Note: The term "Gypsy" is capitalized when referring to members of that specific ethnic group, although these days it's more correct to use "Romani". [/removes teacher hat]
.
.
.
"What's that?" Alek asks, nodding towards a rather dark and mysterious shopfront whose name is written in a script he doesn't recognize. They're on their way to meet with a dealer of mechanikal parts, and passing through an area of Istanbul Alek hasn't yet seen… not that there's any shortage of those. Nor any shortage of dark and mysterious shopfronts, either, come to think of it.
Lilit looks, then wrinkles her nose. "Just a fortuneteller. That one supposedly reads your stars."
Dylan says, "I had my palm read by a Gypsy woman once, at a fair back home in Glasgow. My da took me; Ma was furious."
Intrigued, Alek asks, "What did she say?"
"My ma?"
"The Gypsy, Dummkopf."
Dylan shrugs. "It was all a lot of blether, really."
"Of course it was, but you have to tell us about it now, Dylan," Lilit says. "Otherwise you shouldn't have brought it up at all."
Dylan waves her off. "Aye, fine. She said I'd have a long life –"
Lilit is not impressed. "Oh, they always say that."
"- and lots of bonny children –"
"That, too!"
"- and I'd go traveling to all sorts of far-off places."
"That seems rather accurate," Alek says.
His friend snorts. "I had just been talking with Da about flying around the world."
Lilit says, "Exactly. Fortunetellers are a waste of money. And we're wasting time that we don't have." She increases her pace, and when Alek would have increased his in order to keep up, he notices that Dylan has actually slowed down.
"Come to think of it - there was one bit," Dylan says, with a thoughtful frown, "that may have been right."
"What is that?" Alek asks.
"She said I'd meet a –" The other boy breaks off, interrupted perhaps by the black-clad, impatient form of Lilit, swooping down on them and scolding.
"Are you both trying to get lost? Stay close."
Prodded and herded along, Alek forgets to ask Dylan to finish his sentence.
.
.
.
Years later, he happens to think of it, and, out of idle curiosity, asks again.
Deryn's forehead wrinkles as she tries to remember. "Oh, that's right - she said I'd fall madly in love with a tall, dark, and handsome man."
"Hmm," Alek says, wondering, with some amusement, how on earth she would've framed that answer in the autumn of 1914. "Uncannily correct."
"I thought so." Mischief twinkling, she lifts herself on tiptoe to look over the top of his head, then drops flat on her heels so they're eye-to-eye again. "Two out of three's not bad for a carnival Gypsy, aye?"
