Voyance - lpofdestiny - Miraculous Ladybug [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Chapter 1: Alya Césaire, Page of Swords

Chapter Text

It all started because of an Akuma.

Alya had been leaving school with Marinette when the sun was snuffed out. They looked up at the suddenly star-studded sky, surprised to see that day had been transformed into night. Alya, of course, pulled up social media to try and suss out the Akuma’s location. According to #ladyblog, a mysterious figure had been spotted floating above Tuileries Garden. She headed off in that direction despite Marinette’s insistence that they get someplace safe. Alya scoffed. Marinette’s aversion to taking chances was exactly why she was single. As for Alya, she wasn’t going to miss out on the action. Besides, she wanted to be ready and waiting just in case Ladybug called upon her to take up the mantel of Rena Rouge again.

Alya was crossing the Seine on a pedestrian footbridge, moving against the mass of people escaping the park, when she noticed a few of the stars were brighter and bigger than before. She pointed her phone at herself and started to record.

“What’s up, Ladybug lovers?” she said, waving with her free hand as she kept on running. She looked a little dark—hopefully she could fix it in post. “I’m coming at you from the scene of the latest Akuma attack. I’m sure you all noticed that our latest baddie appears to have some sort of night inducement, but check out the stars!” She pointed her phone up and then back to her. “Maybe you can’t see, but it looks like they’re closer than they were before. Something’s up.”

She kept an eye on them as she jumped the fence into the park and soon one was streaking across the sky with a tail of golden sparks. It wasn’t a star at all, but a small meteor.

“Whoa!” Alya stopped and trained her camera on it. It was showing up like a firework now. “Check it out!”

The meteor pelted the ground northwest of Alya, felling two trees in the process. She raced beneath the canopy of leaves to the impact site. There was a small crater. In the middle was a jagged stone glowing bright yellow, about the size of a small melon.

“Yikes!” she said. “Meteor summoning maybe?”

Alya was not much of a runner, but she could sprint with the best of them. Dodging the hailstorm of meteors, she made it across the park unscathed. She sought refuge beneath the colonnades of the limestone building across the street, but a meteor crashed right behind her, so she opened the door to the nearest shop and threw herself inside. Slamming the door behind her, she collapsed, gasping for breath.

“Here.”

Fat fingers covered in intricate iron rings pushed a bottle of water into Alya’s hands. She didn’t question it, she just gulped it down.

“Thanks,” she said when she was finished, wiping her mouth. “Uh…” She looked up at the towering, simpering woman wearing a headscarf tied up in a flower and a muumuu. They were both tropical colors but competing prints so busy that Alya was momentarily distracted from the fact that the woman didn’t have any hair. None. Not even eyebrows. She more than made up for it in makeup and jewelry though. And…presence. She was big, yes, but she seemed to fill the room more that she should have.

“Madame Magda, tarot reader extraordinaire,” said the woman, voice rich like butter, flawless like a diamond. It was impossible to tell what her ethnicity was at a glance—she could’ve been anything, all her features were so ambiguous. She swept her hands out wide. “Welcome to Voyance.”

Alya scanned the shop, momentarily forgetting about the Akuma battle. It was a small space with high plaster ceilings, cluttered with all manner of mystical looking objects displayed on cascading folds of jewel-toned velvet. There were crystals and bottles of strange liquid and little golden Buddha statues. Bookcases packed with leather-bound texts and damask curtains lined the walls. Hanging from the ceiling were long strings of beads. The chandelier cast a soft amber glow, making everything look like the room smelled—heavy with incense and orange.

There was a thump and a crack as another meteor hit the street outside. Alya flinched.

Madame Magda threw her broad shoulders back along with her head and laughed, a deep rumble Alya felt straight down to her toes. “Darling, don’t worry,” said the woman. She pronounced ‘darling’ like an old school American socialite, even though her French sounded natural. “The cards warned of an Akuma attack but assured I would be safe in my shop.”

Overcoming her initial surprise, Alya stumbled to her feet. She tried to hide her smirk. “Cards. Right. Well, thank you for the water. I’m gonna go.” She waved her phone. “I gotta get the scoop.”

She tried to hand the bottle back, but Madame Magda didn’t take it. She clucked her tongue disapprovingly instead. “You plan to go back out there? I wouldn’t recommend it, darling. Come. I’ll give you a free reading instead. I can tell that you’re skeptical.”

She swept over to the back of the shop with a grace that did not belay her size and parted the curtains between two bookcases, revealing a secret nook. Inside, surrounded by more curtains, was a table on which sat several forest green candles, a deck of cards, and a crystal ball.

Alya rolled her eyes when she thought the woman wasn’t looking. Her parents raised her to be respectful of adults, but Madame Magda was clearly crazy.

“Nah. I’m good,” she said, backing towards the door. She hadn’t noticed on her way in, but it was hand carved with all sorts of geometric concentric designs.

Madame Magda acted as if she hadn’t heard Alya. She simply simpered, so Alya saw no issue with her leaving. She heaved the door open.

A meteor came whistling through the air, smacking the sidewalk at Alya’s feet. She screamed and slammed the door shut to avoid getting sprayed with concrete. She heard bits and pieces of it drum against the wood.

“As I said, I wouldn’t recommend going back out there,” said Madame Magda, her voice even and unfazed.

“What, did you predict that?” Alya wondered.

“I don’t predict anything,” the woman countered. “I simply interpret what the cards say.”

“And let me guess.” She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. “The cards are never wrong?”

The woman gestured grandly to the table. “See for yourself, darling.”

Alya blinked. She was a journalist. She dealt with cold, hard facts. She should be dismissing this magic nonsense outright. Still…a journalist had to gather information before writing a story. If she looked at this tarot card reading as a fact-finding mission, it was a lot more palatable to her. Besides, with such a dangerous Akuma on the loose, she had nothing better to do until daylight returned.

“Okay,” Alya said. “I’m game.”

Madame Magda stepped aside to allow Alya to pass before squeezing in behind her. She pulled a hot pink lighter out and got to work on the candles. Alya watched her for a moment before putting her empty water on the table and pulling up a seat from the five velvet stools pushed back amongst the folds of the curtains.

“Shouldn’t this be filled with smoke?” Alya wondered, poking at the crystal ball.

Once again, Madame Magda tossed back her head and shoulders to laugh, causing the curtains around them to sway. “It’s just decoration, darling. The real star are these cards.”

She held up the deck and shook them out of their packaging. From what Alya could glimpse, they were tea-stained and worn with faded colors. The backs looked like oriental rugs in blue and dull gold. Madame Magda shuffled them with ease, almost lazily as a card or two fell out and she paused to pop them back in.

“So what makes a tarot deck different from a regular deck of cards?” wondered Alya, approaching her reading as if it were an interview.

“They are more alike than you think! A regular deck has 52 cards: Four suits—clubs, hearts, diamonds, and spades —each with 13 cards—numbers two through ten, a jack, a queen, a king, and an ace. A traditional tarot deck had 78 cards, but 56 of them—the Minor Arcana—are set up in a similar way: Four suits— wands, cups, pentacles, and swords—each with 14 cards—numbers two through ten, a knight, a page, a queen, a king, and an ace.”

“Wait. What about ‘The Lovers’ or ‘Death’ or whatever?”

“I’m not preforming a magic trick, darling, but the cards do have to know who they are reading. Mix them up. Cut the deck. Whatever you like, as long as you touch them. I can do a more elaborate sorting or separating ceremony if you’d like, but you don’t strike me as the type.”

As Alya considered her options, a sly smile spreading across her lips. She tapped the top of the deck with her pointer finger. She thought Madame Magda would be ruffled by this, but it didn’t seem to matter to her. She began to lay them out on the table in a peculiar pattern.

“You don’t just flip over the top one?” Alya asked.

“That is one type of spread, yes, but that isn’t going to give you the best reading, especially if this is your first time.”

“Spread?”

“The pattern in which I lay down the cards. There are all sorts, as you can imagine, but the basic go-to is the Celtic Cross.”

Alya tilted her head. Madame Magda had placed ten cards face down between them. Four were in a line while the other six were in a clump, almost like a circle. In the middle of the circle, two cards were stacked on top of each other.

“I don’t see it…”

“Cross,” said the tarot reader, circling her finger above the clump. “Staff.” She swept her finger up and down above the line of four.

“Then shouldn’t it be called the Celtic Cross and Staff?”

“Yes, that would make more sense, now wouldn’t it, darling?” She spoke as if it were a genuinely good idea and one she had simply never considered. “Are you ready to begin?”

Alya adjusted her glasses as she looked down at the spread again. “So do I just pick one or…is there some sort of order to this…?”

“Yes, order does matter. Each position in a spread means something.”

“Like what?”

“Depends on who you ask.”

Alya groaned, lowering her chin to the table. “This all seems, like, super subjective.”

For a third time, Madame Magda laughed. “Now you’re getting it!”

“Let’s start before I come to my senses.”

The woman nodded, tightened her headscarf, and snaked her hand to the center of the cross. She turned over the card at the bottom of the two-card pile, flipping over the one on top of it in the process. She leaned forward to examine them, the table creaking beneath her weight.

“Did you…did you mean to do that?” Alya wondered. To her, it looked like an accident.

Madame Magda nodded. “In the Celtic Cross, you read cards in pairs. It helps narrow down what the cards are saying, and certain combinations affect meanings.”

Now that Alya could actually see the pictures on the cards, she found herself fascinated. They were ugly drawings, like those found doodled in the margins of a book written in the Middle Ages by bored monks who didn’t know what cats looked like. There was a story, a history, to these cards and Alya wished she knew what it was.

Madame Magda poured over them. One, which Alya assumed was the Six of Pentacles considering the six gold circles that lined the top, depicted a wealthy man holding a set of scales in one hands. There were two beggars, but the wealthy man was only giving money to one of them. The other card was of a disembodied hand made of smoke wielding a sword. The sword was topped with a crown infested with ferns, seeds raining from them.

“Case in point!” said Madame Magda brightly as she tapped the first card. “The Six of Pentacles is a very difficult card to read on its own because it represents two extremes—having, and not having. How could I tell which one it is without the help of a second card?”

“Having or not having…what?” wondered Alya. “Money? Love?” Those seemed to be the basics in her mind when it came to these silly tarot card readings.

“We have to look to the second card for that too. The first one is your present. What issue are you facing right now? The second card—the Ace of Swords—reveals the crux of that issue.”

“So what does the Ace of Swords tell us?”

“It means using mental force, having fortitude, seeking justice, and proceeding with truth. I am not a mind-reader though, darling, so you’ll have to help me out here. Any of those jump out at you?”

Alya gave a patronizing smile and said nothing. She wasn’t going to fall into this trap.

“My money is on the truth, and that it is something that you lack,” Madame Magda said when she realized Alya wasn’t going to answer. “You are a journalist, after all. Isn’t that what you’re always after?”

Madame Magda lowered her head in acknowledgement. “Your blog is very popular, Miss Césaire. Besides, who else would be out and about during an Akuma attack, wanting to ‘get the scoop’?”

“Then you didn’t need those cards to tell you that. You just read into them what you wanted. Yeah, I’m after the truth.”

“Yes, but you’re after one specific truth…” The tarot card reader flipped the card in the Cross closest to the Staff, revealing the King of Wands. He looked regal but approachable, wielding a scepter made from a tree branch with a tiny lizard at his feet. “Who is underneath the Ladybug mask?”

She said it as if she expected Alya is gasp in awe. Alya leaned back though and crossed her arms. “Duh. It’s, like, the basis for my entire blog.”

“Mmm. Why dedicate a blog to her? What makes her so special?”

“Uh, you’re kidding, right? Ladybug is amazing! She’s a hero. She’s so brave, the way she stands up to Hawk Moth. Everyone wants to be her. And the way she stops Akumas? She really thinks outside the box.”

“So would you say she’s inspiring, bold, charismatic, forceful, and creative?”

Alya nodded vigorously. She could literally gush about Ladybug all day. “Totally!”

Madame Magda tapped the King of Wands with a pointed red nail. “That is exactly what this card means, darling. And since Ladybug’s arrival, it has become almost synonymous with her. It makes sense it would be in the third position too—this is your past, the root cause of your current issue. Ladybug comes onto the scene and you want to discover her identity, which Ladybug is keeping a secret, so you start the Ladyblog. Don’t you want to know what happens next? Don’t you want to know if you are successful or not?”

“Well, yeahhhhhhhh…” Alya drew out the word as she looked out into the shop proper. Everything was dark beyond the frosted windows, but there were sometimes flashes of light of a passing meteor. Part of her wanted to escape this ridiculous situation she found herself in, but another part, a much larger part than she’d like to admit, was dying of curiosity. So what if tarot cards were a bunch of mumbo-jumbo? It would be fun to explore what fake future Madame Magda had in store for her. She turned back to the woman, meeting her steady gaze. “Didn’t you say you usually flip the cards in pairs?”

She chuckled, deep and throaty. “Right you are, darling!” She turned over the card above the Six of Pentacles and Ace of Swords. “Oh! Your first card in the Major Arcana.”

Alya tilted her head to have a better look. She didn’t like the look of it. It was a tower built on the edge of a cliff, lightning crashing around it as it was buffeted by an intense storm. It was on fire, flames spewing forth from its windows. People were leaping out of them to their doom.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head, darling,” Madame Magda assured. “In tarot, card placement is everything. Position five is your best outcome. It tells me how you want things to go.”

“I don’t want everything to go up in flames!”

“Don’t be so literal. Yes, The Tower can mean a downfall…but it can also mean revelation, which makes perfect sense. You want Ladybug’s civilian identity to be revealed to you.”

“Oh.” Now Alya felt sheepish.

“This is…uh…hmmm…” She glanced up at Alya, swallowing heavily.

“It’s not bad, is it?” wondered Alya. The two cards in question were The Hierophant (whatever that was) and the Three of Cups. There was nothing scary about them. From Madame Magda’s reaction, Alya thought it would be Death or something.

“No, no. Not bad, darling,” she said. “Just…downright bizarre, really. I thought we were getting somewhere. Unless there’s something the cards know that I don’t?”

