The woman was already awake when the first light struck Bronwyn's face, streaming through the window. The beams played with curls of pungent smoke that rose from a tiny brazier. The woman was humming a gentle tune as she ground bits of incense between her fingers and dropped them on the coals.

The woman smiled and looked up briefly, as if she felt Bronwyn's gaze falling on her. "Good morning," she said. Her voice was smooth and melodious, like water splashing over rocks. The woman was nude, kneeling. She took a bowl of water and held it up, between them, in one hand. It was mirror-flat in her steady hand. Without waiting for the question to cross from unspoken though to the real world, the woman said, "I'm telling your fortune. I know you like to live in the present, but this is something you will want to see, I think. You'll thank me."

The smoke curled about her like a hood, obscuring the streak of white in her hair, and the thin crow's-foot wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. The smoke seemed to flash, briefly, with iridescent colors, and then took on a deep blue. With one sharp nail, the woman pricked her thumb, and a single drop of blood fell into the basin, and flashed across its surface as if it were oil.

Through the spreading stain, Bronwyn saw her own face, as in a mirror, but her face in the throes of ecstasy. Her point of view shifted, and Bronwyn watched over the shoulder of a lover, face turned away and unseen. The Bronwyn of the vision smiled as she looked up at her lover, and then closed her eyes. Suddenly, her eyes snapped open. Pain, surprise, and betrayal flashed across her features, and she shuddered. The figure on top of her tensed, and a trickle of blood fell from her mouth as another spasm caused her neck to arch backwards, driving her head into the pillows. It was only a second or two before the spasm passed, and her body fell limp. The figure checked her pulse briefly, and then slipped away as the blood-drop receded into the bowl.

Bronwyn could feel the chill of death wrap around her. She knew, on a visceral level, that the vision was true, was inevitable, unavoidable. She was going to die, and it was going to be a lover who did it. Bronwyn gasped. "No!"

"You're welcome," said the woman, smiling crookedly.

Back up to Bronwyn