"Keep this to yourself, kid, but the Council just is. That's all. Neither a necessary evil nor, and always remember this, a force of good. We benefit from their protection because it furthers their own ends. What their own ends are, I cannot say, and that's just one more worry we have to keep track of as summoners. Stay on your toes when it comes to them, alright?"

-Djebanu Kori, the Keen Summoner.

"The Council sent me this telegram," said Nemira quietly. "Forgery is impossible."

Beatrice kept running her hands over her handkerchief. She seemed to be chewing something over in her mind. "Do you trust the Council, Nemira?"

She laughed a little. "The Council is the Council."

Her head snapped up. Nemira was not all that surprised to see her glaring hazel eyes shine with frustrated, unshed tears. Beatrice had not changed very much in the few months since they had last seen each other. "And they could very well be trying to...to incapacitate you or kill you off! I don't know the whys or the whos. I certainly don't know much about this Council of yours. Nothing was clear to me but the danger. It was focused on you, my dear, undeniably. I could not not warn you!"

Lyn placed a hand on Beatrice's shoulder. Apparently she had not been expecting it, for she jumped so hard in her seat that the chair legs squeaked against the floorboards. "Take a deep breath and relax, Missy. Let's start from the top and tell the lady summoner what it was the stars showed you."

"Yes, of course." She placed a hand on her chest and inhaled noisily. Then she looked at Sai-em. Her eyes were still a little watery. "I'm sorry, I'm sure this sounds like nonsense to you, Sir Sai-em. I am a forecaster, you see. It is a difficult art to control, even at the best of times."

She reached into her pocket and took out a handheld telescope of polished brass, extending it to its full length placing it next to her napkin. Nemira leaned forward on instinct, examining it with great interest. Several dark bands encircled the length of it, each painted with a multitude of white symbols Nemira couldn’t make sense of. 

"You have your own stellascope now," said Nemira. She looked up at Beatrice and offered a slight smile. "Congratulations are in order."

"The Board of the Clocktower finally accepted my degree from St. Melantha's as legitimate," Beatrice told her, and there was pride in her voice. "I just wish my first reading revealed something more joyful than this."

"What was it, exactly?" asked Sai-em. "Is the Worthy One's life in real danger?"

Beatrice hesitated. She looked down at her stellascope and slowly turned one of its bands. "When I finally received this, I tested it immediately. I opened my inner eye and looked up at the heavens, not really seeking anything particular, but I saw that telegram you and Nemira had been reading as clearly as though I, too, stood over Nemira's shoulder. These rings spun so quickly I feared it would catch fire in my hands. When I read it, three pictographs pointed to this notch at the top, perfectly aligned: the falling bird, the closed eye, and the bloodied knife. The short version of the reading would be: a past betrayal, a deep vulnerability, and encroaching violence."

No one said anything for a long moment. Nemira leaned back in her chair, tapping her finger against her bicep and frowning at the ceiling. The excitement she felt over visiting St. Yarrow’s now seemed quite hollow.

"That's not a lot to go on, Lady Rainier," said Sai-em carefully.

"That's just how forecasting is." Lyn gave a shrug. "Even the giant scopes in the Clocktower can only describe so much."

"I would not have tried to break down Nemira's door had I not been sure she'll put herself in grave danger if she goes into the Burial Grounds," insisted Beatrice. "I know I am basically asking you to believe in little more than a feeling I have, but I promise you that my inner eye and my readings have always been accurate!"

"I believe you," said Nemira.

"Really?" Beatrice's face brightened with hope.

Nemira nodded. "We lived together for two years, how could I not? But what you've told me changes absolutely nothing. I am the Grim Summoner. I will go to St. Yarrow’s Burial Grounds tomorrow morning, because that is my mission from the Council."

"I knew you'd be too stubborn to listen to me!" Beatrice immediately turned her pleading eyes to Sai-em. "Sir knight, please talk sense into her. Her job is not worth more than her life!"

Nemira wanted to look up at Sai-em and study his face, but she had a professional image to maintain, so she kept her gaze on Beatrice as he said, “If there is danger in the Burial Grounds I will protect the Worthy One from it. If her mission becomes too dangerous, I will prioritize her life over her assignment.”

“But I must attempt it regardless,” said Nemira. “A firefighter cannot run away from a burning building just because they’re afraid they might get burned as they put it out. The same principle applies to a summoner.”

“But firefighters choose their profession!”

Nemira pressed her mouth shut.

Beatrice gave a small sniff. “I never thought what happened to you was fair, Nemira. And the more you told me about summoning and everything you have to do for it, the more I became convinced that you are simply trying to make the best of a great injustice.”

Now it was Nemira’s turn to drop her eyes. She stared at the bits of minced pork on her plate, trying not to think too far into the past. “Every summoner is the result of a random act of chance. Even me, despite a few extra factors that meddled in my odds. And I happen to like most of what I do. Your heart needn’t bleed so freely for me.”

Beatrice bristled like an angry cat. "But you were just a child—!"

"Bea." Nemira looked back up at her, raising her voice. She could feel Sai-em beside her, still with palpable tension. And when Beatrice met her eyes, she simply shook her head.