Alya leaned forward to look at The Hierophant. It was some sort of holy man in long robes, wearing an elaborate headdress. He held his arms up as if making a pronouncement. At his feet were two men, listening to his instruction.

“Have you joined some sort of group recently?” asked Madame Magda.

“Wha—!?” Without even thinking, Alya threw out her hands, knocking her empty bottle of water to the ground. She dove beneath the table to retrieve it, thankful that it gave her a moment to get a hold of herself. She popped back out again, blowing her bushy hair out of her face. “What makes you say that…?” she asked as casually as possible.

Once again, Madame Magda was completely unfazed. It was rather unnerving. “Remember how I said certain combinations affect meanings? We have a reinforcing pair here. The Hierophant can mean all sorts of things—education, belief systems, conformity—but when paired with, say, the Three of Pentacles or, in this case, the Three of Cups, the focus is on groups. Being a part of a group. It might be an organization or a team. That doesn’t really seem to fit in with your quest for the truth. Still…does that sound familiar to you at all?”

Alya recalled the night she had taken up the mantel of Rena Rouge, fighting back-to-back-to-back with Ladybug and Chat Noir as they fended off the Sapotis. Welcome to our team! Chat Noir had told her, and it meant something. They weren’t one and done with her like she feared. They called on her expertise multiple times, temporarily loaning her the Fox Miraculous and dear little Trixx whenever they came across a problem an extra hand and an illusion might be able to solve. And when Paris found itself infested with red Akumas, she joined her idols along with her boyfriend and—ugh—Chloé (whatever) to set things right.

“Nope,” lied Alya.

Madame Magda paused and Alya knew she had to think fast.

“I, uh, I moved here at the beginning of the school year. I didn’t have a lot of friends at my old school. They all thought I was kind of weird. I was super into comic books and was all, like, lone wolf about my journalism. Then I came here and I got a best friend and a boyfriend and, well, a whole group of friends!” That should cover it. Wait, no, she was missing the tie to the reading so far. “…And they support me in my work on the Ladyblog,” she added.

After a tense moment, Madame Magda pulled back. “Ah! Makes sense, darling. Well, I have good news for you—your future looks bright!” She nudged the Three of Cups forward a centimeter. It depicted three women in flower crowns, toasting each other with their goblets. Alya found it interesting that their robes were red, orange, and yellow respectively, a la Ladybug, Rena, and Queen Bee. “You’ll continue to enjoy the friendship of this community.”

“That’s awesome!” After Alya’s temporary transformation into Rena Rage due to Scarlet Moth’s machinations, she was a little afraid Ladybug and Chat Noir might not call on her again.

Wait, what was she saying!? She was falling right into the trap this con artist had set for her. She tempered her joy by biting down on her tongue. She was only being told what she wanted to hear. These cards didn’t know any more about her than Madame Magda did after reading her bio on the Ladyblog.

“So what my understanding is, you’ve set off to discover Ladybug’s identity with the support of your friends. You are having a difficult time though,” the woman said. “Does that sound about right, darling?”

Alya nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

“Looking at the cards in the Staff will give you valuable insight into your difficulties. There are internal and external forces at work. Shall we see what they are?”

“Sure. Why not?”

Madame Magda neatly flipped over two cards in the line of four. The bottom-most one caught Alya’s eye. It was a page, hair blowing majestically in the wind, holding up a sword with two hands. She found herself reaching for it without even thinking, but stopped short when she noticed Madame Magda grinning at her.

“Er…may I?” she asked.

“Of course!” The woman scooped the card up and gave it to Alya. “It makes sense that you see yourself in the Page of Swords because it is in Position 7.”

“What’s Position 7?”

“Internal forces. You could be the Page of Swords, but the Page of Swords could also represent an ideal version of yourself you are striving towards, or how you would like others to see you, or even how you think you are, even if that is not the case.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“People often are.”

Alya nodded, thoughtful. “But what does the Page of Swords mean?” she wondered. “And what does it have to do with…” She glanced at the other card as she put the Page of Swords back on the table. At first it looked like it was a queen of some sort, a woman seated regally on her throne, but in one hand she held a sword and, in the other, another set of scales, just like in the first card. “Justice?” Alya read at the bottom, the handwriting barely a step above legible. She realized it must be another card from the Major Arcana.

“Excellent question, darling!” Madame Magda rubbed her hands together, her rings clacking. “The Page of Swords uses her mind. She has fortitude. She is truthful and just.”

“Sounds familiar…”

“I thought it might.” The woman winked. “You would think Justice would be right up her alley.”

“It’s…not?”

“The Page of Swords is already just, so why would she be influenced by Justice? So we look at the differences between the two. The Page of Swords has her own brand of justice. It is softer, more human. Justice itself is harsh and cold. It doesn’t care about extenuating circ*mstances.” Madame Magda leaned back, her expression growing dreamy. “Tell me, what would you do if you found out Ladybug’s identity?”

Alya was once again taken back to the night she first became Rena Rouge. Prior to her younger sisters becoming Akumas, she had been sharing her discovery with Marinette that Ladybug was probably a girl their age. She even started to plan how she’d use this information to find out Ladybug’s identity when Marinette interrupted her (as did her sisters a short while later), pointing out that Ladybug kept her identity a secret for a reason, probably to protect her family and friends. And Alya said the same thing then that she told Madame Magda now.

“I’d keep it a secret,” she said. “I just want to know who she is so I can help her.”

“I suspected as much.” Alya raised an eyebrow, but it didn’t affect the women in the slightest. “Do you think your audience on your blog, a blog that asks who Ladybug is, would be understanding of your decision?”

Alya found herself chewing on her lip. With her working so closely with Ladybug now, she believed it was only a matter of time until the superheroine trusted Alya with her identity. Alya both looked forward to this moment and dreaded it. Part of that was because secrets were difficult to keep, especially if they were big news.

“…No,” she said with a sigh. “I get what you’re saying—I want the truth and my viewers want the truth, but for different reasons.” She shook her head. “It’s just…I didn’t feel the way I do now when I first started the blog. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“But the cards do.”

Alya found herself tempted to disagree. The cards were just lucky, in her opinion, but they were making her focus on issues she had been ignoring. Besides, there were only two left. She might to well pretend that she subscribed to their magic to get the reading done and over with.

“What do they say?” she asked.

Madame Magda flipped the last two cards as she explained: “Position 9 shows me either your hopes or your fears. How you feel about a situation is going to dictate the final outcome.”

“And what card is in Position 9?”

“The Three of Swords. Clearly a fear.”

“What makes you say…that…?” Alya caught sight of the card, a bloody heart struck through with three swords.

“I’ve noticed the word ‘truth’ has been coming up a lot in your reading,” said Madame Magda as she slammed her elbows on the table and tented her fingers. “One of the things the Three of Swords represents is experiencing betrayal, such as discovering a painful truth. Are you perhaps…afraid of learning Ladybug’s identity?”

Alya scoffed. “Why would I be afraid of that? It’s what I want.”

“True, but that doesn’t preclude it from being a fear. A man may desire a committed relationship and still fear commitment. Perhaps you fear the weight of keeping Ladybug’s identity a secret. Or maybe you don’t like the idea of your quest coming to a close after it’s been your focus for so long. And there is always the chance that you will be disappointed by who is behind the mask. She might not live up to your high expectations.”

Alya flashbacked to when she mistakenly thought Chloé was Ladybug after seeing the bully put a Ladybug costume in her locker. The most self-absorbed girl in school her idol? She tried to confirm if the costume was real by breaking into Chloé’s locker, only to get caught by Chloé and suspended—not one of her better moments, since it led to Hawk Moth Akumatizing her. Even if Ladybug didn’t live up to Alya’s expectations, it still had to be better than Chloé. She hoped.

But that wasn’t all. Recently, she had been thinking that maybe Ladybug was someone she knew. It was a silly idea, but it somehow felt true. If that was the case though, what did that say? That she didn’t trust Alya enough to confide in her? That Alya had missed all the signs that she was Ladybug?

Alya brushed the thoughts from her mind. “What’s Position 10?” she asked, changing the subject.

“Ah!” said Madame Magda, slamming her hands on the table and causing everything, even Alya, to jump. “It is the final outcome, darling! And I hope it will bring you peace. It is the Queen of Pentacles.”

The woman on the card looked oddly like the Page of Swords, serene as she sat on her throne and cradled a pentacle.

“The final outcome…is a person?” wondered Alya.

“The person you will become, I believe. You’re on a journey to find the truth, Miss Césaire, and that journey isn’t taking the route you thought it would.”

“Uh. Understatement.” She felt like most people didn’t plan to become superheroes.

“You’re growing and changing. Your new friend group is proof of that. The fact that you no longer agree with the original mission of your Ladyblog is proof of that too. And while the Page of Swords is a lovely person to be…they are young. Inexperienced. Lacking in understanding.”

“So who am I becoming?”

“Someone who offers support to others in their time of need. Someone who is down-to-earth and resourceful. But, most importantly, someone who is trustworthy, who is loyal and true to their word. It seems clear to me that, someday, Ladybug will trust you with her identity, and you will be willing to keep that secret, but you’re not there yet, darling. Almost, but not quite. That is what I think the cards say.”

Alya stared at the spread, wondering how ten pieces of paper built such a full picture of her. It shouldn’t have been possible. But, then again…she lived in a world of superheroes and supervillains, where she magically transformed into a fox who protect Paris with a flute and mirages. A magical deck of tarot cards that always gave accurate readings wasn’t outside of the realm of possibility. She’d have to come back to test them further, maybe with someone else.

A blinding light shown through the windows. At first Alya thought it was another meteor, but she jumped up from her stool when it didn’t fade.

“Ladybug!” she cried, racing to the door and throwing it open just in time to see a swarm of ladybugs fixing the crater on Voyance’s doorstep, the sun returned to its place in the sky. “She did it!”

“As the cards predicted,” said Madame Magda. She had moved from the alcove to behind Alya with startling swiftness. “Thank you for passing the time with me, darling. It was a pleasure.”

“I feel like I owe you money or something…”

“Oh, no money! I told you it was free, darling, and I meant it. But feel free to refer me to your friends and family. Here’s my card.”

She plucked a business card from a holder on a curio counter and offered it to Alya with a flourish. It was a sparkly gold on the back. On the front were the same symbols from the door with a pair of heavily made-up eyes that winked as Alya moved the card around. They were Madame Magda’s eyes. Below was ‘Voyance’ in curly script, followed by its address. No phone number or email though.

“Thanks!” said Alya. “I’m not saying I believe in tarot…but it was interesting. I might have to come back.”

“I’ll make a believer out of you yet!” the woman said.

“Girl, you can try!” said Alya, all smiles as she waved and left the shop.

She walked back through Tuileries Garden, lost in her thoughts as she tilted the card to make it wink at her over and over again. Maybe Marinette would go back to Voyance with her. Maybe Madame Magda could do a love reading and convince Marinette to make a move on Adrien! Marinette would gain a much-needed push while Alya could observe if the cards were right or not. No one knew her best friend better than her. It was the perfect plan.

Chapter 2: Marinette Dupain-Cheng, King of Wands

Chapter Text

“I can’t believe you’ve talked me into doing this,” said Marinette as her and Alya strolled down Rivoli, beneath the colonnades of all the fancy hotels.

“Aw, c’mon, girl! It’ll be fun!”

“Yeah, but there is no way you believe in tarot.”

“I’m not saying I do. I’m not saying I don’t. That’s why we’re going, remember?”

Alya had been on Marinette all week about going with her back to some psychic shop she hid in during Star Storm’s attack. While Marinette was glad Alya didn’t get hurt during what had turned out to be a very rough Akuma battle (her and Chat only defeated him thanks to calling upon Nino to become Carapace), the whole thing struck her as a tiny bit coincidental. What were the chances that Alya would end up in a fortune-telling shop, of all places? And that the free reading this Madame Magda gave her friend—who prided herself on facts and the truth—was making her start to believe in tarot? No, a much more likely story was that her friend hatched a plan with Madame Magda to give Marinette a positive love reading so she would gain the confidence to ask Adrien out.

Oh, Adrien… thought Marinette, nearly floating away at just the brief thought of her crush’s name.

She crashed into a column.

“Were you thinking about Adrien again?” guessed Alya, knowing smile on her face as she pulled a stumbling Marinette towards a door carved with intricate shapes. Marinette gave a sheepish giggle, cheeks tinging pink. Lovesick and clumsy were not a good combination.

“Is this the place?” she asked, looking it up and down as she regained her footing. On either side of the door were frosted windows. Above it stretched ‘Voyance’ in an aged brass, to the point where it was more seven letters than one word.

“Yup!” Alya heaved open the door.

Marinette knew this was her last chance to escape. The thing was though, she believed in the mystical. It was sort of difficult to carry a Kwami in her purse, be a student of Master Fu, and not believe. Maybe this was a ploy by Alya, but, then again, maybe it wasn’t.

Marinette stepped into the shop to find the air cloyingly sweet, like how her parents’ bakery got during the holidays. There were crystals and sun catchers and tarnished mirrors and glass beads, refracting light in so many different directions that it was difficult to tell where to look at first. Everything was flashy and deserved a special kind of attention. There was apparently no time though as Alya herded her passed the shop’s curiosities to the back.

“Well here is a familiar face! Hello again, Miss Césaire!” said a voice of honey, but Marinette was too distracted to see who was speaking, peering over at a glass bottle in the shape of a heart filled with pink liquid. A love potion, maybe?

“I told you I might be back,” said Alya.

“And you brought a friend! How nice.”

“It’s good to meet…” Marinette turned only to find herself standing in a shadow. She looked up, and then up some more, at the stately woman wearing gold lamé, head wrapped in a matching scarf, the ends tied to form a pinwheel. Marinette couldn’t help but gape. “…You,” she managed.

“Don’t worry, darling. I have that effect on everyone,” the woman said breezily, offering a hand that was somehow dainty, even though it dwarfed Marinette’s hand by comparison when they shook. Her skin tone seemed to take on different shades, depending on the light.

“Madame Magda, this is Marinette,” said Alya, putting her arm around her friend’s shoulders. Marinette tried on a nervous smile. “I’m gonna buy her a love tarot card reading.” She dug through her bag for her wallet. “How much?”

