Once their preparations were done, the group got into Liza's car and headed straight to the bayside boulevard where they saw Richelle peddling her foodstuffs. They then split into pairs upon their arrival and got to work.

Marice and Katherine searched along the baywalk while Mariella and Liza checked the service road on the other side of the boulevard.

It was more than likely that the girl had already fled the area even before they left, but they could use all the clues they could get. Simply relying on surveillance cameras against a wraith's illusion magics would do them no good, so the scrying doll that Marice had made on the way there should make things a little bit easier for them.

After a full hour of following Richelle's trail further south, they decided to return back to the car to formulate their next plan.

"Any luck with your drones, Kath?" Liza asked.

Katherine had her eyes on the wide holographic screen in front of her, which displayed two video feeds from her drones. "Still nothing."

Marice crossed her arms. "So all we got so far is a single strand of her hair and some eyewitness accounts. Better than nothing I suppose."

"You know," Liza began, "I've been wondering. Richelle's wearing a cap, face mask, and privacy visor—more than enough to cover her defining features from public surveillance cameras." She clenched her hand under her chin. "Why go to all that trouble if the wraith can just spoof her presence anytime?"

Adjusting her striped cap, she watched the crowd grow bit by bit around Katherine. "Probably because the wraith wasn't anywhere close to Richelle when we did the scrying. She wouldn't have bothered masking her actual location if they were together, right?"

"Yeah, I see what you mean. But if she can remotely cast spells like what she did to us earlier, it wouldn't matter if she was with Richelle or not."

"I highly doubt she can give her a convincing disguise from a distance. She may be a wraith, but spells still have to obey certain conditions and prerequisites."

"What does she need to pull it off then?"

"Her own incorporeal body. The next best thing she could use is Richelle's shadow, but you can't exactly get away walking around without a shadow in broad daylight."

She brought out a pocket mirror and flipped it open. "So we just gotta hope they don't meet up during our search, huh? And we still have to worry about whoever saved Richelle last night too."

Marice smiled as the children in the crowd started inspecting Katherine and her floating shield up close. "By the way, how long do we have to wait until the local government gives us access to the cameras?"

"Ah, yeah. They just got the authorization a few minutes ago."

"Huh. That was fast."

With her eyes fixed at her own reflection, Liza leaned closer to Marice. "Uncle pulled some strings," she said in a hushed tone, fixing a few locks of hair. "He sounded so shocked when he found out about the wraith too."

"Obviously."

"We just need to wait a little more until my friends finish analyzing all the footage." She flipped her mirror back with a click. "So, um, how about we have lunch while we wait? I'm absolutely starving!"

"Me too!" Mariella chimed in from behind them. "I only had coffee and pandesal this morning!"

Marice turned around, looking at the doll her mother was working on. "You didn't eat some of the leftovers from last night?"

"I woke up pretty late, so I thought I should just wait and eat brunch with everybody."

"Then shall we head back for now?" Liza asked.

As if on cue, Mariella thrust the doll in the air. "Dunzo!"

"Oh, finally finished with that? Even with their limited range, having more of those dolls will help a lot."

"Right?" She sprung up from the car's backseat. "It's gonna be more effective by at least fifty percent since it's cuter than my cute little daughter!"

Before Marice could give a snarky response, she felt something tugging at her jacket from behind. "Oh," she uttered, facing the small girl. "Need something?"

"Are you a robot too, Big Sister?"

"Uh, no."

"Oh."

As the girl skipped back to Katherine and her growing circle of fans, a young woman took her place. "U-Um, excuse me..."

Marice furrowed her eyebrows, eyeing the college ID card on her chest. "What? I don't have all day."

She shrunk back from her stern gaze, but she took a deep breath as if to compose herself. "Y-You're the daughter of Miss Mariella Alcantara, right?"

"Well, yeah. What of it?"

"And you still practice astromancy, right?"

Marice sighed. "You want a reading then?"

The student's eyes widened. "Can I? I only managed to save up six months worth of my part-time job salary as payment, so—"

"I-I don't need that much." With an exasperated grumble, Marice faced her mother. "What's your usual rates for—"

"Oh, but I insist! It's a small price to pay for me to get a chance to glean from the future."

"Fine." She held out a palm. "Let's get this over with."

As the student pressed her hand against Marice's, a magic circle resembling a blank celestial map appeared beneath their feet, causing the other onlookers to step away. Marice then asked her the meat and potatoes she would need in her divination: the client's birth date, time of birth, then her place of birth. Each detail mapped out the chart in real time, the spectacle drawing even more passersby into the crowd.

"How are you feeling?" Marice asked, focusing astral energy to her eyes.

"I'm over the moon! I finally get to experience a divine reading from an Alcantara!"

"That's good and all, but better temper your expectations." Her irises turned into diamond slits. "What you're about to see could go either way."

The student nodded, wearing a more serious expression. "I'm ready!"

As they gazed into each other's eyes, Marice saw visions of the woman before her.

Visions of her client forming a business after graduating. How she worked herself to the bone just to keep her mind off from her worries. How her efforts eventually bore fruit. How she found her significant other once the whole operation found its footing.

But seeing her family falling apart caused her to have a change of heart and reconcile with them, even giving her step-sister an important position in her company. However, that act of kindness ended up to be the catalyst of her descent to misery and despair, starting from her step-sister's attempts to sabotage the company from the inside.

And from there, it was just one bad thing after another. Like putting out a patch of fire, only for another to appear elsewhere.

As the student collapsed on all fours, Marice recalled the magic circle and got to her knees. "Are you okay?"

"Y-Yeah." She let out a deep sigh. "That's the kind of stuff you'd see on teleseryes..."

