3. Folly

Folly twists the gold hoops into his ears. Thankfully he's already dusted the dark powder around his eyes. His hands are shaking too much for it now. The carnival is due to open any minute, and the first customers won't be far behind. This should be Folly's time to prepare alone. Not suffer Roland's interrogation.

"Just two magical objects." Roland's disbelief is clear. "I should make you go back tomorrow. You must have missed something."

Folly's hip burns with awareness of the coin tucked into his purse. Guilt and grievance tumble like pebbles in his stomach. Sure, Folly's lying. There were four magical objects this time. But two wouldn't have been strange. "I'll go back if you want me to."

"I don't want you to go back," Roland snaps. "I want you to fucking get it right the first time."

The magenta canvas tent is claustrophobic with Roland inside. There's barely space for the two of them, and Folly nearly trips over the long red tablecloth as he maneuvers around Roland. He reaches out to steady the magic bowl.

The front flap is tied open, and an armed cashier stands guard outside. But the guard protects against clients and thieves, not the boss.

Folly adjusts one of the hanging scarves. "I'm trying," he says quietly. He adjusts another scarf and exhales. "The carnival's open. I should finish setting up."

If Roland has any good quality, it's that his hobbies—like toying with Folly's nerves—don't interfere with business. "At least you're good at this," Roland says. "I wish the acrobats had half your professionalism. And, hey."

Folly looks up, startled to find Roland far closer. There's wine on his breath, but that doesn't mean anything. He's horrible sober too.

"The nights have been chilly for summer." Roland squeezes Folly's shoulder, his palm hot and uncomfortable through Folly's robe. "If your little wagon's too cold, you can always bunk up with me."

Folly forces a smile through his revulsion. "My wagon's fine. Thanks."

Chuckling, Roland lets go. "No need to be so jumpy. What are you scared of?"

He leaves without waiting for an answer. Folly leans against the draped table, filled more with dread than relief. Roland's gone for now, and he never pushes too far.

He just never stops.

Days like today, Folly wishes he had never reassured Roland that his golden eye was harmless. Folly was just so desperate for a job. The eye had lost him opportunities with superstitious employers before.

Two years later, Folly would rather be scary than pathetic.

Distant laughter jolts Folly from his self-pity. He smooths out his flowing blue-green robe, the pockets hanging with his handfuls of iron nails. Just to make him feel better. The robe is worn and often-mended, but the patches don't show in the dim light. Folly buttons the cuffs tight around his wrists. Can't let the baggy sleeves fall in the magic bowl.

The bowl was Folly's idea, and it doesn't look quite as magical as he'd hoped. Customers still seem more impressed with his eye. It's just a ceramic bowl painted with nonsense symbols on the outside, filled with water and glass beads. Broken bottles, their edges smoothed out. The bowl's bottom is glass too, and it sits on a stand that conceals a lantern. As the flame flickers, the light refracts and dances through the glass and water.

Folly settles into his chair and turns up the lantern. He's just closed the grate as the first customers pass the cashier guard. The woman looks a few years older than Folly, and the boy must be six or seven. Mother and son, probably, with similar dark hair and round features, though Folly won't say so until he's certain. They could always be siblings, or aunt and nephew.

"Come closer, welcome," Folly calls out, his spirits lifting. "Dare you learn your fortune from the Great Folarius?"

Not his real name, which is even stupider.

"Can we, Mama?" the boy asks, which answers that assumption.

"We already paid, so we'd better," the woman says, clearly a skeptic. But even skeptical clients pause at their first glimpse of Folly's golden eye.

He revels in this moment—when customers first see him as a wonder. Not a freak. When they step into the sphere of his performance.

Folly controls this space, with scarves and chicken bones and dried flowers rustling overhead, lanterns flickering in green and blue glass shades. A charlatan's throne room. His eye gleams even brighter against the dark powder.

Not every customer falls under his spell. There are the cheerful, tipsy couples who just want to hear someone say they'll be together forever and ever. The groups of friends competing to get the best fortune. Folly likes those customers too, and he's happy to invent specific, ridiculous claims.

But right now, Folly faces a child and a skeptic. He lifts his hands over the bowl. "It's a shame the guard insists on such mundane financial matters. The future is priceless. Come closer, now. Let the Great Folarius find your futures with his magical eye."

The boy darts ahead. "Is your eye real?"

"Don't touch anything," the woman says, and the boy yanks his hands away from the table.

Folly winks. "Do you think my eye is real?"

Someday, when the boy is thirteen or sixteen and thinks he knows everything, he'll remember getting swindled by the charlatan fortuneteller. But for now, the boy stares, entranced.

"I've seen the fates of kings and paupers," Folly continues, watching the boy's reactions. "Adventurous sailors and brilliant scholars. Talented bards and the great warriors those bards sing about." There. The boy's eyes light up. "Farmers and priests and boys just like you. Now, let's see what you are."

Folly waves his hand slowly above the bowl. Light ripples beneath his palm.

"The vision is bright." Folly's brow furrows, as if concentrating. "So bright I can hardly see past its glory. I see a sword…" He gasps. His eyes roll up, and his hand trembles above the water. Then he relaxes with a showy exhalation. "Your long years of training will pay off. You will be the greatest warrior of your kin, and the bards will sing of your deeds. Yet be cautious. Your greatest challenge will not be on the battlefield."

Folly likes to end the warrior fortunes on a careful note. Just in case the kids take them too seriously.