“For you? Fifteen Euros.”

Alya paused and arched an eyebrow. Marinette watched as Madame Magda seemed unfazed by the suspicion.

“Student discount,” she added.

Even though Alya didn’t buy that the reading was that cheap for a second, she still pulled out a ten and a five. While Madame Magda got Alya set up with a handwritten receipt, Marinette was free to poke around the shop. She looked at the rows upon rows of diffusing oils. Orange oil was supposed to help with emotional balance and increase positivity, while rose oil was supposed to help with grief.

Marinette popped open her purse just a hair, a sliver of light falling across Tikki’s face. “Do you think Master Fu would want anything from here?” she whispered.

“I’ll ask Wayzz the next time I see him!” said the creature before she switched tracks. “Are you sure you want to go through with this reading, Marinette?”

“Of course. Alya asked me to help her.”

“But what if the cards reveal your secret identity?”

Maritnette froze. She hadn’t thought of that.

“Marinette!”

Marinette spun around on her heels at the sound of her name to find Alya and Madame Magda waiting for her by some bookcases on the other side of the store. A navy velvet curtain with fake diamonds sewn on it like stars had been pulled back to reveal a table where the tarot card reading was presumed to take place. Alya weaved around the tables and displays to grab Marinette’s wrist and drag her into the curtained nook. Searching the folds once they were inside, Alya found two stools and moved them to the table so she and Marinette could both sit opposite of the tarot card reader. With a placid smile on her face, Madame Magda waited for them to get situated.

“No reason to be nervous, darling,” she said as Marinette’s eyes darted around the area.

“I’m not nervous,” Marinette lied. “I’ve just…ah…never done something like this before.”

The woman shook the cards out into her hand. Though she shuffled, she didn’t take her eyes off Marinette. It almost felt like she was two people sitting in one space—one shuffling the cards, the other holding a conversation. It was a touch unnerving in a way Marinette couldn’t quite explain.

“We’re just having a talk,” Madame Magda said. “Nothing more.”

“But aren’t the cards supposed to tell my future?”

“The future can always be changed if you don’t like what you see. After all, it hasn’t happened yet.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

“Here, darling.” The woman offered Marinette the deck of blue cards as if it were a cup of tea on a saucer. “Imbue the cards with your energy.”

Marinette looked to Alya, who silently gestured that Marinette should take the cards, so she did. They felt warm and worn. Well-loved. She tried to shuffle them a little, but they spilled out of her hands. Marinette was used to video games, not card games.

“Sorry, sorry!” she cried, diving beneath the table to gather them up. Tikki even phased out of Marinette’s purse to grab a card that had fallen beyond the girl’s reach. It seemed to depict a king on a throne. The Kwami slipped it back into Marinette’s hand and returned to her hiding place. “Sorry!” Marinette said again, popping back up. She handed the deck back to a slightly bemused Madame Magda.

“I assure you, darling. The cards have been through much worse,” she said as she smoothed them back into a uniform stack. Alya stifled her laughter, which wasn’t helping matters.

“I thought you said you were going to be quiet?” Marinette challenged her friend.

“I said I wasn’t going to interfere. This is your reading.”

“Yes, indeed!” broke in Madame Magda. “This is your reading Marinette, so if you would rather I give a general reading, or read something else—”

“No—!” hissed Alya.

Marinette gave her friend a sharp glance as the girl slammed her hands over her mouth. So was this a set-up after all?

“A love reading is fine,” said Marinette smoothly. It was, after all, what she was most curious about, and she didn’t want to ruin Alya’s plan if there was one.

“Very good,” said Madame Magda. She began to lay the cards face down in a pattern that didn’t make much sense to Marinette, but seemed important.

“You’re doing the Celtic Cross again?” observed Alya. Now that she said it, Marinette could kind of see that the plus sign some of the cards formed looked like a cross.

“Yes. When I do my love readings, I use this spread, but the positions are in slightly different places, and some mean different things.”

Marinette nodded as if she knew what that meant. Alya sure seemed to know.

“So is Position 1 no longer that card underneath the other one in the middle?” asked her friend.

“Correct! That is now Position 2. Position 1 in this reading was Position 6 in yours. Position 6 still means relatively about the same thing in both readings though, which is the near or immediate future.”

“So then which positions do mean different things…?”

“Um…” Marinette was lost as she looked back and forth between Alya and Madame Magda. Their words sounded like nonsense to her.

“Ah! Right you are, darling,” said Madame Magda as if Marinette had just espoused some words of wisdom. The woman turned back to Alya. “Why don’t we just start your friend’s love reading and you can observe?”

At these words, Alya dug through her messenger bag, coming up with her phone. “Mind if I record?”

“Oh, no. Not at all. I’m always camera ready!”

Marinette had to hand it to Madame Magda—she exuded confidence. But maybe she had to in her line of work. Marinette was less confident, especially when the tarot reader flipped over the first two cards and her face filled with sorrow. She clucked her tongue as she shook her head.

“Girl? Breathe!” coached Alya. “I had a pretty scary card in my reading too, but it turned out to not be that bad.”

“Miss Césaire is correct,” said Madame Magda quickly as Marinette’s eye started to twitch. “Traditionally the devil may stand for evil, but in tarot, he represents an unhealthy or unproductive situation. The Eight of Swords supports this—it is a reinforcing card that emphasizes the confusion and restriction you feel. Tell me, darling…are you in a relationship?”

“N-no,” stuttered Marinette.

Apparently there had been some tension hiding in Madame Magda’s broad shoulders. She seemed to expand a little as she relaxed. “Good. You are too young to be dealing with something of that nature. Still, there is a lot of turmoil in your love life. I would guess you either have multiple romantic interests and you don’t know which one to choose or you have an unrequited crush.”

“Hey, now!” pipped up Alya. “It’s not that he doesn’t like her back, it’s just that he is too oblivious to realize Marinette has feelings for him, especially when she won’t act on them!”

Marinette felt her cheeks go red as she turned to glare at Alya and throw up her hands in frustration. She loved her friend dearly, but she never knew when to quit sometimes.

Alya tucked her chin down. “I’ll be quiet.”

“Darling, why don’t you tell me in your own words,” Madame Magda said to Marinette. “If you want.”

“I guess…both are true,” she admitted. There was Adrien, of course. He was kind, caring, and perfect in every way—but he was unattainable to her. She had been able to get over her previous inability to string two words together around him, even recently gave him a kiss on the cheek, but he only saw them as friends, and she knew how much friendship meant to him. It really was an unproductive situation, so she had turned to Luka, a boy who did have an open interest in her. In the end though, she couldn’t get Adrien out of her head. “But mostly the unrequited crush thing.”

“Wait, what!? There’s another boy?” demanded Alya.

“Alya!”

“Right, right. Shutting up.”

“So you like a boy,” said Madame Magda, smoothing everything over. “But you find yourself paralyzed, afraid to tell him how you feel.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“How terrible! But this is good.”

“It…is?”

“Yes. Now that we’ve established the situation, we can explore it a bit more. These next two cards will examine obstacles that prevent your situation from being resolved—very important when you feel trapped like you do. The first is an obstacle you can control—I refer to it as a challenge. You can turn that obstacle into an opportunity! The second is an obstacle that is in fate’s hands, or a higher power, so to speak. There’s really no way to use it to your advantage, unfortunately.”

“Ooooo!” said Alya, adjusting her glasses as she readied her camera on the cards. “That’s a lot different than mine.”

Madame Magda hovered over what Marinette presumed to be Position 3, in line with the other two cards she had already turned over. As soon as she flipped it though, Alya dropped her phone. It bounced off the table and onto the floor.

“The Ladybug card?” the girl cried.

Alarmed, Marinette looked back at the card…only to find it depicted a king on a throne wielding a stick. It seemed familiar somehow, like she had seen it before, but she couldn’t think where. Still, nothing about it screamed Ladybug.

“What are you talking about?” she wondered as she leaned down to grab her friend’s phone.

“In my reading, Madame Magda told—thanks.” She took back the proffered phone. “—Told me that the King of Wands represents Ladybug.”

“Lately it’s been representing Ladybug,” amended the tarot reader gently. “The King of Wands can either represent someone who is creative, inspiring, forceful, charismatic, or bold, or it can suggest you take those actions.”

“That makes sense,” said Alya. “Adrien does have a thing for Ladybug.”

This again. “He does not!” complained Marinette.

“The funny thing is, you’re all those things too! Just…not when Adrien is around. Girl, I’ve been telling you this now for ages. Just be yourself around Adrien and let him see what an awesome, talented leader you are. Be more like Ladybug.”

But I am Ladybug! Marinette thought in frustration. Madame Magda and Alya clearly didn’t know it, but she felt like the cards did. They were acknowledging the fact that she was living a double life. Duty called at the most inopportune times, sometimes ruining her chances of spending time with Adrien and getting to know him better. But what had Madame Magda said? She could turn this obstacle into an opportunity? Now that she thought about it, she did interact with Adrien a fair amount as Ladybug. She once talked her civilian self up to Chat. Maybe she could do the same to Adrien?

But Madame Magda was already moving on. “Oh, silly me,” she said. “I forgot to flip over the other card.”

It was another blindfolded woman, though this one wasn’t trapped in a cage of swords. Instead, she held a pair of swords, crossing them in front of her chest.

“The Two of Swords!” the tarot reader announced. “Fascinating. Simply fascinating.” She glanced up and took note of the looks of utter confusion and Marinette and Alya’s faces, so she cleared her throat and clarified. “It’s not normally in that position.”

“Why not?” wondered Marinette.

“The Two of Swords stands for blocking emotions and avoiding the truth. Being in a stalemate. Those are usually things that can be controlled though, because they are normally done on purpose. Yet here it represents a higher power. There is a barrier between you and this boy, this Adrien. There is an emotion you can’t feel, a truth you don’t know about, and, as long as that remains, nothing can ever change between the two of you.”

“What!? No!” Not even Sandboy could elicit the kind of fear Marinette felt icing her veins, making her breath grow short. “What is it?”

“Based off what the card is saying…If I knew and I told you, you would not believe me.”

“So…so…then what do I do?”

Madame Magda sighed as she scratched her elbow. “The Two of Swords is tied to the King of Wands. However you respond to that challenge has a huge baring on whether fate decides to reveal its secrets to you or not. The rest of the reading might let you know what you can expect too.”

Marinette rocked from side-to-side on her stool, tucking her hands underneath her thighs as she sat a little straighter. “Keep going! I need to know.”

“Ah! It would be my pleasure, darling. This part might sound familiar to Miss Césaire, but we’re going to explore your recent past and your near future, at least in terms of your love life. Are you ready?”

Marinette nodded as Madame Magda flipped the last two cards in the cross. Like the first two cards, they painted a rather bleak picture. One was of a heart stabbed through with three swords. The other was some sort of castle turret on a dark and stormy night.

“Girl! I got those ones too!” said Alya, holding up her hand.

Marinette couldn’t explain it, but she instantly felt better. “Really?” she said, softly giving her friend a high-five.

“Not as a pair, but I can tell you The Tower isn’t always bad news. It means, like, a sudden revelation. Hey, maybe you’ll learn that truth the Two of Swords is talking about!”

“Would you like to give the reading, darling?” asked Madame Magda. She wasn’t upset or annoyed like Marinette thought she would be, simply amused. Still, Alya reacted as if she had been slapped and slunk low in her seat. “We’re actually going to start with this one,” the tarot reader told Marinette, poking the heart card. “The Three of Swords is very common in love readings. It can mean things like heartbreak and loneliness. Did something happen with Adrien recently? Did he reject or disappoint you, maybe?”

“Oh, no! Adrien would never do that!”

“Hmm…” The woman chewed the inside of her cheek. “The Three of Swords doesn’t always have to be inward facing. Sometimes, it’s outward facing. You rejected someone. You hurt someone’s feelings. Perhaps it was that other boy. Was he upset when you chose Adrien over him?”

“Luka? No. In fact, he told me to go after Adrien.”

“It was Luka!?” cried Alya. “Why didn’t you tell me!?”

“It wasn’t a big deal,” Marinette insisted. This was exactly why she kept her ice skating date a secret from her best friend. She knew she would react this way.

“Uh…YES it’s a big deal! This is Juleka’s bro we’re talking about. Girl, spill! Are you moving on from Adrien or what?”

“I tried and it didn’t work. Even he could tell.”

“Then the Three of Swords cannot be referring to him,” observed Madame Magda. “Is there perhaps another boy who is vying for your affections?”

The word ‘no’ was on the tip of Marinette’s tongue when her eyes were suddenly blown wide. How could she have forgotten? The memory came screaming back to her—the rooftop, the candles, the look of devastation on Chat Noir’s face as she admitted that she liked another boy. For a time it had been easier to dismiss his feelings as playful banter and empty flirtation, but then he confided in her as Marinette that he was honest-to-goodness in love with Ladybug. She realized she had been dragging him along this whole time, so she had to break his heart. Her friend, her partner. She might as well have taken three swords and stabbed him straight through.

“Marinette?” wondered Alya. “Marinette, speak.”

“There…there is another boy. He’s in love with me, but I’m in love with Adrien, so—”

“Whoa, whoa, wait. Who’s this!?” interrupted Alya.

“A friend.”

“A name, Marinette.”

“I…er…met him online, so I don’t actually know his real name,” she said. “…or what he looks like,” she added quickly.

Alya raised an eyebrow, a look of disbelief settling in her eyes, but she pursed her lips and said nothing further.

“So this other boy, you turned him down?” wondered Madame Magda, getting back to the topic at hand.

Marinette felt like she needed a long nap. Instead, she leaned on her elbow and poked at the glass ball on a pedestal that sat on the table next to the unlit candles. “It was so, so hard, but the right thing to do. I didn’t want to lie to him. I hate lying.”

“So that is your past…But the past is inextricably linked to the future. You are not done with this boy yet.”

“Well…no. He’s my—” Marinette almost said ‘partner.’ “Friend.”

“So is Marinette gonna find out something shocking about this guy?” wondered Alya. “My guess is that you’re being catfished. He’s probably some forty-something-year-old woman.”

