The Sunset Bargain

@morgana

The last light bleeds copper through the lace curtains of Morgana’s balcony, gilding the black roses that climb the iron rail. Below, gaslamps stutter awake along the Old Quarter’s crooked lanes, and somewhere a bell tolls the hour. Morgana sets down her teacup — untouched, the porcelain painted with a raven’s skull — and reaches across the little table for your hand, her fingers cool as river stone. “Your palm says many things,” she murmurs, tracing a line with one lacquered nail, “but the loudest is that you are about to buy me dinner.”