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Alizarine

"I do not tell the future. I tell you what the cards think of you. It is rarely the same thing."
— Alizarine, opening line to first-time clients at the Last Dance

The resident tarot-reader at the Last Dance cabaret in Heaven Heights. Cadwë by birth, unaffiliated by declaration — neither Open Hand nor Closed Door — and one of the very few practicing card-readers in the lower city who has refused recruitment by both tarot-mage factions for over a decade. Her readings are unusually accurate; her clientele is unusually broad; and the cabaret she works in is owned by Isabeau Soma, which means everything Alizarine sees passes — at her discretion — to the Soma vendetta operations that run out of the Last Dance's back rooms.

She is canonically a single line in the People MOC ("tarot reader at the Last Dance cabaret"). What follows is the framework around that line.

What She Does

  • Tarot readings, paid in coin or favor. Her standard rate is two ducats a reading; she has been known to take payment in stories, debts, and silence. She refuses to read for the deeply drunk.
  • Hosts a private weekly salon in a back booth of the Last Dance — invitation only — where readings are deeper, slower, and often connected to operational questions the Guild of Blades would not otherwise put on paper. The salon is technically a Soma asset.
  • Maintains an unofficial register of every public figure who has ever sat for her — a register she keeps in her head, not on paper. This is the asset both tarot-mage factions want her for.

Why She Refuses the Factions

The Open Hand and Closed Door each want her — not for her card-reading skill (competent but not exceptional) but for what she has heard from clients across twelve years of public practice in a Soma-owned cabaret in the diplomatic district. She has read for embassy staff, guild brokers, Drakaër militiamen, Var-Nokkt couriers, and (twice, that she will admit to) a hooded figure she suspects was a Drahas lieutenant.

She refuses both factions on the same grounds: the cards are not for sides. This may be principled. It may be a position she has been paid by Isabeau Soma to hold, since unaligned Alizarine is more useful to the Soma operation than factional Alizarine would be. She has never confirmed or denied.

What She Probably Knows

  • The Drakaër-lineage card's general location — she has read for at least two Drakaër-adjacent figures whose readings turned strange in ways suggestive of card-proximity. She has not told Albanne. She has not been asked.
  • At least three of Drahas's lieutenants by face — she has read for them; their readings were the strangest of her career. She remembers the faces. She will not draw them.
  • What Master Ôdril Haarken was working on — Ôdril sat for her twice in the year before his disappearance. The second reading was extensive. She has not shared the contents of that reading with anyone. Isabeau Soma has not pressed.

Relations

  • Isabeau Soma — landlord, employer, protector. The relationship is professional and quietly affectionate. Alizarine does not know everything Isabeau is doing. Isabeau does not ask everything Alizarine has heard.
  • Vanho Soma — has sat for her three times. Has never returned for a fourth. Will not say why.
  • The Open Hand tarot-mages — soliciting her for over a decade
  • The Closed Door tarot-mages — soliciting her for over a decade; more recently than the Open Hand, more aggressively
  • The Last Dance cabaret — her workplace and effective home; she lives in a flat above

The reading Ôdril paid for

A free league hired by Isabeau Soma to find Ôdril discovers — through a stage-hand at the Last Dance — that Ôdril's second reading with Alizarine lasted nearly four hours and included Alizarine writing things down (highly unusual for her). The notes were taken away by Ôdril. Or were they? Alizarine may have kept a copy. She may have given one to Isabeau. She may have done both and not yet decided which to share.

The faction that doesn't take "no"

The Closed Door tarot-mages have escalated their solicitation: a senior figure makes Alizarine an offer she is going to find harder to refuse than the previous ones. She is asking a small set of trusted people — including the party, if they have read with her before — what she should do. Saying no to the Closed Door, by 1003, may not be a survivable position.

See Also