"Very well," said Beatrice, with some difficulty.

"I got an idea!" Lyn's voice was so sudden and filled with so much forced levity they all flinched. "Missy, why don't you just try pointing your scope at that big ol’ graveyard tonight? Maybe you'll see something more specific about the lady summoner!"

"Doubtful," Nemira said.

"That's very unlikely," said Beatrice at the same time.

Lyn held up her hands in defeat. "Damn, alright! Tough crowd."

Sai-em made a sound of such unfiltered disdain that Nemira almost laughed. "You have less knowledge of the supernatural than a fresh mercenary recruit."

"That place is Luminous Order territory, not mine! I just get paid to follow this cute li'l lady all over the place."

Nemira raised her brows at Beatrice upon hearing that, who caught her eye and immediately looked away. Once again, she was quite red in the face despite her fierce frown.

"Take it easy, my good knights," said Nemira. "Dame Lyn, areas like St. Yarrow’s teem with aetherians, and they are second only to the fog wall of Ewald Vale in disrupting the arcane arts. Formulas and stellascopes are highly likely to malfunction when focused at the Burial Grounds.”

Beatrice, who seemed to have recovered somewhat, cleared her throat. "And I am a good forecaster, not an omniscient one. There may be a better chance of seeing the future inside St. Yarrow’s more clearly with a full-sized stellascope that's much nearer to the location than the ones in the Clocktower or St. Melantha's, but I haven't the faintest idea where one of those would be."

Nemira did, but she did not say so aloud. It wasn’t as though any of them would have access to it, anyway.

Lyn, apparently not the type to go down without a fight, clapped her hands together in sudden inspiration. "Wait, then how about this? Just send a message to the Council about Missy's prediction. You have a super secret summoner way to contact them for situations like these, right? I'm sure they'll take it seriously. Something that concerns you concerns the Council, after all."

Nemira rubbed her chin with forefinger and thumb. "That's...not a bad idea at all, Dame Lyn. Would that put your mind at ease, Bea?"

"It would help." Beatrice didn't bother masking the relief in her voice. "So long as someone with authority knows you're in danger."

Sai-em retrieved a small notepad and pen from the counter for Nemira. She scrawled a quick letter detailing Beatrice's prediction, passing the pen to Beatrice and letting her draw the symbols herself. Even free-hand, her ink renditions of the pictographs she had seen were flawless copies of the ones on the scope.

"We spend almost the entirety of our first year of study memorizing the Astrum Pictorial," said Beatrice, after Nemira made an admiring comment on her handwriting. "I'm quite capable of doing this blindfolded. Here you are, my dear."

Nemira took the note as Beatrice finally stood up from her seat. "Bea, I will be honest with you. In all likelihood the Council will have me complete the mission regardless of what they think of your warning."

"If that is indeed the case," she replied, pulling on her silky gloves. "Then you must promise me not to be too reckless while you are there. Heavens knows what the point of that Council is if all they do is just throw summoners into jeopardy willy-nilly!"

Her friend's indignant words echoed in her head even as they bid each other goodbye, Beatrice kissing the air against Nemira's cheeks one after the other before making her swear they'd go out for tea once Nemira returned from her assignment. 

“And thanks for the grub,” Lyn chimed in, grinning as she lifted the leftover dumplings up. “I’ll return the container when you next meet with Missy.”

It wasn't until Nemira closed and locked the shop door behind them that she allowed a pensive sigh to escape past her lips.

"So you really are concerned, Kha-hesh."

Nemira turned around. Sai-em had hung back behind the front counter during their farewell, quiet and watchful.

"Beatrice can be worrywart, but she's quite adept at forecasting. If she says there's going to be an issue, I'll have to expect it." She trudged back to Sai-em, the wind fully out of her sails. "Goodness, and I was really looking forward to conducting more interviews with revenants, too."

"Another time, perhaps," said Sai-em as Nemira threw herself on top of the counter, letting her arms dangle over the edge as she buried her face in the wood. “For now, we concentrate on your safety.”

“But who knows when I’ll get a better chance to go to St. Yarrow’s!” She rolled her head against the counter. “I can’t believe I’m going to let so much research slip through my fingers…”

“Kha-hesh.”

Nemira cracked open an eye and glanced up. She was not surprised to find Sai-em crouching in front of her, his expression grave.

“You will take me with you into the Burial Grounds,” he told her. Once again, she marveled at his bizarre sense of proximity. So boldly close and impossibly far away all at once. 

She grunted and let her face fall back onto the counter. Fortunately for her, she did not blush nearly as easily as Beatrice did. “I know it must have been easy to forget after all the excitement that has happened lately, but I did say that you will be coming with me on my next assignment. Stop looking at me like I’m a misbehaving student and you’re my teacher trying to guide me onto a better life path during our tenth fruitless after-class meeting.”

“That’s oddly specific.”

“Trust me, it's what your face looks like.” Nemira pulled her hands back and slapped them on the countertop, pushing herself back up. “I suppose there is little point in stalling further. Follow me, sir knight. I’m going to deliver this letter to the Council with my super secret summoner technique, and then give you a much needed history lesson.”