It was more than just the healed scar in her hand. She felt it in every part of her. A subtle, significant shift in perspective, like a key turning in a lock – click – and suddenly, all these doors opened up. Entire worlds blossoming inside her head.

It was … illuminating. And a little bit scary. In an exciting way.

Once upon a time Tara had thought of herself as a shadow dweller, and Willow as her source of light. But, like the tree, Willow had a tendency to soak up light and give back a whole lot of shadow. There was something comforting and easy about hiding in Willow's shadow, no doubt about it. And a person could learn a lot from shadows. They were, after all, the markers of where things stood in relation to the light.

Time is like a shadow.

She smiled at the thought as she shuffled the cards and fanned the deck across the velvet scarf on the table. Time made you aware of eternity, the way shadows made you aware of light. Between every step, every breath, every heartbeat that marked your time upon the earth – eternity.

And all I have to do is open my hand. Her newly unscarred hand scanned the deck. A card jerked and began inching its way out from between the others. It seemed almost reluctant. Not like that night last summer when a certain card practically flew out of the deck and got all up in her face screaming "pay attention!" That was night she'd also read Spike's palm. Or tried to.

Her recollections of summer consisted mostly of long stretches of grief interspersed with heart pounding terror. Running through graveyards one minute, hyped up on coffee the next, debating the merits of various grand, desperate schemes for making Sunnydale a better, safer place for children and puppies. They were always thinking, always planning, because there was no Buffy, the genuine article, to take care of those things anymore. Willow hadn't yet shared her really big idea with the other Scoobs, the idea that would eventually bring Buffy back. They'd discussed it privately of course, the two of them, dancing around the whole "blood sacrifice" issue. It was a major component for nearly all the resurrection spells they'd come across. Willow had said absolutely no way, of course. At first. But as summer progressed, Tara could see the false hope and grim despair turn to ruthless determination. She'd stopped asking, and Willow stopped volunteering information.

Love wasn't always blind. Sometimes it was just … blinders.

July, 2001

Spike and Dawn sprawled in the living room like lazy sultans amidst couch cushions and mountains of snack foods, loudly mocking, yet completely absorbed by the spectacle that was WWWF Smackdown.

Tara sighed, rubbed at the beginning of a headache gathering between her brows. The tarot cards weren't cooperating. She wasn't asking the right questions. Stupid Crowley deck! She was tired. It was too hot. The television was TOO DAMNED LOUD.

She placed the cards back in the velvet-lined box, and in a screechy voice (that was supposed to sound cheerful but managed mostly to startle the bejeezus out of a girl and her vampire,) suggested ice cream bars all around.

"So, Witchy Woman," Spike said between a slurp and a bite. "Cards didn't happen to tell you when Harris is gonna fix the AC?"

They'd adjourned to the kitchen counter. The back door was open and a weak breeze wafted through the screen door. On the porch, the bug zapper made the intermittent ppffft sounds of a job well done.

"'Ask again later.'" Tara intoned, waving her ice cream bar in a "mysteries beyond the ken of mortal men" fashion.

"He has no idea what's wrong with it, has he?"

"Probably not."

They slurped on in silence for a few moments. "What's the future hold in store for your merry band, then?"

She stared at him, a little incredulous at this uncharacteristic attempt to make idle conversation. "Nothing. I mean – not nothing. I just - I don't know. It was all kind of vague and amorphous."

"Not being specific enough with your questions, I'll warrant." She barely had time to bristle at the presumptuousness of some vampires when he added, "Surprised you use the Crowley deck. Thought you go in for some kind of Goddess Guide Me, Wicca pagan rot."

"It's not rot! And what do you know about it anyway?"

"Well, Crowley deck's got the two extra cards. Got the Black Magician."

Her breath caught in her throat. He couldn't know. Couldn't possibly have seen –

"Ooh, suspect you've had truck with that fellow tonight." Her heart stuttered then started pounding mad and hard beneath her ribs. Spike had that gleam in his eye, the gleam that meant his demon was surging to the fore, anticipating something wonderfully terrible. He leaned in close to her. "Not the end of the world again, is it?" She shook her head quickly, mumbling something about vague and amorphous again. He straightened suddenly. "Good. 'Cause I need beer for that."

