Wren Halloway

Wren Halloway tells fortunes for a coin and lies about them for free. She is, by her own account, never wrong. She is, by everyone else's account, never straight.

She saw her own fortune once, by accident, in a deck that wasn't hers. She has kept that card face-down ever since. The edges are burnt because she tried to destroy it, and couldn't. She shuffles it back into her hand every morning and makes very sure she never draws it.

In some other Umbrage, Wren never hid her talent. She sells it at the Dim Fair, where for one coin she will tell you exactly how you die.

She's very popular. Most people laugh. Some people change their lives. One man came back every night for a year, asking if it had changed. On the last night, it had. She never told anyone which way.

The prompter sits under the stage where no one can see her and whispers the next line to anyone who falters. Wren took the job because the pay was good and the box was warm. She stayed because she started seeing the lines before anyone said them.

She has prompted ten thousand performances. She has never once been on stage. She tells herself she prefers it that way, and nobody under Bellmouth is listening closely enough to hear her lie.