“The Tower doesn’t always mean some stunning revelation,” reminded Madame Magda. “It can also mean a sudden change, a release, or a downfall. Perhaps you are forced to end your friendship with this boy. Or maybe your rejection eventually causes him to turn against you.”

“He would never—! I mean, I would hope he would never…” Marinette trailed off. Ever since she rejected Chat, he’d been treating her a little differently. A little colder from time to time. She hoped it wasn’t a sign of things to come. A much more likely interpretation seemed to be that she would discover Chat’s identity. That would certainly be a huge change and throw another wrench into her love life. What if he turned out to be someone she knew?

“What a tangled web you have found yourself in—an unrequited crush, an understanding date, and an unwanted suitor,” observed Madame Magda. Alya snorted, but managed to keep her mouth shut. “Things must be confusing and difficult for you. But have no fear, darling. The card in Position 8—” She pointed out a card in the middle of the staff with her middle finger. “—Shows who you will soon be involved with.”

Sweat broke across Marinette’s brow. “R-really?” What if it wasn’t Adrien? She wasn’t sure she’d be able to handle it if it wasn’t Adrien.

“What about Position 7?” wondered Alya.

“That card will highlight any issues that are currently preventing Marinette from being in a relationship with whoever is represented by Position 8.”

“You don’t need a card. I can tell you the answer to that.”

Madame Magda smiled to herself and simply flipped the cards over. Marinette didn’t care about Position 7 though. All she wanted to know was if her and Adrien were going to get together or not. The card in question depicted a woman in golden robes, wielding a branch. At first, Marinette was thrilled. All the gold reminded her of Adrien’s blonde locks, and of the time he had been transformed into a golden statue by Style Queen, but then she noticed the black cat at the woman’s feet. And the name: Queen of Wands.

“I suppose there is no point in discussing The Moon just yet,” decided Madame Magda. It took Marinette a moment to realize she was referring to the other card. It showed what looked to be the sun, but with a moon inside of it. Two wolves (and…a lobster?) were looking up at it. “Not as long as the Queen of Wands is on the table. Tell me, darling. Is your Adrien an attractive young man?”

Marinette perked up a little. Maybe the Queen of Wands was Adrien after all! “Oh, yes! He’s a model.”

“Then it sounds like he’s very energetic as well. Does he do a lot of sports and activities?”

“Oh my gosh! Yeah! He fences. He plays the piano. He’s learning Mandarin…”

“How about his disposition? Is he a cheerful boy? Self-assured? Is he always encouraging others?”

“Check, check, and…check!” said Alya.

Marinette turned to her friend and grabbed her arm. “Alya, this is perfect!” she cried, cheeks flushed.

Alya pointed her camera at Marinette. “See? I told you that you two are made for each other!”

Here Marinette paused, once again reminded that the reading could be completely planned out by Alya. But Alya doesn’t know that I’m Ladybug and rejected Chat Noir recently, she reasoned. Still, it seemed the Queen of Wands couldn’t be anyone other than…Adrien…

Marinette squeezed her eyes shut. She had never thought of Chat Noir as attractive before, but he was a muscular boy in a tight black leather suit. He was extremely energetic, up for fighting any Akuma that came his way. Chat was also confident in his abilities and confident in hers. He was the one who encouraged her when they first became superheroes. And he was always smiling, cracking jokes and making puns.

“Uh…The Moon. What about The Moon?” Marinette demanded. Maybe it would give her clarity.

Madame Magda tilted her head, baffled, and Marinette shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. In the end though, the woman couldn’t put her finger on what had changed and started to explain. “It’s as Miss Césaire said. You are afraid to act—You are giving into the shadow of self-doubt. You lack the courage to let Adrien know how you feel and allow yourself to become overrun with your anxieties.”

“Right, but, uh…cards can mean more than one thing, right?” The Moon seemed to point to the Queen of Wands being Adrien, but she had to be sure.

“Er, yes. The Moon can stand for imagination, illusions, and feeling lost as well.”

“Illusions?” questioned Alya. Marinette’s lips twitched. Of course Rena Rouge would latch on to that buzzword.

“Deceiving yourself. Misapprehending the truth. Chasing after a fantasy.”

Marinette was almost knocked off her stool as Alya jabbed her in the side. “Girl, what did I tell you? If you keep fantasizing about Adrien, you’re never going to get around to telling him how you feel.”

Relief swept over Marinette. Not that it would’ve been the end of the world if the cards were talking about Chat Noir, but that would’ve definitely made them wrong. She had no other feelings towards her partner other than friendship. Although…maybe if Adrien wasn’t in the picture…

“You need advice, and to see how it all ends up,” suggested Madame Magda.

Marinette scooted closer to the table. “Yes ma’am. Is that what the last two cards tell me?”

The tarot card reader laughed, the sound of it vibrating through the area with the force of a bassoon. “Your friend is a quick learner,” she told Alya.

Alya nodded and turned her phone on to herself. “Let the record show that Marinette’s the best,” she said with a winning smile.

Marinette crossed her fingers and hoped for the best as Madame Magda turned over the last two cards. There was nothing about them that gave rise for any alarm. One, the Ace of Wands, made Marinette smile. Of course, with the Queen and King of Wands in play, it almost made sense to see it. The other depicted a smug-looking man in a feather cap, showing off his collection of golden goblets.

“It looks like Miss Césaire might have a future in reading cards,” said Madame Magda.

“I…do?” said Alya.

The woman nodded. “You read the King of Wands as someone Marinette should aspire to be, and here the Ace of Wands advises those same actions. Show off your creativity! Be enthusiastic! Be confident! Have courage!”

“Yes!” Alya slapped Marinette on the knee. “Like how you designed that hat for Adrien for his dad’s fashion show! You got to spend extra time with him and everyone was super impressed.”

“That was super hard though,” Marinette pointed out. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do it again…”

“Would it help if I told you that your wish to be with Adrien will come true?” wondered Madame Magda.

Marinette gasped, feeling like she was going to jump right out of her skin. Her brain turned off and turned back on again, so it took her a moment to formulate a proper word. “W-w-w-w-what…?”

“I think you broke her,” joked Alya.

Madame Magda picked up the last card with a flourish. “The Nine of Cups is sometimes known as the Wish Card. It means all your dreams will come true! However…” She put it back down. “A word of warning. Sometimes, when we get what we want, it doesn’t make us as happy as we think it will. Part of that is because what we want isn’t always what we need. The other part is that our dreams don’t always align with reality. You think a relationship with Adrien will be picture perfect, but I can tell you right now that it won’t be. It will be a lot of hard work. You will get into arguments. You will disagree. You will fight. There are parts of Adrien that he has kept hidden—are you willing to accept them when they come to light?”

As the tarot reader spoke, Marinette could feel a power in her words, a power that made Tikki shiver. “Of-of course,” she stuttered when she realized the woman was looking for an answer.

Madame Magda gathered her cards back together and leaned back, more imposing than ever. “Even if they don’t align with the Adrien in your mind?”

Marinette knew exactly what this woman was implying and began to feel a little incensed. “I don’t want to be with Adrien because he’s rich or handsome or a model or anything like that. I know some people think that, but it’s not true,” she said, rising from her seat. “The first time I met him, I didn’t think much of him. But then he…he offered me his umbrella…” She was drifting away again, drifting to that moment, rain falling in fine sheets as she stood beneath the eves of the school, waiting for the weather to let up so she could make a run for her house. “He’s a really noble person. He’s willing to be vulnerable. And he’s kind, so kind, more than he has any right to be with such a cold father. So, yes. I’m willing to accept the worst parts of Adrien because I’ve seen the best and the best is worth it.”

Silence filled the shop. Madame Magda just smiled at Marinette as she always did, no change, even now as the quiet grew awkward. Somewhere a clock was ticking, and then suddenly struck out the time.

Alya jumped up from her seat, ending her video so she could double-check the time. “Ugh. I can’t believe how late it is! Nora’s gonna kill me if I don’t get home pronto. I swear, she’s worse than my parents.”

“Thank you for the reading, ma’am,” said Marinette as she trailed Alya to the door. “It was very enlightening.”

“Any time, darling!” said the woman with a wave. “Let me know how things go with Adrien.”

Out on the street, the sun just starting its decent, streaking the sky orange, Marinette and Alya made a beeline across the Tuileries. Alya powerwalked like there was no tomorrow. Despite the length of her legs, Marinette had to rush to keep up.

“Be honest,” said Alya. “Because, girl, I know you hate lying. There is no boy on the Internet, is there?”

Marinette sighed. Her best friend knew her too well sometimes—it made her nervous, what with the secret identity and all. “No.”

“I knew it! You were just saying that because you didn’t want to let Madame Magda down, right? Because no way would you not know someone’s name or what they looked like—that just screams danger.”

She’s not wrong, thought Marinette with a wry smile.

“What a bummer though,” Alya decided. “I really wanted to believe, but that’s a pretty big thing for Madame Magda to be wrong about.”

She’s not wrong, Marinette thought again. It looked like she might be paying Voyance another visit in the near future, but not as lovesick Marinette. If Madame Magda’s cards could read her love life, then they could certainly help Ladybug and Chat Noir identify who Hawk Moth was and how they could stop him, as well as reveal more about his new Peaco*ck-themed accomplice. She’d just have to get Chat on board with the plan. She wasn’t sure how he would react to it, but it was worth a shot.

Chapter 3: Ladybug, King of Wands

Chapter Text

“You don’t strike me as the superstitious type, My Lady.”

Marinette flung out her yo-yo and snagged a chimney on the roof across the street. As it reeled her in, Chat spun his baton above his head like the blades of a helicopter and jumped after her.

“It’s not superstition, Kitty,” Marinette explained, scanning the horizon for trouble as she ran along the rooftop. They had already fought an Akuma earlier that day, so she wasn’t expecting any trouble, but one could never be too careful. The last thing Marinette wanted was to be lulled into a false sense of security. “These cards really are magical. They might be able to help us figure out who Hawk Moth is and how we can stop him, and maybe even tell us more about the Peaco*ck Miraculous holder.”

“I’m not sure if we can trust a bunch of cards, My Lady. It all seems a little spadey.”

Marinette stopped and looked out across the leafy treetops of the Tuileries, brushed with silver by the light of the moon. “Trust me on this,” she said.

“Okay.”

That was all Marinette needed to hear. She slid off the roof and dropped to the nearly empty street below. Voyance was only a couple doors down, it’s frosted windows still lit despite the late hour. She had slipped a note under the door last Sunday when the shop was closed, identifying herself as Ladybug and asking for a special reading with a date and time. It seemed her message had been well received. Marinette still hesitated though before deciding to knock. It was a store, not someone’s home, but she still didn’t want to be rude.

The door creaked as it was thrown open, Chat’s ears flattening against his head. Madame Magda filled the doorway, only slivers of amber light able to escape around her. She was dressed for the occasion, this time wearing honest-to-goodness robes in black silk, her bald head covered by a red scarf with black polka dots, the ends pinned back by a diamond cat brooch. She looked down on them, pure joy radiating from her face as she bowed her head in welcome before stepping aside. Marinette took a few steps over the threshold only to realize Chat was still frozen in the doorway. She went back and grabbed him by the tail, dragging him inside.

Madame Magda waited until the door was sealed shut. “Ladybug and Chat Noir! Welcome!” she boomed.

Frightened by the sudden sound, Chat jumped on top of a nearby table and knocked over a salt lamp. The tarot reader laughed in her usual way, tossing her whole body back. The noise seemed to put Chat Noir at ease. Marinette watched the apprehension fade from her partner’s face.

“I hope you can forgive a skittish cat,” he said, hopping back down and righting the lamp.

“But of course, darling,” she assured. “It’s the least I can do as a citizen of Paris. I must say though, I was shocked to receive Ladybug’s message. I thought, ‘Surely this must be a fake!’ But I read the cards and the King and Knight of Wands kept on coming up.”

“…Wands?”

“She’s talking about tarot cards,” explained Marinette. “Wands is one of the suits. Instead of clubs, hearts, diamonds, and spades, its wands, cups, pentacles, and swords.”

“My Lady, you didn’t tell me you were such an expert!”

“I thought I would brush up before our reading.” Wikipedia had been extremely enlightening.

“Yes. You are both of Wands, which makes sense,” said Madame Magda. “Fire energy. The suit of action!” As if to demonstrate, she spun around, tarot cards suddenly in hand when she faced them again. She shuffled them with her trademark lazy ease, though face up. It wasn’t the deck with the spindly pictures she had used during Marinette’s reading, but a fancy new one of silhouettes and gold leaf. Madame Magda pulled one card and held it out to Marinette. It depicted a young king with shoulder-length hair, seated on a golden throne. He wielded a branch as a scepter, but what stood out to Marinette were the flames he held in one hand, which matched the flames decorating his crown. Fire energy indeed.

“Ladybug, you are the King of Wands,” Madame Magda explained. “You are a natural-born leader. With your vision and creativity, you keep Paris safe from Akumas. You act honorably, and in everyone’s best interest.”

It dawned on Ladybug that she was supposed to take the card, so she did.

“And you, darling,” she said, turning to Chat as she pulled another card from the deck. He immediately stopped touching everything he could put his hands on and spun around to face her. “You are your Lady’s knight in shining armor, the Knight of Wands.” She held the card out to him, so he bounded over to grab it. Marinette sidled up next to him to have a look. It depicted a knight wielding a golden spear, flames instead of a plume on his helm. He rode a wild horse with a fiery mane. “You are energy! You are passion! You are action and adventure and maybe a hair impulsive, but it works,” said Madame Magda with gusto.

“Do we get to keep these?” wondered Chat excitedly, moving his around so it caught the light at different angles.

“Consider them my gifts to you, darlings, along with a free reading.”

Marinette winced. She had completely forgotten that a reading cost money, but now that the subject of payment had come up, she didn’t want to get off scot-free. It wouldn’t be right. “Oh, no! We couldn’t possibly—”

“For all you two do for Paris? I insist.”

“How about this?” said Chat. “How about we tell all of Paris about your shop?”

“Perfect! I never say no to free publicity!”

Marinette tossed Chat a grateful smile. He was always able to solve the little problems she couldn’t.