Tara didn't so much relax as noticeably deflate.

"You are such an asshole," Dawn said matter-of-factly.

"That's arsehole to you, little missy."

Having deflated, Tara pumped herself full of irritation. "Clearly your knowledge of divination is limited."

"True," he said, then yelped "bugger!" as chocolate shell slid from his ice cream bar on its way to his lap. He caught part of it with the edge of his hand and the rest of it with his mouth.

"Ha!" Dawn cried, her grin too much like his own. Smug and slightly evil. "Bet you wish you had a bowl to catch the drips now, pal." Her bar was already naked, divested of its chocolate coating, and the ice cream dribbled steadily from the wooden stick into a plastic bowl with a picture of the Lucky Charms leprechaun in it.

"Don't believe in working with a safety net, pidge." He licked the remains of chocolate off his hand, while giving Tara his patented sideways gaze. "Not trying to steal your thunder. Just saying what I been told. Drusilla was the fortune teller in the family. A regular Pythia. 'Course, could never be sure if she read the cards or they read her, if you know what I mean." He gave a short laugh. "Remember this one time we brought in the Order of Taraka to take the Slayer out, on account of Dru seeing victory in the cards, only the bitch of it was – " Dawn made tiny strangled sound. Spike noticed, but couldn't seem to stop the momentum of his mouth. It was like watching a wind-up toy fall sideways – "she kicked the holy shit out of 'em. Was her victory. Over us. In the cards. What. Dru. Saw. Not – Yeah. Anyway."

Dawn scratched circles in the goo at the bottom of her bowl.

"So, Spike. Ever had your palms read?" Tara asked, transparently changing the subject. He pulled back, eyes narrowed in trepidation. Even that was part of a show they were putting on for Dawn's sake. Dawn picked it up and ran with it.

"Yes!" she squealed. "Yes, do him! Read Spike's palm."

"Not having my palm read for your amusement."

"Why not? You do that thing with your tongue for my amusement."

Spike winced and drew in a hiss between his teeth.

"Excuse me?" Tara said. "What thing would that be?"

"Not what you think—"

"It's like totally obscene," Dawn enthused.

"You're not helping my case here, Bit."

"Show Tara. Go on."

"No."

"Do it! Come on. Please, please, please, please."

He thrust his hands out to Tara across the kitchen counter. "Read my palms. Please do." Dawn stuck the drippy stick in her mouth and giggled in triumph.

Tara took the hands he offered in her own, feeling him fighting the urge to pull away even as she did so. She could feel a lot of other things as well. The cool, dry, talcum powder slickness of his flesh, and a roiling force beneath the surface of it, like chi running widdershins. Her thumb brushed away a tiny smear of chocolate in his palm, and he swallowed a gasp. She looked up. His eyes were fierce and fearful. There was something in her tenderness he could not abide.

"I should warn you," he began, his voice low, sultry as the summer heat. It made her brain feel like a moth too close to the bug zapper. "It's a little late to be telling me to avoid beautiful women in dark alleys."

Ah. He was alluding to a pattern. She was looking for patterns. "Maybe there's a mark here. Something that indicated how you'd meet your … maker." Her lips twitched in an effort not to smile at her own morbid pun.

"As t'were," he said with an answering grin.

"Oooh," Dawn said, excited by the cheesy horror factor. "The Mark of the Vampire. That would be so cool!"

"Cool? Not so much. But maybe if I can identify it here, then when I see it in someone else's hand I could …warn them?" She wasn't sure how effective that would be.

He snorted. "And just what are you gonna tell 'em, sweetheart? Carry holy water instead of pepper spray? If they end up done for by a human, where's the difference? You can't keep people from their own destinies. Predictions and prophecies, yeah, those can be stepped around, but what's writ in flesh, that's fate."

