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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avs by Bee!

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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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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