“Come, come,” said Madame Magda, sweeping over to part the curtains that hid the reading table from view. Rather than the normal white tablecloth, she had draped the table with a spangled fabric in an iridescent charcoal, almost like a puddle of oil glimmering in the sun. It was stitched with gold thread in the same geometric shapes carved on Voyance’s door, which Marinette now knew were alchemy symbols. The crystal ball was gone, and the candles had been replaced with a single large gold and purple one that was already lit and waiting for them. The normal deck was fanned out along the edge of the pool of light the flickering flame cast.

“Cool!” said Chat, following Marinette inside. The stools were already in place for them, so they took their seats. Claustrophobia set in for a moment as Madame Magda blocked the only way out, but it passed once she situated herself on the other side of the table.

“Ladybug, you told me you were looking for a specific reading, one that explored the obstacles you and Chat are currently facing,” she said as she gathered the cards together and began her usual shuffle. “I think a five-card success spread is your ticket.”

“Five cards?” Marinette bit her lip. Her and Alya’s readings involved twice as many. “Do you really think that will be enough?”

“Large spreads, like the Wheel of Life or the Zodiac, cover a long period of time where there are many questions. Your question is very focused and immediate: How can we succeed against our current obstacle? Five cards will be more than sufficient to explore such a topic.”

She broke the deck into seven even piles, placing them on the table in the shape of a hexagon with one pile in the middle.

“We will start with a sorting ceremony,” she explained. “While we do this, I want both of you darlings to focus on overcoming your obstacle. Are you focusing?” Marinette nodded, and saw Chat do the same out of the corner of her eye. Madame Magda clapped her hands together. “Lovely! Now…Ladybug. Pick up a pile.”

Marinette looked over her options. She was tempted to take the one from the middle, but decided to reach over and grab the pile of cards furthest from her.

“Good!” said Madame Magda, reminding Marinette of Mme. Bustier whenever someone answered a question correctly in class. “Now you, Chat.”

Chat stuck out his tongue, probably to prevent himself from making a pun, and also chose the pile of cards furthest from him. He and Marinette took turns, Chat always doing the mirror opposite of her, until only the middle pile was left on the table.

“Pick it up together,” commanded the tarot reader. “And hand it to me.”

Chat grabbed the pile first, so Marinette was forced to enclose her gloved hand over his. She saw him grin out of the corner of her eye, but paid him no mind as she guided the cards over to Madame Magda. The woman gently pulled them from their grasp and laid the top five cards face down in a specific pattern. It looked like a capital ‘T’ on its side.

“What do we do with these?” Chat wondered, fanning out the cards in his hand and looking them over as if he were playing Belote.

“Hold on to them. Think of them as all of your successes—the Akumas you’ve defeated, the people you’ve saved. You have eliminated all these obstacles…except for one.” Madame Magda flipped over the center card. “Hawk Moth.”

Marinette leaned in, Chat copying her action, to get a better look. ‘Knight of Swords,’ the scrawl at the bottom told her. On it was a picture of a knight, sword raised high. Decked out in shining armor, he looked almost gallant…except for the look on his white steed’s face. It looked to be in pain, frothing at the mouth as its rider pushed it past its limit, digging his cruelly sharp boots into the horse’s sides. Marinette was reminded of something Hawk Moth had said during their confrontation at the Eiffel Tower.

Are you sure you’re not making a serious mistake? How do you know the wish I was planning to make with your Miraculous wouldn’t have been beneficial to everyone?

She thought he was just trying to play some sort of mind game, but maybe it had been the truth. Maybe he sincerely believed what he was doing was good, which in his mind justified the pain he was causing others.

“No way is he a knight!” complained Chat. “I’m a knight.”

“Knights…are interesting cards,” Madame Magda admitted hiding her face behind tented fingers. “Unlike pages, queens, and kings, they represent two extremes—the opposing sides of self. The positive side and the negative side. While everyone has positive and negative aspects to their personality, knights fluctuate more than most and they must be careful. For example…Chat, you are a confident young man, are you not?”

“Well, there is nothing I can’t handle as long as My Lady is by my side.”

“Of course. But have there maybe been times when you were a little too confident? co*cky, even? When you boasted and bragged and…maybe even exaggerated?”

Chat’s ears twitched and he looked off to the side. Marinette wondered what her partner was thinking.

“It’s okay if that happens from time to time, Chat. Despite being a superhero, you are also human. What is important is that you recognize these things about yourself and don’t stray too far into the negative…unlike Hawk Moth.”

“What are his traits?” wondered Marinette, though she could probably guess.

“Blunt. Overbearing. Unfeeling. He believes he is always right and cuts others down. All this makes sense. From what I have seen, he does not care about the feelings of others, forcing his influence upon them to achieve his goals under the guise of helping them with theirs. To him, they are simply a means to an end. Has that been your interpretation of him as well?”

“Yes.”

Chat mumbled something under his breath. “Sounds like my…” but she couldn’t catch the tail end of it.

“What’s that, Kitty?” she asked.

“Sounds like one bad butterfly,” he said. “But we already knew that.”

“Of course, darling! Of course,” said Madame Magda. “The cards are simply establishing themselves. Gaining your trust, so to speak. The next card here…” She tapped the card at the cross of the T. “…It will do more of the same. There is a—shall we say, complication? There is a complication to your current predicament.”

Flipping the card over, Madame Magda revealed a picture of an angel apparently blessing the union between a man and a woman. Marinette pulled back, a strange feeling of irritation piercing her skull. She had been hoping The Lovers would be a part of her reading. It wasn’t fair that it was here instead.

“My goodness!” cried Madame Magda, her forehead wrinkling where her eyebrows should’ve risen if she had any. She clutched her chunky bronze necklace as if it were pearls. Marinette was startled, having grown accustomed to the tarot reader’s normally placid attitude.

“What is it?” wondered Marinette, her anxiety rising. Chat tilted his head.

“My apologies. I didn’t mean to alarm you, darling. I just wasn’t expecting this.”

“Love?” wondered Chat, reading the bottom of the card.

Madame Magda rubbed her double chin. “You’re not wrong, per se. The Lovers generally stand for a relationship that is based in love, usually between people, but it can also be between ideas, events, groups—”

But Chat turned to Marinette, his eyes wide. “My Lady! The Peaco*ck Miraculous holder!”

Marinette’s mouth dropped open. She had been repeating the events at the Eiffel Tower in her head for weeks now, trying to make sense of them: the glowing blue outline of a feathered mask appearing in front of Hawk Moth’s face, him crying out, ‘No! Don’t do that!’, the arrival of a giant purple moth creature that blew them all away with a gust from its wings. They had been so close to capturing Hawk Moth only to have him slip through their fingers.

“It all makes sense!” said Chat. “Who else would help Hawk Moth but someone who loves him?”

“I don’t…what is…?” Madame Magda looked back and forth between Marinette and Chat Noir. Marinette took pity on her.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. Not a lot of civilians know, but my team and I had Hawk Moth cornered the day of the red Akumas. He got away though with the help of another villain.” She turned back to her partner. “But no way are they in love, Chat. You heard Madame Magda. Hawk Moth is the Knight of Swords—he’s unfeeling.”

“Maybe it’s one-sided,” Chat suggested. “But he honestly didn’t seem all that unfeeling when he didn’t want the Peaco*ck holder to help. He looked terrified.”

Chat was being completely ridiculous. No one could love Hawk Moth, she was sure of it. He was a supervillain. “Or maybe they are united by their love of a common goal,” she suggested. “Right, Madame Magda?”

The woman didn’t answer right away, carefully measuring her words before speaking. “It does seem that The Lovers points to Hawk Moth’s new accomplice. As for the nature of their relationship, it is difficult to discern. The Lovers stands for love and relationships, which supports Chat’s theory, but it also stands for personal beliefs and values, which lends credence to Ladybug’s theory. In the end, it doesn’t really matter why this person is helping Hawk Moth, only that they are and it has further complicated your attempt to stop Hawk Moth.”

“So what do we do?” wondered Marinette.

The tarot reader ran a finger horizontal along the sideways T, across The Lovers and the Knight of Swords to the third card on the end. “We are not quite to the solution yet,” she explained. “There is a third piece to this puzzle. You know about Hawk Moth. You know about his accomplice. But there is something you don’t know, some hidden factor that is affecting your current situation.”

Marinette leaned forward again, crossing her fingers as she hoped the card would reveal Hawk Moth’s identity or, at the very least, his location. She suspected he had a lair somewhere in Paris—the butterflies had to be kept somewhere since she knew he didn’t conjure them up out of thin air. She was sorely disappointed though when the card Madame Magda flipped over didn’t seem to hold any immediate clues. It was a strange card for the situation too—a rainbow made up of ten cups shown down on farmland and a happy family. The husband and wife shared a warm embrace while son and daughter swung each other around, laughing.

“Family…?” guessed Chat. He said it in such a small and distant way that Marinette wouldn’t have believed the word had come out of his mouth if she hadn’t seen him say it with her own eyes.

“It appears that way, darling,” said Madame Magda. “The Ten of Cups can also mean peace and joy, but The Lovers is a reinforcing card that points to family, yes.”

“So then I was right!” Chat wiggled his ears. “Hawk Moth has a wife and she’s the Peaco*ck Miraculous holder.”

“We don’t know that,” said Marinette evenly, trying to cover her surprise. It wasn’t often she was wrong. “It could be a sibling or a cousin or…or maybe even a parent or a child.”

“No way does Hawk Moth have a kid.”

“Why not? How is that any less farfetched than your wife idea?”

“Because he called us kids. He knows how young we are. And no father is going to hurt a kid if he’s got one at home.”

Marinette closed her eyes and tried to imagine what kind of father Hawk Moth was, if he was even a father at all. Her mind only conjured up kinds ones though—her dad, who played video games with her and stood up to Mayor Bourgeois when he tried to have her arrested; Sabrina’s dad, who was very protective of his daughter and always easing her anxieties; Alix’s dad, who was invested in his daughter’s life despite how different they were. Even Chloé’s dad, who spoiled the girl rotten, doted on her because he loved her. The only one who even came close to being like Hawk Moth was Adrien’s dad. In fact, there was a time when she suspected Mr. Agreste was Hawk Moth…until the man got Akumatized himself. It had been an easy mistake to make. They had similar personalities. Marinette suspected Mr. Agreste was also a Knight of Swords.

“I don’t know,” said Marinette finally. “There are some bad fathers out there.”

“Yeah…” said Chat softly, somewhere else, but he quickly came back. “It’s pretty clear the Peaco*ck Miraculous holder knows what Hawk Moth is doing and supports it. I just think a wife makes the most sense.”

“But who would marry Hawk Moth?”

“I dunno. Love makes people do some pretty crazy things.”

Marinette recalled all the times Chat put himself in harm’s way to protect her from danger. Taking Dark Cupid’s arrow without a second thought to what it would do to him. Taking Timebreaker’s touch that erased him from existence. Taking kisses from those infected by Zombizou as he held them back to buy her time. He was speaking from experience.

“I can’t imagine Hawk Moth having a family either, but the cards don’t lie,” said Madame Magda. “Family is definitely an unexplored factor in this situation. You’re going to need help.”

The woman turned over the card closest to Marinette and Chat Noir. It depicted three people standing in a cloister of some type. One appeared to be preparing to do some sort of etching on the wall based off of the drawing another was holding up. The third person observed.

Madame Magda leaned back to laugh, nearly tipping over backwards as she did so. “The Three of Pentacles! What a saucy little deck! This position represents new ideas, people, or things that can help you achieve your goal. It unfortunately doesn’t tell you anything you don’t already know. The only way you’ll be able to defeat Hawk Moth is with the help of a competent team and a solid plan.”

“I think that was our issue the last time we faced off against Hawk Moth,” Marinette admitted. “Even though Chat and I were able to get a team together, Hawk Moth had a plan and we had to make ours up on the fly.”

“But the team didn’t work either, remember?” Chat pointed out. “We had to go back to what we were good at. A duo.”

“Well…Chloé Bourgeois wasn’t my first choice for the Bee Miraculous anyway.”

“Hey, now, My Lady,” said Chat, getting ruffled. “It was only her…what? Third time out? Maybe what the cards are trying to tell us is that we need to train more. Practice working together. Maybe hand out more Miraculouses? Where are you getting them anyway?”

Marinette found herself closing her eyes again. Of course! The Zodiac Miraculouses. She would have to discuss the prospect of using them with Master Fu the next time she went to visit him. Maybe that was what they needed—not just a team, but an army. An army of well-trained Miraculous holders, ones who didn’t de-transform five minutes after they used their powers. Hawk Moth, in his hubris, let it slip that it was possible.

“Fine,” fumed Chat, folding his arms when Marinette didn’t answer him. “Don’t tell me.”

“All in due time, Kitty,” Marinette assured, scratching him beneath the chin to get him to smile. He tried to fight it back, but it was hopeless. The boy loved to grin, especially around her.

“I see you have some sort of plan?” guessed Madame Magda. “Allow the cards to assist. This last one…” She put a hand on it, preparing to flip it over. “It will answer one of two questions. Either: What do you need to do to be successful? Or: What should you avoid so you don’t fail?”

It wasn’t an unexpected card. It was a disembodied hand, gloved in white, wielding a silver sword. The crown mixed with the laurels of victory floating at the top gave Marinette hope. To her, it made perfect sense. What else could defeat the Knight of Swords other than another sword? That was what the Ace of Swords said to her.

“Double suits,” noted Madame Magda, tapping the Knight of Swords and the Ace of Swords. “Double swords means double air energy, hopefully to fan the flames of your fire energies, darlings.”

“Cut to the chase,” said Chat. “How will the Ace of Swords help us handle Hawk Moth?”

“If I had to hazard a guess…It seems to support what the Three of Pentacles to trying to say. Competence is key. You need to develop a plan to defeat Hawk Moth by analyzing the situation and figuring out the facts. The Ace of Swords also encourages the search of truth and doing what’s right, so that falls in nicely with what you are trying to do: Find out who Hawk Moth is and bring him to justice.”

