your Highness. It would be my honor to mold her into the perfect royal consort—unyielding as jade, polished as ivory."
Then, with a theatrical flourish, she extended her right hand, palm upturned, and winked.
Werner's solemnity shattered. He barked a laugh, shaking his head. "You opportunist! I didn't ask for that divination—you volunteered."
Grace's hand remained stubbornly outstretched. "Ah, but if you don't pay, the karma falls on me. And a prince's destiny?" She whistled. "Too heavy for my humble shoulders."
With an exasperated sigh, Werner fished a gold ingot from his sleeve and tossed it to her. "You Easterners are all the same—practically born clutching abacuses." He threw Grace an ingot of gold as he spoke.
Grace caught the gold midair, her grin widening as she weighed it in her palm. "Your Highness, you were born with a silver spoon. For the rest of us?" She pocketed the ingot with a satisfied pat. "Gold is the difference between survival and starvation."
Werner rolled his eyes but couldn't suppress a smirk. "Just make sure my future wife doesn't stab me in my sleep."
"No promises." Grace smiles . "But I'll ensure she curtsies prettily first."