"Do I slay a dragon?" the boy asks eagerly.

As far as Folly knows, dragons aren't real. "Dragons are too magical. Many of them are also fortunetellers, and I can't see another fortuneteller's fate."

"What about me?" the woman asks. At least she's the amused sort of skeptic, not the angry kind. "Am I destined for great deeds too?"

Folly sits back. He doesn't need the arm waving for this. "You've already accomplished great deeds, my lady. Whether or not anyone has noticed." When she flinches slightly, Folly stares directly into her eyes. "You will accomplish many more if you pay more heed to those who notice than those who don't."

She looks stunned by the vague advice. Or by the intensity of Folly's gaze. Either way, she's quiet as she tugs her chattering son away.

The next customers follow quickly: a group of teenage girls, each more excited than the last. Then a drunk, happy pair of sisters. As the hours go by, Folly feels drunk on joy himself. On attention. On that rarest of magics—confidence. Whether entrancing believers or entertaining skeptics, Folly feels far less afraid and far more himself.

Goodfellow's Marvelous Magic Troupe is open from evening to midnight. Folly's foot traffic slows an hour before the carnival closes. Most lingering townsfolk are preoccupied with the flashier acrobatics show—and the ale.

During a lull, Folly rises to stretch his legs. Tonight's been busy, and Roland should be happy with the take. Maybe Folly can sneak away to a tavern tomorrow, to ask other travelers about mysterious foreign coins. Talking to strangers is awful, but Folly's so curious. It might be worth the anxiety.

From outside, the cashier guard calls, "One more coming your way, O Great Folarius."

Folly bats a scarf out of his face. Last customer of the night, probably, he should make this a good performance. He spreads his robes out as he sits—then freezes.

The man is so tall he has to duck beneath the entrance. His face glitters like a golden moon among the lanterns. Copper eyes and long brown hair, and silk clothes far too fine for this grubby carnival.

A sword hangs at his hip. The guard shouldn't have let him pass. But the man's entire being shimmers with the telltale magic of a fae glamour.

The guard doesn't see what Folly sees.

"So, this is the great Folarius," the creature says. His voice is jarringly ordinary.

"The one and only. If you've seen any others, no you didn't." Folly's response is rote as his mind races. "How should I address you, good sir?"

His hands itch for the knife in his boot and the nails in his pockets. As if Folly would win in a fight. But the fae is disguised, which means he doesn't want to be discovered. If Folly just plays along, maybe the fae will just leave.

Please, just leave.

"Call me Moriath." Long fingers brush the red tablecloth. The fae's head tilts. "That's a pretty trick with the water bowl."

"Um. Thank you." Folly needs to regain control of the performance. No matter how wrong the intrusion into his safe space feels. "Now, Moriath, you look like a man who wants your fortune told."

"No, let's not talk about me." Moriath's teeth are too sharp. "I'd rather learn about you, O Great Folarius, and your lovely golden eye."

Folly swallows. He flourishes one hand above the bowl as the other creeps into his pocket. "All my eye sees are the great mysteries of, um, times yet to come. I foresee…"

The stock platitudes stick in his throat, along with his unvoiced cry for help. Danger whispers in Folly's ear. The guard is no match for this creature.

"You have talent, but not skill." Moriath taps the edge of the bowl, and his eyes glint when Folly flinches. "Nobody ever taught you to look at the glamour, not just through it."

Folly's hand closes around a palmful of cold iron. "I think you should leave."

"My glamour disguises me as a human, six inches shorter than this form." Moriath's sharp smile widens. "You've been meeting my eyes this entire time."

Panic spurring him into motion, Folly flings the nails.

Moriath jerks back with an inhuman hiss as Folly crashes to his feet. The falling chair drags the tablecloth, and light veers wildly through the rocking bowl. Folly staggers backwards for the gap in the tent.

Amidst the hanging scarves and swinging lights, Moriath touches a red mark on his pale face. His icy glare seems to pause time. Then light pulses around him, a sick, greenish glow. The glamour drops, and Moriath's true form ripples.

Folly pushes through the back flap. Canvas clings like vines, slowing him down. Then he's out, heedless of the shouts rising around him. Calls for the water buckets, because usually a downed tent means fire. Not fae.

Folly's desperate to reach his wagon. He'll be safe with a horseshoe above his door. Just a hundred-foot sprint to the wagon circle. Folly shoves past a pair of drunks, then there's a wide open stretch of scrubby field between him and the camp fence. The gate's farther down—does he run for the gate, or climb the fence? Which is faster?

A tall shadow darkens in front of him, with iridescent eyes.

Folly yelps and jerks away. His feet catch in the hem of his robe, and he stumbles back—then down to the ground.

"No need to run," says the shadow—Moriath. The voice is different, but this is definitely the same creature. "I don't intend to hurt you, yet."

Folly flings the second handful of nails.

This time, Moriath only laughs. His form ripples again. Shadows melt to reveal an elderly man, eerily human, with stringy dark hair and witch runes tattooed on his face. Even his clothing has changed, rough leather and cotton, pouches and herb bundles hanging from his vest.

"Iron only hurts the fae, and I'm not fae right now." Moriath tugs a pouch from his vest. "Let's stop you from running. That will get tedious."

Knife in hand, Folly scrambles for his feet. His stupid robe tangles around his ankle again, but falling to his knee again doesn't make a difference. He has no hope of running from the spell swirling around the creature's hand. The spell coils, then launches?—

And a golden rift tears through the night.