“…You think we won’t be able to defeat Hawk Moth until we know who he is?” wondered Marinette. The task seemed so daunting to her, especially since she had only met the villain face-to-face recently. Hawk Moth succeeded in evading them by keeping far from the action.

“Perhaps not his identity, but you must learn something,” encouraged Madame Magda. “His location. The identity of his accomplice. Maybe even who his family is. I know it sounds difficult, but, again, the Ace of Swords comes through. It also represents fortitude. I know your current obstacles feel insurmountable, but you mustn’t give up. Somewhere inside of yourself, you must find the strength to carry on.”

“Don’t worry! You can count of me and Chat Noir to always save the day! Even when things seem like they’re at their bleakest, we always come through.”

There was a glimmer in Madame Magda’s eyes, sputtering like the flame on the candle. “That’s my King of Wands,” she said. “I have every confidence that what you say will come to pass, darling. The thing with success is that it is all dependent on you.”

Madame Magda rose from her seat with an air of dignity and finality, Marinette along with her. Chat looked at the both of them though, his brow furrowing.

“That’s it?” he asked.

Marinette was startled, but the tarot reader remained predictably unfazed. “Something wrong, darling?” Madame Magda asked.

“Yeah. You were supposed to give us answers.”

“I don’t give answers. I merely interpret the cards.”

“Then the cards didn’t give us answers! They didn’t tell us who Hawk Moth was or where we could find him or—”

“Chat…” said Marinette, growing nervous. She hesitated, but put a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged her off as he stood though. He was becoming like this more and more and it worried her.

“That wasn’t the question you asked,” Madame Magda reminded him. “You asked, ‘How can we succeed against our current obstacle?’ and the cards told you.”

“Fine. Who is Hawk Moth?”

“We already know.” She tapped the Knight of Swords.

“What’s his name?”

“Chat, darling, the cards don’t deal with specifics, nor do they focus on others. This is your reading, not Hawk Moth’s.”

“So if I ask, ‘Where is Hawk Moth hiding?’ the cards won’t be able to answer, but if I ask ‘Where can we find Hawk Moth?’ they will?” demanded Chat.

Madame Magda gestured to the cards clutched in his hands. “Try it now with your deck,” she suggested.

He did as instructed, messily shuffling the cards before handing them to the tarot reader. She flipped the top card onto the table, laying in between Chat Noir and their success spread. On it was a man tiptoeing away, presumably stolen swords in his hand. He looked over his shoulder as if expecting someone to come after him.

“The Seven of Swords,” observed the tarot reader. “He’s hidden. Of course, that’s to be expected.”

This was obviously not the answer Chat was looking for as his eyes narrowed. “Fine. How about, ‘How can we find Hawk Moth?’”

Madame Magda flipped another card. This one was familiar to Marinette, having seen it in her own reading—the heart with the swords jammed through it, the one that knew of her recent rejection of Chat’s advances.

“…The Three of Swords,” said the tarot reader calmly. “It stands for heartbreak, loneliness, and betrayal. If I had to hazard a guess…you will only be able to find Hawk Moth when you have reached your lowest point. Perhaps something happens to the ones you love. Maybe Paris turns its back on you. Maybe someone you thought you could trust leads you right to him. It is hard to say. These one-card spreads are difficult to narrow down.”

Chat slammed a fist against the table, causing Marinette to gasp and flinch. “Then what is the point of all this!?” he demanded. Madame Magda said nothing, so he swiped his hand across the table, brushing a bunch of cards on to the floor. “What’s the point of any of this if we don’t get any answers!?”

Marinette opened her mouth, desperate to calm her partner down, but Madame Magda held up her hand to silence her. Together, they waited until Chat’s harried breathing smoothed a little.

“You keep on asking for answers, hoping the cards will make a decision for you, but that is not what they do,” she explained. “It’s a common misconception, but they are, and can only ever be, a guide. They help you look critically at your situation so you can make your own decisions. And that’s a good thing, darling! You don’t want cards to dictate your life. You have free will, after all.”

Chat blinked at her but said nothing, so she continued.

“I recently had a first-time client who was a little worried when it came to the cards reading her future.”

Wait a second… thought Marinette, recognizing herself. Worried her face might give her away, she knelt to gather up the cards on the ground. There was one she didn’t recognize, one that she assumed came from the top of Chat’s deck. It depicted an old man on a throne, a cross between a king and a knight. ‘The Emperor’ it read.

Madame Magda continued. “I told her that, while my cards are accurate in predicting the future, the future isn’t set in stone. It can always be changed if she didn’t like what she saw since the future hasn’t happened yet. Think of it this way. Say you asked ‘Will we succeed in defeating Hawk Moth?’ If I confirmed your success, you would continue doing what you’re doing. If I said you would fail, you would change your tactics, not accepting failure as an option because you are heroes and Paris is counting on you. Either way, the cards helped guide you to a decision—they did not decide for you. In the end, you are the master of your own fate.”

Her speech went a long way in pacifying Chat. Marinette watched as the flash of anger faded from her partner’s eyes, though he remained tense.

“So the cards provide…insight?” asked Chat.

The woman closed her eyes, smiling as always. “You understand now.”

Marinette popped back up, handing the cards back to Madame Magda.

“I’m…uh…sorry I overreacted,” the boy said as he scratched the back of his neck. He glanced towards Marinette. “Maybe I should’ve done some research too.”

“It’s quite all right, darling.” The woman physically waved away Chat’s apology. “As we previously discussed, you are a very passionate person.”

“Heh. Well…thank you for the…guidance? Guidance. And the card.” He held his Knight of Wands up before turning to Marinette, his face half in shadow as he tried to hide his shame over his outburst. “Are you ready to go, My Lady? If you’ve got a plan, then we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“Thank you,” said Marinette to Madame Magda, meaning it with every fiber of her being as she handed back the rest of the tarot deck. “You’ve given us a lot of food for thought. If we need more guidance, we’ll know who to talk to.”

“Of course,” she said with motherly understanding. “I’ll be here.”

She lifted her arm and gestured towards the door, allowing the two of them to leave the space first. She strangely didn’t follow them though. She sat back down, shuffling her deck.

“Good night Ladybug!” she called after them. Marinette grimaced. Madame Magda didn’t say goodnight to Chat—his outburst must have offended the woman more than Marinette thought.

Outside, the girl sipped in the cool night air as she made her way across the street. Chat trailed behind her. She had a math test tomorrow that she hadn’t studied for yet weighing heavily on her mind, but she was also concerned about Chat. She turned to face him, freezing him in his tracks.

“Are you okay?” she wondered.

“I’m just tired of being in the dark,” he admitted, rubbing his eyes. He seemed so tired. “I thought the reading would fix that.”

“We still might not know a lot of things…but I do know one thing.”

“What?”

“We will defeat Hawk Moth.” She put a tender hand on his shoulder. “And we’re going to do it together.”

They exchanged smiles as she threw out her yo-yo. It caught on something and the string was pulled taunt.

“G’night, my knight,” she told him, zipping away.

Chapter 4: Chat Noir, Knight of Wands

Chapter Text

“My knight…” Adrien repeated to himself as he watched Ladybug zip away, the darkness of the night engulfed her and leaving him alone in a pool of streetlamp light. He liked the sound of that, especially on Ladybug’s lips. ‘Kitty’ was cute and all, but it didn’t exactly conjure up a picture of a brave and chivalrous warrior.

It was difficult for Adrien to not get caught up in his emotions. He had been conditioned to hide them from a very early age in order to be the perfect son. Becoming Chat Noir allowed him the release he never had, so he was very open with Ladybug when he fell head-over-heels for her. But his love for her was so all-consuming that it sometimes blinded him to the truth. He should’ve known his Lady wasn’t playing hard-to-get all this time. He should’ve realized she was in love with someone else. Sure, he was disappointed, but if he truly loved Ladybug, he would respect her feelings. Well…he was trying to respect her feelings. It wasn’t easy. He needed help. He needed…guidance.

He turned back to Voyance. The lights were still on. It appeared Madame Magda hadn’t left yet. And he felt like he owed her a more extended apology.

Mind made up, Adrien jogged across the street and pushed his way back into the shop, a waft of musk assaulting his nose as he did so.

“Madame Magda…?” he called out, not wanting to surprise her.

“I’m right where you left me, darling.” Her voice, though muffled, was emanating from the curtained nook in the back. Adrien padded over to find the tarot reader still at the table, still shuffling her deck. Her eyes, shadowed with rainbow shades, locked on to his with an intensity that did not match the rest of her serene face. “The cards said you would be back. That’s why I didn’t say goodbye.”

Adrien wasn’t sure if this made him feel better or worse. “Oh.”

“They said you’d be back, but they did not tell me why. Would you mind taking a seat and filling in the blanks for me, darling?”

Though a little unnerved, Adrien did as she said, sitting on Ladybug’s stool. “You might not tarot all to help me after the way I acted earlier, but I could really use your help with, uh, a personal matter.”

“And what personal matter would this be? I’m a tarot reader, not a mind reader.”

“Right.” He laughed a little, though weakly. “It’s, uh, my relationship. With Ladybug.” Or lack thereof, thought Adrien grimly.

Madame Magda paused her shuffling. “You wish your relationship with her was more than what it currently is.”

Adrien felt his heart speed up. “Did the cards tell you that too!?”

The woman chuckled. “Goodness, no. I was guessing. I watched your interview on Face To Face and all that happened after with Prime Queen. It’s clear you have feelings for her she doesn’t exactly share, though you two do make a wonderful team. But I am…hesitant to give you a reading after the way you acted earlier.”

Sometimes Adrien felt so trapped in his civilian life that he went in the complete opposite direction as Chat Noir. The truth was, the real him was somewhere in the middle, hiding between the lines. Adrien, or at least the façade he presented to the world, could use a little more Chat Noir, but sometimes Chat Noir could use a little more Adrien. A little more tempering. A little less fire.

“I understand,” he said. “But I get it now. I really do! A reading is not going to give me answers. But it might give me a better understanding, and I think My Lady deserves a partner who understands.”

Madame Magda’s lips curled around her square teeth. They were marked with lipstick. “Very good! I will do a reading then, but only if you promise to keep that in mind. And it will be a relationship spread, I think. Not a love spread. There are still traces of Ladybug’s essence here, so it should work perfectly.”

Adrien beamed. “Sounds purrfect!”

“Then shuffle these cards to imbue them with your energy. And, please…treat them with respect this time?”

Adrien took up the deck, embarrassed and just a hair confused by the change in ceremony, but did as she asked. They were larger and more cumbersome than ordinary cards, but he managed not to drop them. He was even able to do a waterfall.

Handing the cards back, Madame Magda started to build her spread. She laid six cards across, then started at the top of the table near Adrien and worked her way down in two lines. It looked like two lowercase Ts right next to each other before she finished off the spread by placing one card at the bottom between the two lines. There were three times as many cards on the table than there were for the success spread.

“This side is you,” the woman explained, waving a hand over the cards on her left side. “And this side is Ladybug,” she said of the right.

“What about the card at the bottom?”

“That is the fate of your relationship. But we’ve got a long way to go before we get there.”

Adrien grabbed the edge of the table as if it were a ride at the amusem*nt park. “I’m ready! Let’s go!”

With laughter like a deep rumble of thunder, Madame Magda reached for the first card she had laid down. “You’re such a card, Chat Noir.”

Pleasure steeped into Adrien’s chest at the pun. Despite how rude he had been, the tarot reader didn’t seem to be holding it against him. She genuinely wanted him to learn and help him grow. A hidden part of him ached. Though Madame Magda looked nothing like his mom, her actions reminded him of her.

The card the woman flipped over appeared to be a jester of some type, juggling two balls. A ribbon was wrapped around them, forming a large infinity symbol. In the background was the sea, boats riding up and down on the cresting waves.

“The Two of Pentacles,” Madame Magda announced. “Position 1 explains what you bring to your relationship with Ladybug, what she appreciates the most about you.”

“My smooth talking? My suave good looks?”

“If I had to guess…probably your sense of fun.”

Adrien paused. If Plagg had been present, the Kwami would’ve cackled. Adrien? Fun? You got the wrong guy, lady. And he wouldn’t be wrong. Nino was the fun one. Adrien was…boring, really. Every moment of every day was scheduled down to the minute. There were no surprises. His opportunities to have fun were few and far between unless he was Chat.

Oh, that was it!

“I have a lot of fun being a superhero,” he realized.

“Yes, exactly!” said Madame Magda, slapping the table. “You get a kick out of what you do. You’re able to make puns and crack jokes in the middle of battle. Ladybug values that.”

“She does?” She usually didn’t appreciate his puns.

“Am I safe to assume only she can purify Akumas?” Adrien nodded. “Then Ladybug has a lot riding on her shoulders. Everyone is counting on her to succeed. To her, being a superhero is a duty. You’re the one who makes it fun.”

Adrien sat there, dumbstruck. How had none of this occurred to him before? Madame Magda’s words made perfect sense. “What else does she like about me?” he wondered, feeling a blush creep up beneath his mask.

“The Two of Pentacles also means juggling and being flexible. Do you feel like that fits you?”

Adrien was used to juggling with everything he had piled on his plate—school, modeling, activities, friends, fighting Akumas. He tried his best to make time for things that were important, but his plans were always subject to change at the last minute due to the whims of his father. He was used to going with the flow by this point.

“Yup! But why would My Lady appreciate that?”

“Hmmm…well, tarot is a big fan of patterns. Usually how one aspect applies will apply to the others as well.”

“So, like…Me having fun helps Ladybug have fun, so me being able to juggle things and be flexible helps Ladybug juggle things and be flexible?”

Adrien thought of the girl behind the Ladybug mask a lot. Who was she? Did he know her? What was she like? Maybe she wasn’t as good at juggling her double life as he was. Maybe she had a hard time adjusting to life as Ladybug since it was such a big change. If that was the case, he had been helping her this whole time and he never even realized it. It was easier and faster to defeat an Akuma with two superheroes rather than one.

“I believe you give Ladybug balance,” said Madame Magda. “You are the yin to her yang, darling. But I suppose we shall see when we reach Position 6.” She tapped the card on the other end of the line that went across. Adrien eyed it distrustfully.

“What’s Position 6?”

