16th May, 1894 — Atlantis

Endymion had come to the club for supper, and retired to the reading room afterwards, a book in hand but mostly for show; he had been daydreaming more than anything. The season was set to begin again, and his next birthday was in summer, and he had never been settled in London, working at Gringotts, for so long as this. He desperately needed a change – and he knew perfectly well what precise change he had been looking for. He knew where he wanted to get to, see; he just – needed a hint as to the direction of it.

When he came back to reality, he spotted someone there whom he hadn’t noticed enter, and ventured over to say hello to his old yearmate. “Say, Carmichael,” Endymion said seriously, changing the subject not very many minutes deep into their conversation – “would you do me a favour? I could rather use your help.”

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Elliot Carmichael/Cassius Lestrange

  

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Elliot liked Atlantis rather more than he would admit; it gave him the opportunity to avoid the debutantes of the ton. With the season coming up, he was more determined to do so than ever — he had to build up his stamina before the summer. (And his mother was starting to suggest that he get married.)

As soon as Dempsey changed the subject, Elliot had a feeling — not a Sight feeling, just a feeling — that he knew where this was going. "Go right ahead," Elliot said, raising an eyebrow at Dempsey.

  

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The eyebrow raise felt like Carmichael knew what was coming – Endymion supposed that Seers really did get this all the time. (Still, he felt too desperate to be sorry about it.)

“I just – I don’t know what I ought to be looking for,” he bemoaned, with a weary look and a helpless wave of his hand. “Can you give me a reading – just anything you See? In my future.” He didn’t know how this worked – he presumed Carmichael probably had better things to have particular visions about than his romantic future, but this library was full of decorative pieces, a dusty crystal ball on one shelf and certainly some Tarot decks left on a shelf, and Endymion certainly wouldn’t trust a reading of his own.

He needed – magical intervention; divine intervention. Nothing less than fate would do. “I’m sure you’re sick of these things, but – truly, I’m desperate.” He was going to be thirty-five! (Carmichael might be the same age and also still unmarried, but he was no model to emulate – he hardly seemed naturally disposed towards happy, settled endings. Like, as a person. He might as well have been written by Poe.)

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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It was, it turned out, exactly what Elliot had expected. He smiled at Demsey, and if there was something crooked around the edges then he hoped that the other man would not be able to tell. "Of course I can give you a reading," Elliot said, indulgent. Maybe he was sick of such things, but no one would ever stop asking him — so he may as well tolerate it.

"Do you prefer tarot?" Elliot asked curiously, "Or a crystal ball?" Elliot would be happy to choose if Dempsey asked him to, but sometimes it was best to allow the subject to choose for themselves — especially when they had requested the reading.

  

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“You’re the expert,” he said seriously, happy to defer to the diviner, and grateful enough that he was bothering to help. “Whatever is more likely to show you – me – my soulmate. I mean, I don’t expect you will be able to tell me a name,” he assured Carmichael, in some haste; he was not so foolish as that – “but I should take any small details or direction you can give me, of whom I ought to be marrying.”

It was the sort of thing he supposed he ought to be able to tell for himself, but – although he had met plenty of women since setting about in society here in earnest, although he even liked some of them a great deal – he felt no closer to divining his own present preferences, let alone any possibilities of future feeling.

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Elliot wasn't necessarily known for predicting happy endings — but this was almost a pleasant change of pace from being asked to predict someone's death. He smiled slightly, a little off-guard but ultimately indulgent.

"Tarot, then," he said. He pulled a well-worn deck out of his pocket and shuffled the cards. "Think about love, and your soul mate," Elliot said, spreading the deck out, face-down, on the table in front of them. "And pick three cards."

  

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Think about love and his soul mate were instructions more easily said than achieved, because really, under such duress Endymion had only the vaguest idea of who they might be. If he tried to pin any physical characteristics down, he could only picture the women he knew and he was not sure any of them were his soulmate. For a moment, the imagined vision had red hair, and so his thoughts drifted towards unpredictable Sabine Valenduris or romantic Merida Greyback or even Thistle Potts’ auburn brown hair and unaffected manner. Then it changed again; she was blonde, brunette, she was tall or short, blue-eyed or brown. If he tried to envision the feeling that he dreamed would accompany her entry into his life, he felt his mind start stumbling through mix-ups between love and what everyone seemed to describe as lust or a more fickle desire that sometimes sprung up in close quarters, and then he was blushing, thinking of Philomena Sprout landing on top of him at the flower show – or that encounter in the hammock with the wild veela, which had transcended from lust to something purer and more unattainable. That was what he wanted to feel again, he supposed. Unrelenting magic in it, a desperate sense of powerlessness and perfection and destiny.

Merlin, he hoped he hadn’t drawn any bad cards. What if Carmichael’s cards told him that in fact the universe had decided he was frankly unloveable and incapable of loving, doomed only to experiences that were shallow and mundane? Endymion swallowed, his expression suddenly solemn.