"Those visions are merely extrapolated reflections of the past. How you interpret them is all up to you, but I suggest not overthinking about it either."

"But aren't visions projected by the Stellar Glare really accurate? That's why big celebrities constantly seek out your clan to do readings for them..."

"Nothing's ever truly set in stone. If I do another reading, you will end up seeing a different set of visions."

"R-Really? But still..."

"What if I told you that all of your hopes and dreams are rubbish and you'll never amount to anything? Would you actually believe me?"

"I-I don't know. But even if it were true, it's not like I can just give up and not do anything about it!"

"Well, that's your answer." She fished out two small bottles from one of her cargo short's pockets. "And one more thing: don't let other people interfere with your pursuit of happiness, but also keep in mind that everybody else deserves to be happy as well."

The student gasped, looking at her with wide hopeful eyes. "Yeah, you're right. I... have to apologize to my step-sister for leaving. I shouldn't have left her alone there."

Marice handed out the bottles. "Here."

"Are these... scented beads?"

"Made with alchemy, so they'll last forever as long as you feed them custard."

"Th-They're alive? And why custard?"

She shrugged. "Beats me. Just gotta put up with the picky bastards."

"Thank you so much, Miss Marice!"

She paused, giving her another piercing stare. "One of mom's fan club members, right?"

Her cheeks turned pink as she held her hands between them. "H-How did you know? Did you figure that out when you were reading my fortune earlier?"

"Last time I checked, everybody else in that little group called me Marice too."

"A-Ah... I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all. I appreciate it."

"You know, you have scary-looking eyes, but you're actually as kind and caring as your mother."

"Ah, yeah. Sure." Feeling a bit of heat in her cheeks, Marice glanced at the crowd. "We're in the middle of something right now, so..."

The student took out an envelope from her backpack and handed it to Marice. "Again, thank you so much!"

Marice stared at the envelope for a moment until she felt a hand on her shoulder. Mariella crouched beside her and offered a piece of candy to the student, who took it with a befuddled look on her face. "Here's an added bonus from yours truly!" she said. "A fortune candy!"

"Um, like a fortune cookie?"

"Even better! After you eat the candy, slip the wrapper into your wallet and you might find yourself a bit more prosperous in the near future!"

"That's amazing! Can I try it now?"

"Sure! The sooner, the better!"

As the student popped the candy in her mouth, Marice gave her mother an incredulous look. "Wait, isn't that just some cheap candy from Liza's—gyah!"

Startled from Marice's cry, the student brought a hand over her throat. "Oh no! I swallowed it! What do I do? That doesn't ruin the charm, does it?"

Patting her daughter's back, Mariella gave her a thumbs up. "It's fine! It doesn't really matter how you eat it!"

Marice gritted her teeth. Did she really have to cake her hand with ice magic?!

"Right, all done!" With a wide smile on her face, the student shoved her wallet back to her jeans' pocket. "Ah, the gods must be smiling at me today! Thankyouthankyouthankyou! I hope we meet again!"

They watched her cut through the crowd before finally taking a turn out of view. Marice was about to give her mother a good scolding, but a woman with a robotic prosthetic arm stepped out of the crowd and approached them.

"Ah, can you please read my fortune next?"

Just as Marice was about to decline, a middle-aged man ran up to them, pulling down his augmented reality glasses. "Me too! I want a reading too!"

And another followed suit. "No, read mine first! I'll pay you well!"

As more and more people started to swarm them, Marice grabbed her mother's wrist. "In the car, now!"

"Huh?!" Katherine turned around, still surrounded with children grabbing on her duffel coat. "What about me?!"

"Sorry, Kath!" Marice cried just as she closed the car door. "You know how I'm allergic to crowds!"

"Nooo! Don't leave me!"

She buried her face in her hands. "Just get us out of here."

"O-Okay," Liza said, starting the car's engine.

Mariella chuckled, wagging the envelope next to her daughter's face. "Where did that boost in confidence come from anyway?"

She let out a sigh as the car finally sped up. "A charm."

"What charm?"

"A professor of mine told me that whenever you visit a faraway place, like another country, you should always entertain the first person who asks you for a fortune reading. She said it was like a charm to attract some good luck or karma."

"Huh," she replied, opening the envelope, "I never knew that."

Marice grabbed her wrist. "What are you doing?"

"Relax. I just need to—" She pulled out a letter between the paper bills. "—there! Ah, the paper's even scented too. How nice."

"What's that?"

She puffed her cheeks and flicked her daughter's hand away. "This is meant for my eyes only! Get your own fans if you want one!"

"Don't be ridiculous."

She grinned as she took out a couple of paper bills for Marice. And using her displacement magic, the envelope disappeared in her hand, replacing it with a familiar candy wrapper between her index and middle fingers. "But after that little performance of yours earlier, I'm sure it'll be only a matter of time."

"Could you not—" Marice faced the window, only to see Katherine's pouting face next to her. "Wah!"

Katherine laughed for a moment before an incoming van forced her to fly upwards. "Hey, that's very rude!"

Marice opened her window. "Stop messing around! You might hit a car or two!"

"Fine, just give me some space!"

"Wait, what are you—" Katherine suddenly slipped her legs into the window. "You idiot! There's no more space here!"

Mariella poked her head from the seat in front of Marice. "Space? What space?"

But before she could get to utter a retort, Katherine slid the rest of her body inside, her head landing on Marice's lap.

"Seriously," Marice asked, narrowing her eyes. "You're just showing off now."

Katherine wore a smug look on her face. "Weren't you?"

She turned crimson, performing a karate chop on her neck. "Shut it."

Surprisingly, she did. Marice let her eyes wander outside for a moment before she looked down at Katherine again. "Isn't it about time you get off me?"

"A-Ah, yeah! Sorry!"