“This spread is known for its symmetry. While Position 1 asks, ‘What do you bring to the relationship?’ Position 6 asks, “What does the other person bring to the relationship?’ But before we move on to Ladybug, we have a few more aspects about your side of the relationship to explore. This next card will reveal where you currently stand in your relationship with Ladybug.”

Adrien winced, suspecting he knew what it would show. Sure enough, as soon as Madame Magda flipped it over, she knotted her brow and clucked her tongue at the picture of two men, one dressed in rags and the other on crutches. They shivered in the snow in the shadow of a stained glass window.

“Oh, darling…” she muttered. “Has your relationship with Ladybug fallen on hard times? Did she, perhaps, reject you recently?”

Adrien didn’t like to remember it. The rooftop, the candles. The wait. Ladybug didn’t come when he thought she would, and when she finally did, her bluebell eyes were brimming with pity. She had never intended to play around with his feelings. They were partners, friends even, and she cared about him too much to lie, even if it was to spare his feelings. He could respect that. The problem was, it made him love her even more.

He squeezed his eyes shut. “I asked her out on a date. She tried to let me down gently with a maybe, but I took it as a yes. I got so upset when she didn’t show up that I almost didn’t want to help her when an Akuma attacked. She set me straight afterwards—she never meant to lead me on or play with my feelings. I guess she likes someone else.”

“That must have been difficult,” the woman sympathized, reaching across the table and patting his hand. “I do have good news for you though.”

Adrien’s cat ears perked up. “Really?” What he wouldn’t do for Ladybug to change her mind!

“See how the men on the card are poor, sick, and infirm? Their situation seems hopeless. Yet they are by a church. Comfort is close at hand. It may seem like the end of the world, but this feeling you feel is only temporary. Have you found that the sting of rejection has lessened since it happened?”

“Yeah, actually.” Adrien didn’t know why he found himself so surprised. Madame Magda wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know, at least in theory.

“You will be fine, darling. So let’s move on.”

Madame Magda flipped the next card in the row, the last one that pertained to Adrien. He tilted his head and smiled at the image, a man holding a drink and passing another to a woman. It was very chivalrous of him.

“Hmmm…” Madame Magda chewed the inside of her cheek, deep in thought. “Despite the rejection, and the hurt you felt, you still plan on being a part of Ladybug’s life, don’t you?”

“Of course!” said Adrien brightly. “We’re paw-ners! Why? What does that card say?”

“The Two of Cups? It shows me where you would like to be in your relationship with Ladybug in the future, and supports what you’re saying. You wish to continue your partnership. You’re calling a truce—you’re acknowledge that she does not feel the same way about you that you feel about her and are hoping you can still work together. But…am I wrong in assuming that you’re also hoping she’ll change her mind?”

Adrien dropped his grin and sighed. Kagami had pointed out how fruitless that was, suggesting he change targets, and he had tried. He really did. But he always came back to Ladybug in the end.

“She’s the love of my life,” he argued. “I’ve gotta keep trying.”

“But what about her feelings, darling?”

The tarot reader’s question cut him to the quick, but he had a defense. “I know, I know. But the next three cards are about Ladybug, right…?”

Madame Magda had to laugh at that one. For his part, Adrien rocked from side to side, excited to learn more about his Lady. He had misread her this whole time, so hopefully the tarot cards would paint a clearer picture of her.

“You’re in the correct mindset,” said the woman. “But fair warning. This next card—”

“Oh! Right. Symmetry! This one will show…Oh. What Ladybug is hoping the future is between the two of us…” As much as Adrien wanted the card to be The Lovers or something, he knew it wasn’t in the cards. He forced himself to lower his expectations. As long as Ladybug wanted him to be a part of her life, that would be enough for him.

Seemingly satisfied, Madame Madga flipped the fourth card in the row. “Well, now. This should look familiar to you, darling.”

Three men working on an etching in a cloister—the Three of Pentacles. Not even an hour ago, Madame Magda had shown him and Ladybug that card, advising them that they could defeat Hawk Moth with teamwork and a good plan.

“My Lady wants us to continue working together as a team?” guessed Adrien.

The woman nodded. “It appears that way.”

“Appears?”

“Based off your Two of Cups, it seems the most likely interpretation. If not for the symmetry, I might suggest that Ladybug is hoping you will grow more competent in your role.” Adrien didn’t like the sound of that and lowered his ears. He did get controlled by a lot of Akumas, putting Ladybug in danger over and over again. “In my experience though, the most likely interpretation is usually the correct one. So it would seem that, although you are coming at it from two different perspectives…you both want to remain partners. Which is good. If you both want it, it’s bound to happen!”

“That symme-tree gives me a bit of re-leaf,” joked Adrien weakly. Even if he was hoping for better, he was glad she still wanted him in her life. But then something occurred to him. “Wait. Does my Lady currently feel like we’re not a team!?”

To answer, Madame Magda flipped the next card. It was a man, sitting up in bed in the middle of the night, head in his hands. On his wall hung a large collection of sword. “The Nine of Swords,” explained the woman. “In regards to you…Ladybug currently feels worry, guilt, and anguish.”

Adrien jumped up and scrambled backwards, nearly falling over his stool. “What!?”

Madame Magda acted as if Adrien had calmly wondered the same sentiment. “I imagine rejecting you was not easy for her. It’s clear she cares about you deeply as a friend and a partner.”

“No…I didn’t…I didn’t mean to—”

“Darling. Please. Sit.” There was a rustle of a plastic wrapper and Madame Magda produced a Hyper bar from somewhere beneath her robes. “Have some chocolate.”

“But I—”

She waved the bar around. “The Nine of Swords is not a sign of major distress, Chat. Ladybug simply feels bad. There’s nothing she could’ve done—she loves another, and that inadvertently hurt you. But she is worried you won’t want to be on a team with her anymore because she doesn’t return your feelings. If you truly love her, make her see that that is not the case.”

Adrien eyed the Hyper bar with suspicion, but Madame Magda did a good job of coaxing him over. He took it, unwrapped it, and shoved it in his face as he sat back down.

Thanks,” he said through a thick mouthful of chocolate.

“I know what will make you feel better!” said the woman with a twinkle in her eye. “Let’s talk about Ladybug.”

“And what she brings to the relationship?” Adrien hadn’t forgotten.

“Precisely, darling. Precisely.”

Madame Magda drummed her fat fingers on the back of the last card on the horizontal row for a moment, metal rings clacking together, before turning it over. It was an oddly beautiful card despite the scraggly drawing. A man stood in a small clearing of trees on top of a mountain. He gazed down on the sunset-kissed hills below, a beautiful panorama.

“The Three of Wands,” the tarot reader explained. “It makes sense the King of Wands would bring a wand card to the table.”

Adrien turned those words over in his head for a moment before biting his lip. “But I didn’t get a wand card, and I’m the Knight of Wands.”

“Hmmm. That’s true. But as we discussed during your first reading tonight, the knight cards possess a duality that the others do not. I suppose that makes sense. You are a superhero with a secret identity. While it seems like Ladybug is pretty much the same with or without a mask, I would guess that your two personas are quite different.”

Adrien found himself grimacing. “Looks like the cat is out of the bag,” he said. “But I always knew that. About My Lady, I mean. I told myself the first time she purified an Akuma—I said, whoever she is beneath that mask, I love that girl.”

“Safe to say that whether she is Ladybug or her civilian self, she is willing to explore new things, and possesses foresight and leadership qualities.”

“She might have a spot of those,” said Adrien. He could almost picture her now—eyes a few shades darker than the summer sky, with midnight-colored hair and a confident smile. Maybe she was a class representative or the president of a club at her school. She was probably always helping people, a bit like his friend Marinette.

“You know what I find interesting, darling?” Madame Magda asked as she looked over the row of cards. “None of these are opposing or reinforcing each other, which I think might be a good thing. You and Ladybug are not polar opposites, nor are you the same. There is a sense of balance, like I was saying earlier. The spread so far is highlighting your teamwork, and for good reason! It is something you two both value and desire.”

Adrien almost felt like purring, but it was too early for that. There were still so many cards on the table that had yet to be revealed. “What’s next?”

“I’m glad you asked, darling. The horizontal axis, if you didn’t notice, connects your grouping of cards with Ladybug’s grouping of cards because they represent your relationship. It examinesthe past, present, and future from each of your perspectives. What was brought to it? Where is it currently? Where do you want it to go? The cards on the vertical axis takes a step back. The focus isn’t solely on your relationship.”

“But…isn’t this a relationship spread?”

“Ah, but a relationship can’t exist without two people! You and Ladybug need to be explored separately. However, the cards that border the relationship line—” She used her pinky and thumb on both hands to touch all four face-down cards at once “—are related to your relationship. For example, these two above the relationship line look at how you and Ladybug view each other now.”

“How we view each other, huh? Well, let’s see.” He waggled his eyebrows, hoping Madame Magda would catch his word play. She smiled as she always did though, so it was impossible to tell.

In contrast to the horizontal row, the woman turned over two cards at once, one for Adrien and one for Ladybug. Adrien’s card depicted a maiden dressed in white, a wreath around her head. Despite her serene attitude, she was grabbing a lion by the mouth and forcing open its maw. Strength, read Adrien, breathless in his own mind. Yes! That was exactly as he saw Ladybug. And she saw him as—

“The Fool!?” Adrien couldn’t help but cry out. He narrowed his eyes at the card, a man in a frilly outfit with a bindle slung over his shoulder. No way was he like that idiot with a white rose in his hand! His roses were red.

“Now, now, no reason to get upset, darling. There is a lot to like about the Fool. But let’s explore your card first. Is it fair to say you see Ladybug as strong, patient, and compassionate? She’s in control, but she doesn’t achieve it by force.”

“I can’t believe My Lady thinks I’m a fool! A fool for love, maybe…”

It was almost imperceptible, but Adrien swore he heard Madame Magda sigh, maybe even roll her eyes. He glanced up though and found her placidly the same.

“A fool is another word for a jester,” she reminded him.

“So Buginette thinks I’m a joke?”

“A jokester. In medieval courts, the court jester was someone who was not expected to follow the rules. They observed and then poked fun at things. Is that not what you do with the Akumas and your puns? Ladybug sees you as spontaneous. This aspect of the Fool ties is very nicely with the Two of Pentacles and even the Knight of Wands, so I can see why Ladybug sees you in this light. It also reinforces the Three of Wands—Ladybug is ready to try new things, and she believes you are too.”

“What about the other aspects?”

“The Fool also represents beginnings, faith, and folly.”

“Folly…like falling in love with a girl who doesn’t love me back?”

Finally, a change. Madame Magda’s face fell. “Darling, I don’t have any more chocolate, so you’re just going to have to listen to me. First of all, this is how Ladybug sees you, not who you actually are. That goes for both of you. Strength is the side of Ladybug that you see, but I can tell you right now that sometimes she’s weak. Sometimes she impatient. Sometimes she lacks compassion. Sometimes she forces control, manipulating others to suit her needs—”

“No! My Lady would never—!”

“Remember how I told you that despite being a superhero, you are also human? Ladybug is also human. She’s fallible, same as you.”

Adrien shut his mouth, turning her words over in his head. Now that his gut reaction had faded, he thought of how unnecessarily cruel Ladybug had been to Lila for no reason. He thought it was strange at the time, and Ladybug had been much kinder to Lila in the aftermath, but he now realized he had seen behind Ladybug’s Strength.

Madame Magda continued. “What I’m trying to say is that Ladybug sees you as adventurous, carefree, and naïve, but that might not be the truth, or at least not the entire truth. The Fool might not be who you are, darling, but there is a reason Ladybug sees you this way. She has drawn her own conclusions based off of what you’ve shown her, same as you have with her.”

“I guess we all wear masks,” said Adrien, slowly. He ran his finger over his own like he did to make it appear whenever he transformed. “Some more literal than others. But I’m feline bummed she thinks I’m foolish.”

“That’s the other thing I wanted to explain. You have folly all wrong. The Fool is someone who embraces what appears foolish to others, but often isn’t. Things like being true to yourself, trusting your heart, pursing a dream. Ladybug is a kind person who cares about you, Chat. I’m absolutely sure she doesn’t think of you as foolish.”

The angry nightmare Ladybug Sandboy had created flashed before Adrien’s eyes. “I don’t know…”

“Perhaps it would help if you saw where you’ve come from? These next two cards show how you both perceived each other in the past, when you first met. You can see what’s changed, maybe even see how far the two of you have come.”

Adrien nodded, so the tarot reader got to work flipping cards. His was of three maidens dancing, each holding a cup aloft. Of course, his didn’t hold his attention for very long. He was more focused on Ladybug. Her card was of a giant sun, shining down on a field of sunflowers and a child riding a white horse with joyous abandon. He opened his mouth to ask about it, but Madame Magda seemed to anticipate this.

“It’s important we respect the cards by reading them in the correct order,” she explained. “I see it wasn’t love at first sight for you with Ladybug.”

“Nope. How’d you figure?”

“The Three of Cups.” She pushed the card forward a fraction of a centimeter. “It’s notable for standing for friendship. It can also mean exuberance and community.”

“I was excited,” Adrien admitted. “To be a superhero and to work with her.”

“Why is that?”

“I…uh…” Adrien paused. He had to be careful. He couldn’t say it was because Ladybug wouldn’t recognize him as Adrien Agreste, famous supermodel. According to Ladybug, no one could know their true identities and he wanted to respect that. However, words could not express how refreshing it was for him to meet someone who had zero preconceived notions about him, who could potentially like him for him. He could start fresh, or, rather, start over. He had never tried to be himself before. In fact, he wasn’t sure he even knew how, so Chat was the result. “I didn’t have a lot of friends at the time,” he said instead. It was the truth too. “Since we were supposed to work together, I thought there was a good chance she would become my friend.”

Any line, any wrinkle in Madame Magda’s face seemingly vanished, she was so touched by Adrien’s words. “You may have been looking for a friend, but, darling, you meant everything to her when you first met.”

Adrien felt his heart speed up again, but he tried to keep calm. “I…did? That doesn’t sound right…”

“I’m sure you’ve noticed that some cards have suits and some do not.”