"No, it isn't." This was her area of expertise, after all. His hands were palm up, cradled in hers, and she angled them so that he could see the lines as well as she. "You're left-handed, aren't you? So your right hand is kind of the map you came into the world with – like what you wanted to accomplish, experiences you wanted to have? The left hand shows the path you've taken, where you've followed the map or where you decided to veer off course and go some other way. We have choices. We make choices everyday. Some things in both hands are consistent though. Like here and here." She pointed to an X in both life lines. "Death of a parent in childhood. I'm guessing your father, because here and here, these indicate a very close relationship with your mother throughout your life –"

Dawn laughed. Spike snarled at her. Tara continued, "These open loop de loops show a creative, artistic type. Sensitive, emotional. I'm thinking a writer rather than a painter." She drew a fingernail over triangles through his head and fate lines. Then turned his hand to the side to trace the hash marks beneath his pinky. "See this deep line and all these little ones? Marriage and…one, two, three— jeez Spike, five kids? Whole mess of grandchildren. You planned to be quite the procreative love machine."

Dawn didn't laugh at that. Tara was too caught up in discovery to note what that might mean. She was looking at Spike's palms, not his expression.

"Oh…oh. Broken heart in your youth. Pretty girl tore it into pieces and stepped all over it. Oh wow. She really smashed it good—"

"Tara…" Dawn said softly.

"Or maybe that hadn't happened before you died. Hhmm. But see? It was gonna come out all right, because here's true love and a long happy life—"

He jerked his hands away so fast Tara felt like she had rope burns.

Dawn got out of her chair, and put her bowl in the sink. "Um…South Park is on." But Spike was already out the door and gone.

She'd felt horrible about it, of course. She'd also felt cheated. Because she never got a really good look at his other hand that night.

Now, she could remember everything she'd seen, like hypnotic regression. She'd seen a lot more than she realized at the time. Though his right hand had showed a long, fairly uneventful, perfectly average life, the left hand showed the pattern usually associated with a violent end. Of course, a long boring life could end in violence as much as any other kind of life. She'd seen that before in other readings, so hardly an indication of death by vampire. Except maybe in Sunnydale. Gran, who'd taught her this, said it was more merciful to advise caution in such cases without being too specific as to why. "Won't help much if a body ends up killed by a motorboat while watching out for sharks." Gran would have been able to point out exactly what pattern in Spike's palm showed the usual circumstances of his violent end. Maybe the mark of the vampire was simply the difference between the ordinary life in one hand and the violent outcome indicated in the other. Maybe?

Shoot! Why hadn't she thought to ask back then if he'd noticed any of the lines had changed at all since he died? She couldn't imagine how that would be possible. Ageless, immortal being, after all. Even so, they moved through time like anyone else. Lines in the palms shifted and changed as people aged. Her own lines were like a journal of her life and love and experiences on the one hand, and all her hopes and dreams and wishes on the other. She'd have to ask the next time she saw him—

The place in her palm where the scar had been tingled, then itched with a sudden intensity. Probably some deep tissue regeneration or something. But an itching palm was supposed to mean money, so she couldn't help but smile when the bell over the transom jangled out in the main part of the shop. She heard the murmur of a woman's voice and then Anya's overly enthusiastic sales pitch, "Normally our resident Oracle is booked solid on Saturdays, but she's had a cancellation. You're very fortunate!" A footstep, then the bead curtain was drawn aside. A woman stepped through to the alcove and the beads swung back.

Tara stopped breathing. Just for a second. Luminous eyes entangled her own.

"You are much too pretty to be an Oracle," said the beautiful woman. She had a voice like Spanish coffee, the real kind, that you lit on fire to caramelize the sugar around the rim. Or maybe it was just the tall latte from the Espresso Pump she carried that made Tara think of coffee.

The traces of dark red lipstick staining the lid made her think of something else entirely.

