After returning to the second floor, Shade walked straight to the lady wearing a brown headscarf that was almost integrated with the scarf. On the woman's desk was a stack of divination cards, a half-full glass of beer, a pencil, a black-covered notebook, and a string of smooth small stones.
She looked like a common fortune teller who made a living by fortune telling. Few people in the tavern would take the initiative to talk to such a lady, because if they were not careful, they would sit opposite her and hand over their money while listening to nonsense. In particular, this lady looked very old. Although her face could not be seen, her clothing style showed that she was definitely not less than 40 years old.
Xia De sat opposite her. The lady who had been counting cards with her head down raised her head, saw Xia De's face, then shook her head and looked at the cards again.
"Luvia, what are you doing here?"
Shade asked softly, taking out a shilling from his pocket and handing it to her. Luvia, whose hair had turned black and eyes had turned green and who was wearing strange makeup, shook her head:
"Sir, two shillings a divination. One shilling is not even enough for my drinks this afternoon."
"Ma'am, drinking too much is not only harmful to your health, but it will also make your divination results look even more nonsense than they appear."
Hearing what Xia De said, the waitress who was passing by with a tray couldn't help but smile.
Xia De took out another coin and pushed it over:
"Are you here for the Victor Box as well?"
"What box?"
Luvia, wearing a headscarf, took Shade's money, stuffed the coins into the folded corner of her clothes, gathered the fortune-telling cards in her hands and began to shuffle them:
"Detective, you didn't stay at home to read a book on a snowy day, nor did you go to other cities. You came here. Is it because of a commission?"
She knew Shade's daily schedule well, and as she spoke she placed the deck of divination cards on the lower right corner of the table, then divided them into stacks of 5 and placed them in the center of the table.
"Yes, it's a commission, but it involves supernatural powers, so I'm not sure what will happen. Luvia, what are you doing here? Do you need my help?"
Shade asked as he watched her cut the cards.
"Not for now. I'm trying to determine the identity of the chosen one. I had some insights in my dream a few days ago, so I came to try my luck. If you don't show up, I'll leave in about half an hour."
The dreams of skilled fortune tellers usually predict the future, so it is very common for fortune tellers to act according to the guidance of dreams.
"The Chosen One?"
Shade raised his eyebrows but did not turn around to look around. In every corner of the city that he did not know, Luvia never stopped looking for the chosen one:
"I'll stay and help you. The chosen ones must be ring sorcerers. At least I can determine who will be the suspect."
"Well, it won't delay your work. If there is no result in half an hour at most, I will give up. After all, dreams are too unreal. I have been having some strange dreams recently..."
Luvia hesitated for a moment, and the action of cutting the cards in her hand stopped, but soon returned to normal:
"Many things have changed, but they haven't changed. I claim to follow the poem of destiny, but maybe I will find in the end that all I have done is just walking in the same circle repeatedly."
"What are you talking about? Are fortune tellers always so sentimental?"
Shade asked with a smile, and the girl in the headscarf also smiled and motioned for Shade to choose a card and turn it over:
"Come to think of it, your recent divinations have indeed been very accurate. The 'game' you drew at the Prophet's Association on Wednesday night was directly related to what happened that night."
He flipped open a card at random, and the word on it was "Anger".
“A card that represents emotions.”
Shade sighed and put the cards back. Luvia didn't say anything and put the divination cards together again.
"I'll go down and tell my companions. They might get worried if they wait too long."
"Who did you come with, Dorothy? The maid with the nice figure?"
Luvia asked as she sorted the cards.
"It's not Tifa, it's...Princess Margaret."
"Detective, you are really smart."
Luvia teased, and then said in a hoarse voice:
"Sir, I cannot predict your fate. Your fate seems to be shrouded in a mist."
Xia De watched her performance with a smile, but he didn't expect Luvia to reach out, take out a one-pound coin from the corner of her clothes and hand it to him.
"I only paid two shillings, and it won't be much if I get a refund."
Shade reminded.
"Sir, I think you may be possessed by a demon."
Luvia suppressed her smile:
"So, one day soon, I will come to your home to help you exorcise the demon. This will probably last until late at night. This is your deposit."
Shade didn't ask why the fortune teller had to pay for "exorcising the devil" for him. He smiled and stretched out his hand, and Luvia put the coin in his hand, and even rubbed Shade's palm with the tip of her index finger.
After receiving Luvia's "deposit", Shad got up and went back downstairs, telling Dorothy and Princess Margaret that he might stay upstairs for about half an hour before coming back. The two girls didn't have any objections, as they had a lot of common topics, especially Dorothy's intentional or unintentional attempts to get Princess Margaret to say something, which made Shad unsure whether it was Dorothy or Leicia who was here.
