The bells on the door of Goat’s sound different than Michelle remembered from the day before. Today, they’re more musical. The café is more lively, with all sorts of movement at the tables when she’s not directly looking at them.

“Mademoiselle Marin! You have returned to me,” the owner sings out from behind the counter, arm raised in genuine delight. Her cheeks turn red at the attention, feeling so many eyes pointing in her direction.

René steps around to usher her into a more private nook with two leather armchairs facing each other, with their own ornately carved side tables. “May I offer you a Halloween treat?” Her stomach growls, daring her to decline. Redder still, she nods.

“Yes, please,” she confirms. “Thank you.”

In an impossibly short moment, he returns with a brass pumpkin-shaped tray laden with two crescent moon patterned teacups and chocolate éclairs artfully drizzled with silvery icing to make spiderwebs.

“They’re beautiful,” she says, holding her plate reverently. “You make all of this yourself?”

“I do, but I’m sure this is not what you want to know,” he smiles warmly at her.

“Oh, but I want to know everything!” she starts and then catches herself with a little cough.

Chuckling, he crosses one cloven hoof over the other delicately and leans forward from the opposite chair. “I like that about you, little diviner. That is the best attitude to have.”

A little “Oh!” leaves her, and she tries to take her eyes off his feet, only managing to get a bit farther upwards when the blue arrow-tipped end of his thin, almost lizard-like tail waves at her.

“I’m sorry; I’m not meaning to be rude,” she apologizes, sending him into a burst of giggles.

“Sweet girl, those who can resist their fascination with me are few and far between. And I would be shocked if you weren’t curious. You are new to Obscurity and adjusting to your Sight.”

Finally fully taking him in, she is stunned. “Horns! You have horns, too. And more than two!” And is he? Blue?

“She speaks the truth! A good sign for a seer.”

“I’m sorry; I am going to be normal now. Well, act normal. I don’t suppose I am normal at all,” she frowns at the plate, its éclair inexplicably missing several bites. She wipes her mouth with her napkin, prepared to be mortified by wayward chocolate but pleasantly surprised her subconscious has been careful.

“Normal for who? The Obvious? Humans, that is to you. There’s not even a normal they can all agree on, but you are not one of them, so it matters not. The only thing perhaps unusual about you as a diviner is that you’ve not been prepared for the sight your whole life. Unusual as in rare, not unique. And this we can mend. I’ve done a little café investigation. You can learn anything and everything in the café, you know. What do you know about your father’s side?”

Her cup clinks against its saucer, “The Marins? They stopped talking to my dad when he started dating mom. She’s never said anything bad about them, but they didn’t come to his funeral, so I don’t think I want to meet them.”

René hmms and steeples his slender pale blue fingers tipped with midnight nails. His gold rings glint with the flickering of the nearby fireplace. “I explained what I can do as a devil, yes?”

She nods, “You can tell what’s in people’s hearts.”

“You are very sweet. I love that this is how you internalized it,” he says, clutching his hands to his heart. “But yes, it works. So when I tell you that I have intimate knowledge of the wishes of another Marin, and I believe you would do well to get to know them and be known by them, will you trust me?”

“Another Marin?”

“Another Marin. You see, diviners aren’t all alike. Some families specialize in different ways of seeing. Precognition, dreams, some see the future, some are oracles and can speak to mysteries. Some can not control when they see, and some learn the fate of something or someone with a touch. Some can only see their own future; some can see futures only if it doesn’t touch their own significantly. The other Marin I met today will stay away if you wish, but her wish is to right the wrongs of the past and help guide you in how to use your sight.” He picks up his tea, letting her think on this.

“She’s in town?” she asks, brows creasing.

“She stepped upstairs when you came in to give us some privacy.”

“Is there such thing as privacy from a diviner?”

He glances upwards at the plum-tinted glass globe of the lamp suspended above them. “A question best answered by a diviner, not a devil, do you not agree, my friend?”