Anya could not reconcile the days receipts. There were twenty dollars unaccounted for. Twenty whole dollars! That was the equivalent of a man-shaped sex candle and a packet of Yum Yum incense – plus a nickel! She'd been the only person at the cash register all day, and whenever that was the case, the till always reconciled with the receipts to the freaking penny. At first she'd thought it must have fallen, or slipped behind the register, but a search on hands and knees did not recover either cash or a credit card receipt. She was adding it all again when there was a pounding on the door. She started to yell "Closed," before realizing it was Xander. He was now tapping on the glass of the display window, calling her name, and wearing that harried, constipated look he sometimes got when he had something on his mind. She made a quick mental note to pick up bran muffins as she rushed to let him in.

"Thank goodness you're here. I'm missing twenty dollars. You have to help me find it."

He brushed past her, appearing to be as motivated as she was. But instead he asked, "Where's Buffy? Is she in the training room?"

"She's not here. Were you listening, Xander? I'm short twenty dollars!"

"Well, at least you're not dead in dumpster."

"What?"

The beaded curtains rattled. Tara and her client emerged. "What's going on?"

"Uh…" Xander stared at the two of them for a second, clearly having lost his train of thought. "Uh…I need to find Buffy."

"She's had to go the hospital," Anya explained. "Oh, that's probably when I lost the twenty dollars. I was so distracted by the ambulance—"

"WHAT?"

"She's okay, Xander," Tara assured him. She looked at Anya. "Right?"

"Oh, oh yes. There was an old man. He had a heart attack or something. She went to the hospital with him. I keep having to explain this."

"Well, there's trouble and I need to talk to her about it."

"Trouble?"

Xander's head wheeled around, eyes pulled by the voice of the woman standing really, really close to Tara. Again, his lower lip hung suspended. Anya fought the urge to clamp it shut – with an actual clamp. "Yeah," he said finally. "Look, I don't want to freak you out or anything, but there may be a bad guy running around loose out there." He turned to Anya. "They found a kid in the dumpster behind the Espresso pump. Dead. There was, uh, trauma. To the throat." He looked at Tara again. Again his mouth hung slack. What the hell was his problem?

"Oh," Tara said. "You'd better go get Buffy then." She glanced at the woman next to her. "Because…she … shouldn't be out alone. She'll need a ride."

"Where's Dawn?" he asked suddenly. "I was supposed to take her home after the shopping orgy, wasn't I?"

"Sadly, there wasn't a shopping orgy. She was here earlier, but Buffy'd already gone. I have to say, Dawn handled it with surprising maturity. I mean she was disappointed, but she didn't pout or screech or fling herself about in that way she has. She even watched the store for a few minutes while I was in the basement. She left a couple of hours ago."

"Could you call and make sure she got home all right? I'm gonna go get Buffy." And he headed to the door, just like that!

"Well, how am I supposed to get home?" Anya exclaimed. She put her hands on her hips because that's what people did when pointing out a glaring oversight. "If there's a vam- villain on the loose I'll need a ride too." Xander paused, obviously torn. Possibly irritated. Guilty? She couldn't quite read his expression. Of course, they weren't free to speak plainly, what with the strange woman in the store. Something definitely strange about her. Stranger than the fact that she was an actual stranger–

"I have my car, Anya," Tara said. "I can drop you off." She swallowed then. Loudly. "Um…I can give you a ride too," she told the woman. Her eyelashes were fluttering a mile a minute under a shy sidelong glance. "If you'd like?"

"Yeah. That's a good idea." Xander said. "You probably shouldn't be on the streets until Bu – the cops. Catch the guy."

"Or girl," Anya called after him. "It could be a female vam – vile virago – " The door shut behind him and she scurried over to lock it. When she'd turned from that, the strange woman was looking at her. She was a foxy woman – not in the sexy seventies way, but like a gumiho in a Korean fable. When she shifted her gaze from Anya to Tara, it was obvious what she was after.

"You're most kind. Very generous of you," the foxy lady said to Tara. Her accent was familiar. Brazilian. Back in her vengeance days, Anya had done a lot of work in South America. Passionate people, really inspiring.

Tara was the first to drop her eyes, which meant she was most definitely interested. Suddenly, deeply bored with the dance of lesbian courtship, Anya remembered the most important issue of the evening.

"But I'm still missing twenty dollars!"