After returning to the second floor, Luvia was talking to the waiter and ordered two more glasses of juice. After Shade sat down, she started to shuffle and cut the cards again, apparently wanting to continue fortune-telling for Shade to prevent the two of them from arousing suspicion by just sitting there.
Although Shad's perception was strong, it did not allow him to directly determine who on the entire floor was a ring wizard. Before he came to the second floor, Luvia only looked at someone for a long time to determine the target, so she would definitely miss some people who came from other stairs or came to the Three Cats Inn earlier than her.
But that didn't matter, Luvia was here to try her luck. The reason why she was still sitting here with interest was purely because Shade was sitting opposite her.
At 3:20 pm, ten minutes after Xia De sat down again on the second floor, a lady in a black top and red bottom dress came up from the stairs, followed by a blond middle-aged gentleman in a straight blue-black suit. The lady held a small silver book under her arm, glanced at the second floor, and walked to the left side of the stairs, where there were more empty tables.
"Ms. Pavo?"
Although she was disguised, Shad still recognized her at a glance. In order to avoid being discovered, he immediately turned his head slightly to look to the other side, and according to "her" observation, Miss Pav and her companions did not look at him.
He whispered to Luvia who he saw. The girl, who was shuffling the cards countless times, frowned slightly:
"The last time I observed her, I confirmed that she was not the chosen one, at least not the first candidate."
He spoke softly, glancing at the lady who was sitting down and calling the waiter. Half a minute later, he shook his head again:
"No, she is not."
"Where is her companion?"
“No.”
"What a coincidence, I actually met someone from the Truth Society here. Are they planning some conspiracy?"
Xia De muttered quietly, and Luvia thought for a moment:
"That Miss Pavo is different from the other lunatics in the Truth Society. She is very calm and has deliberately avoided ordinary people when causing trouble in the city. There are so many people in the Three Cats Inn right now, she won't cause trouble. I think she must have an appointment with an important person and is waiting to meet him."
"That makes sense. I'm curious about who she's going to meet. But people like her who believe in numbers are usually very punctual. They won't arrive too early or too late. We should be able to see who the Truth Society is meeting soon."
Xia De said softly that neither he nor Luvia had any intention of reporting Miss Pavo. Since the other party had boldly chosen to appear in such a public place, it was impossible for him not to be on guard against a sneak attack by the Orthodox Church.
Just as Shade thought, Miss Paw and her companions had just ordered drinks when another ring wizard appeared from the stairs. This time it was two men, and Shade could not judge their level because they were too far away. Moreover, Shade did not recognize the two new men.
One of them was tall and wore only one layer of clothing in the snowy winter. The other was tall but thin. He looked ordinary, but he had a blue tattoo on his right eye.
Xia De didn't say anything, just pointed in that direction. Luvia watched the latter and Miss Pavo sitting together, and after watching carefully for half a minute, she shook her head again:
"Neither are they."
"Do you know them?"
Shad asked:
"Maybe it's another cultist hired by the Truth Society."
"I haven't seen him either. He's not a local. He looks like someone from the Pantanal. Maybe he's from the voodoo club you mentioned."
Luvia replied softly, people in this world are good at observation and summarization, and can distinguish the differences in appearance of people from different regions based on their life experience, but a foreigner who has only been in this world for half a year does not have this ability:
"Voodoo Society? What are they doing here? I heard in Huntington City that they are preparing to do something big. A talking mouse overheard some news. They are looking for the arrow in my hand for something that happens once in a hundred years."
"It's really strange. Voodoo members generally don't leave the Pantanal region. I've never heard of them being hired to come to Tobesk."
"Maybe because the truth would give too much."
Shad joked.
Luvia also turned her eyes away from the group of people, wrote down the result of the card divination in her notebook, and asked with a smile:
"I heard you say the other day that you felt like your cats were crawling all over you when you failed to shoot the arrow in Huntington. Did you spend the night at Dorothy's
"How come you put those two things together? No, Dorothy has been unwell."
"So, after what happened last Tuesday, these evenings, it's just you and your cat at 6 St. Teresa's Place."
Luvia picked up the wine glass beside her with her right hand. Xia De recalled and nodded:
"Yes, by the way, Mia is now..."
"It doesn't legally belong to you yet."
Luvia waved her hand to interrupt him and said with a long laugh:
"How pitiful, detective. He has three lovers and is rumored to be involved with the Archduchess, but he has to spend the long dark nights alone."