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Elliot was not entirely sure he believed in soul mates, and knew that would impact the reading, but he did not want to explain as much to Dempsey (and did not think that Dempsey would listen to him particularly well if he tried to.) He revealed the cards: the two of cups, upright; the hermit, upright; and the two of wands, reversed. He hummed to himself and put his hand a few inches above them as he thought through the cards, thinking that theatricality would help Dempsey believe him.

He held up the two of wands first. "You're overthinking it," Elliot said, "Avoiding risk, playing it safe — those things are keeping you from her." Next he held up the hermit. "This one — looks bad, I know." It showed an illustration of an old man. "But it really means that she knows exactly who she is, and I think she's — reflective. An individual. She understands what she wants from love." (Or something. It could also mean that Dempsey had to figure this out without Elliot, through self-reflection, but Elliot did not think that would be helpful feedback at this moment.)

The two of cups was the most hopeful of the cards. Elliot held this up for Dempsey last. "Yours will be a relationship based on mutual respect and understanding," he said, with a nod. "She will return your feelings, and I believe she will be open in expressing them."

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   Endymion Dempsey

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Endymion tried to look at the cards in tandem as Carmichael turned them over, but to say his heart sank at the sight of The Hermit was an understatement. Alone forever, then, sad and alone and – well, he didn’t actually know what the card stood for, but he had to assume. But: he was overthinking, apparently. Endymion started hanging on Carmichael’s every word, keen not to miss this message from his stars. He rather thought he ought to be taking notes in case he forgot, but – he looked back and forth at the three cards in tandem, committing them to memory, chewing on the inside of his cheek at their meanings.

By the end of the reading – and the realisation that whoever his soulmate was was out there, and would return his feelings, and all he had to do was find her – Endymion heaved a sigh of relief, and his expression turned a little brighter. “Thank Merlin,” he said, smiling, feeling some new energy brimming in him at the prospect of it. “She’ll feel the same, and love me back, and – I just have to be bolder, then,” Endymion said, half to himself, nodding seriously. No more playing it safe, then. That was – terrifying, but It Had Been Decreed. “I don’t suppose you can tell exactly who she is, can you?” he asked Carmichael hopefully. Just in case her name was magically written on the back of the Hermit card. It would make this all a great deal simpler.

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Elliot wondered how much of this advice had come from his Inner Eye, versus how much had come from his own prescriptions for Endymion Dempsey — it was not as if Elliot were an expert on love, but he suspected that he could benefit from this advice himself, and just because he did not act on it did not mean that he wouldn't suggest it to someone else.

But he wasn't going to say any of that to Dempsey.

He smiled at the other man's question. "No," Elliot said, "Unfortunately, the Sight has not blessed me with that knowledge." (A sentence that tended to go over better than 'it doesn't work like that,' in his experience.)

  

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He sighed, too thankful for what knowledge the Sight had blessed Carmichael with to complain about this bout of thoughtlessness of it. Still, because he wanted to be thorough before he left with new optimism for his future – “But you will let me know if you do see something else of her, later?” In a vision or something, if Endymion’s efforts proved fruitless, or Destiny decided it had nothing better to do than send him more clues.

“Or will there be – some other kind of sign there, when I find her?” Endymion added, scanning the cards again, in case there might be two cups or two wands or a serendipitous hermit in the moment he met his soulmate. (Though unfortunately cups and wands were, er, not that unusual in the physical world. Blast.) She would know love and her own feelings, Carmichael had said – but how would he?

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   Elliot Carmichael

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Elliot nodded; it would not bear well for Dempsey if he caught visions of his soul mate, but Elliot knew better than to say as much in the club.

Could he make up a sign? He hadn't thought of any, but he felt that Dempsey may be in a holding pattern, and he would stay in this holding pattern if Elliot didn't help him get out of it. "She'll be doing something risky," Elliot said, after giving the cards a cursory scan again. 'What, I couldn't say — but as I said, she knows what she wants."

If Dempsey married someone of low reputation, Elliot knew he would have to hold himself moderately responsible.

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   Endymion Dempsey

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Doing something risky. What that said of her character, his soulmate, Endymion wasn’t sure – but he was not about to contemplate it now. “Risky,” he repeated, expression mingled between befuddlement and resolve. “Perfect,” he decided, with a nod of great enthusiasm and a dawning smile. He still didn’t know who his soulmate was (had he met her already? He knew some women who had been in some – arguably risky situations), but he fancied he had clues enough to find her now. “That’s a great help.” He meant it genuinely.

He felt himself brimming with a new buoyancy – almost ready to dash out of the club now to find her. “Cheers, Carmichael,” Endymion added. “However can I pay you back?”

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   Elliot Carmichael

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It was hard to feel guilty about his white lies when they had clearly made Dempsey feel better. Elliot smiled back at him. "Oh, I'll let you know when I need to cash in a favor," he said, smiling back at Dempsey. Next time he was cursed, maybe, or next time he saw someone's death.

  

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