“Right. Like…Cups is a suit, but this Sun card doesn’t have one.”

“Your Three of Cups is of the Minor Arcana, while Ladybug’s The Sun is of the Major Arcana. Major Arcana carries a lot more weight. Essentially what this tells me is that you meant a lot more to her than she meant to you when you first met.”

Adrien was puzzled. That’s not how he remembered it.

Madame Magda continued. “The Sun represents enlightenment and vitality. Greatness! And, most importantly, at least in this case, assurance. Did Ladybug seem hesitant to you when you first met?”

“Well, I mean, she was new at being a superhero, same as me, but…” He thought back, to the moment he saw her falling. He caught her but also fell, and they both ended up getting tangled up in her yo-yo string. Then they saw that building collapse and they both—No…wait…He went, and she followed. And when they found Stoneheart wreaking havoc, she hung back. It wasn’t until he rescued Alya from danger that she suddenly took charge. But even then, she was nowhere to be found the next day when Ivan was re-Akumatized. When she finally did show up, she apologized for being late and he had taken it at face value. But maybe she wasn’t late on accident. Maybe it had been on purpose because she was afraid. “Huh. Yeah, I guess she was.”

“I could be wrong, but I think you showed her how to be a hero, Chat. You were her inspiration. You gave her the strength and courage to become the Ladybug we all know and love today.”

“But she doesn’t see me that way anymore…” He liked the idea of being Ladybug’s Sun rather than her Fool.

“Because she raised herself up to your level. She’s so much more confident in herself than she once was.” Madame Magda pointed to the next card in Ladybug’s line. “Position 12 is her current doubts and fears. I’m sure without you, it would be the Ace of Wands.”

“But now it’s being powerless. How is that better?”

The woman’s left eye widened, the skin wrinkling above it where her eyebrow would be if she had one to raise. Probably curious herself, she took a peek at Ladybug’s card before flipping it over, as well as the one in line with it.

“Not quite, according to the cards.”

Adrien took a moment to look at what had just been revealed. His card was of a bound and blindfolded woman, trapped in a circle of swords—the Eight of Swords. Ladybug’s was the Five of Cups. It depicted a man in a black cloak, head bowed and surrounded by cups. Three had spilled. The other two were empty.

“But when Sandboy attacked…he brought our worst fears to life!” argued Adrien. “Ladybug lost her powers.”

“Ah! I see. Losing her powers is different from being powerless. She was still able to save the day, wasn’t she? So it’s not powerlessness she fears, but loss. Losing. Without her powers, she cannot save the day. She would lose to Hawk Moth. It is you who fears being powerless.”

Adrien looked at his card again. Sandboy’s powers had affected him twice—once as Chat Noir, but first as Adrien. It made bars appear on his windows and doors, turning his bedroom into a prison it always threatened to be. Without his powers, both that night and every day, he wouldn’t be able to escape.

“Does the Eight of Sword also mean, like, feeling trapped?” he wondered, taking note of the cage the swords formed around the woman on the card.

“It seems you know your fears well, darling.” She said it softly, low and sad. “The Eight of Swords stands for powerlessness and restriction, as well as confusion.”

Confusion. Like…why did his father sometimes act like he didn’t love him? Why was he so harsh and controlling? What exactly happened to his mother? Why wasn’t Ladybug sharing with him the source of all her new Kwami knowledge? He hated being in the dark. It…well…made him feel powerless and restricted.

“Let’s talk about motivation,” suggest Madame Magda, as if she could sense Adrien’s sorrow and didn’t want him to dwell on it. “Our fears and doubts are internal in nature, but there are also people and events—external influences—that shape us into who we are. Why are you Chat Noir? Why is she Ladybug? Why do you love her? Why does she love another?”

“All that with two cards? You got to be kitten me.”

“Well, no harm in trying.” The woman swept her hands over the third-to-last and second-to-last cards and flipped them over. One card was immediately familiar to Adrien, which Madame Magda was quick to point out.

“Interesting. The Knight of Swords rears his head again. It must mean Hawk Moth.”

But Adrien knew better. Hawk Moth, while a villain who terrorized Paris, was not what influenced him. Who was Hawk Moth to him other than a masked purple goon? But his father…His father and his controlling ways was why Adrien jumped at the chance to become a superhero, to escape the life of safety and isolation he had been forced into. One of the reasons he loved Ladybug so much was because of her compassion. She warmed his heart. She connected with him on a deeper level. He was starved for affection like that, even on a level of friendship, because of the distance his father kept. Everything he did as Adrien was to seek the approval of his father. Everything he did as Chat was to rebel against his father’s rules.

“Yup,” lied Adrien with cheery brightness. “If not for Hawk Moth, I wouldn’t have become a superhero or met My Lady.”

“You would think he’d drive Ladybug more, but the cards must have something else in mind. Did you see her card?”

Adrien tilted his head. It was a regal woman in robes of gold, sitting on a throne. A black cat lay at her feet. “Queen of Wands…” he read before looking up, immediately suspicious. “Who’s this?” If Ladybug was the King of Wands, then that meant… “It’s Him. Isn’t it?” he hissed.

“Now, now, it’s a common misconception that Court Cards stand for people. While that may be one interpretation, usually in readings it asks the querent—in this case, you—to think and feel as the Queen of Wands does.”

“But it’s Ladybug. And it’s an outside influence.”

“True…okay. Chances are, this does represent the boy Ladybug is in love with. I imagine he is a huge motivating factor for her. She wants to keep Paris safe for everybody, but specifically for him.”

“Who is he? What’s his name? I mean..." Adrien cleared his throat and tried again. "What does the Queen of Wands represent?”

“I was just about to say...You’d do well to remember what we talked about, Chat. But to answer your question—This boy is probably very popular and good-looking. Because of that and his easygoing manner, he probably has a lot of friends and admirers. He has this energy about him, you see, an enthusiasm others find infectious. No matter what he does, he does it with his whole heart. He’s rather upbeat and cheerful, always looking for the silver lining, the good in people. He’s also very busy, probably in a lot of sports because he is so athletic.”

“I bet he’s probably really arrogant,” said Adrien, wanting to knock this dream boy down a few pegs.

“Confident is the word, actually.”

“Ugh. How am I supposed to compete with that? The guy sound perfect.”

“Don’t you mean purrfect?”

“No! No puns for him.” He collapsed across the other stool, feeling all his energy leaving him. “What am I going to do?” he groaned.

“Well…” The table creaked as Madame Magda used it to stand so she could look over the table to see where he had gone. “We could look at the last card in your spread.”

Adrien’s ears perked up. “The future of me and My Lady’s relationship?”

“The very one.”

He struggled to get back upright, rocking the stools and almost falling off them. He ended up sitting on his haunches, much like his superhero persona’s namesake.

“What is it?” he asked, nearly unable to contain himself.

With a dramatic flourish as she sat back down, Madame Magda turned the card at the bottom of the spread over. Adrien could see instantly that it was from the Major Arcana, a stern woman in flowing robes of Robin’s Egg blue. There was a diadem on her head and a crescent moon at her feet as she sat on a throne with her legs crossed. On closer inspection, a lot of strange things stood out to Adrien: The throne was decorated with what looked like pomegranates and palm trees. On either side of it were two pillars—a black one marked with a ‘B’ and a white one marked with a ‘J’. The woman was holding a scroll, and there was something familiar about her face. Adrien glanced up just to be sure and confirmed that the woman on the card looked an awful lot like a skinny, unsmiling version of Madame Magda herself.

“The High Priestess,” said the woman in a hushed tone. “One of my favorites—very mysterious, darling.”

“Why doesn’t it make sense?” wondered Adrien.

“I’m not questioning why it’s come up in the spread, I’m telling you what it means: Mystery, among other things. See, The High Priestess is the guardian of the unconscious. She knows something you don’t know and encourages you to dig deep to figure it out.”

“So, like…what? Ladybug’s identity?” he guessed.

Madame Magda held a hand to her heart. “Goodness, no! That would be The Magician. He is a man of action. The High Priestess, his polar opposite, encourages you to wait and allow things to develop. Only when you are still, only when your heart is quiet, will the truth be revealed to you.”

Adrien tried and failed to cover up his disappointment. “So you don’t know what our future holds…”

“I never do. That’s because the future is predicated by your actions.”

“You just said don’t act.”

“Nonaction is an action, as paradoxical as it may seem. You must allow things to take their natural course.”

“So I should do nothing.”

“I didn’t say that either. Here.” She put out a hand flat in front of her. “Think of a duck floating on the Seine. It looks still. It looks like it isn’t doing anything. But…underneath the water…where no one can see…” She moved both her hands in a frantic circular motion. “It is paddling like mad against the current to stay in place. So while you’re not doing anything on the outside, you will be doing plenty of soul-searching on the inside. Open yourself to dreams, but be aware of the larger reality. Explore the potential of all possibilities. Look beyond the obvious. This is advice for Ladybug as well. There is something the two of you are not seeing, something about your current relationship. But until you stop looking out and start looking in, you will never understand what it is.”

“And what is it?”

“That is the mystery you have to solve.”

“And you think the answer is inside of me?”

“Inside of you, and inside of her. It might be inside your minds, your hearts, or your souls, but I will say this—unless you understand yourself, Chat, there is no hope for you and Ladybug.”

Adrien didn’t like the thought of such a dark absolute. “I-I understand myself,” he argued, but his stutter gave him away.

“I don’t think you do. I don’t say this to be rude, darling, but my understanding of you is that you are a very fractured young man. I sense that who you are beneath your mask is very different from the superhero who sits before me. Bring your two personas more in line with one another, like Ladybug has done, and I’m sure you’ll see a lot of positive change, especially in regards to your relationship with Ladybug.”

“How do I…how do I do that?” The tasked seemed so daunting to Adrien.

Madame Magda rose to tower over him as she gathered the cards together. “Only you can answer that.”

“What…? But-but—” She was already leaving the nook, yawning all the while. Adrien scrambled after her. Time didn’t seem to exist around the tarot reading table, but out in the shop a weariness seeped into his bones. He found himself yawning as well.

“You’re looking for the cards to give you answers again,” said the woman as she used a vintage silver candle snuffer to extinguish the little flames about the room. “I warned you about that.”

“I-I know, but—”

“Guidance, Chat. That’s all I can offer.”

She grabbed a voluminous piece of fabric from a coatrack and slipped it over her head. It was apparently some kind of poncho. She paused, looking at him with a hand on the light switch.

“Are you ready?” she wondered, benign smile on her face.

Adrien sagged. He had definitely learned a lot tonight. He was happy to find out there were parts of him he didn’t realize that Ladybug truly appreciated, and that she wanted to be partners as much as he did. But this other boy, not to mention his own existential struggle, did not make him feel any better.

“You don’t seem tarot-bly happy right now,” observed Madame Magda. “Here.”

She opened her arms and, for a moment, Adrien was confused on what she was suggesting. Then is dawned on him that she was offering him a hug. Maybe it was silly, but he didn’t think twice about accepting it. It was a little bit like being swamped by a walking fabric store that smelled strongly like potpourri, but there was a grandmotherly-like affection behind it that washed away the trepidation he was feeling. In an odd way, it made him feel safe and understood.

It ended too soon though and he found Madame Magda patting him affectionately on the cheek. Adrien tried to focus on her face, suddenly wondering how old the tarot reader was, but it was impossible to narrow down. Somewhere between forty and seventy was his guess.

“Better?” she asked.

Adrien nodded, so the woman flipped off the lights and ushered him out into the night.

“You hurry on home now, darling,” she said with a wink. “I’m sure you have school in the morning.”

Chapter 5: Adrien Agreste, Queen of Wands

Chapter Text

After meeting with Madame Magda, Adrien went straight home and got to work. In a notebook, he created a Venn diagram of Adrien and Chat Noir’s personality traits, reasoning that the ones they shared were the real him. It was going pretty well until Plagg took a peek.

“You forgot ‘lame,’” he suggested, pointing to where the circles overlapped before shoving the last bit of Camembert in his mouth. “And you think you’re funny as Chat Noir? In your dreams, lover boy.”

Adrien scowled. “I didn’t ask you.”

“Well…maybe you should. You obviously don’tknow yourself or you wouldn’t be doing this.”

While Adrien didn’t think Plagg was the best judge of character, he realized the Kwami had a point. He wasn’t the best judge of himself. So, when he went to school the next day, he started asking his friends and classmates what they thought of him, and then what they thought of Chat Noir. Chloé, of course, sung his praises, calling him ‘perfect,’ while Chat Noir was ‘average at best.’ Others offered up traits like ‘serious’ and ‘responsible’ for him, and ‘easy-going’ and ‘impulsive’ for Chat, even though they were polar opposites describing the same person. Marinette pointed out some similarities between the two (dedicated, friendly, honest), but it was Nino who spoke the truth.

“Dude, why would you even ask that?” he wondered as the two of them worked together on their lab during science.

Adrien grimaced. Was he doing it wrong? “No reason.”

“I mean, you don’t strike me as someone looking for an ego boost, so I gotta believe you really don’t know. But me telling you isn’t gonna help either.”

“Why not?”

“That’s just how I see you, dude. And that’s gonna be different from how your dad sees you or how Mme. Bustier sees you or how Chloésees you.”

“But I can’t even see myself right!”

“That’s deep, man. Do any of us see ourselves right? It’s like this total quest for identity. Alya’s hype on that right now.”

At the sound of her name, Alya looked over her shoulder with a mischievous smile. “You boys talking about me?”

Nino raised the brim of his cap to catch his girlfriend’s eye and grin. “Adrien’s trying to find himself.”

“Me too!”

“It all started with her trip to this fortune-teller lady—” Nino started to explain.

“Tarot reader,” corrected Alya. “I mean, she was a total fraud—” Here Adrien saw Marinette flinch as she studiously measured the meniscus of her and Alya’s solution, but no one else seemed to notice. He wondered if he imagined it. “—but she gave me a lot to think about. You know, about personal growth and who I am as a person and all that. It’s a good starting point.”

And waited.

And, eventually, the opportunity to visit Voyance as Adrien presented itself to him. On a rainy afternoon several weeks later, the Gorilla drove him to a fencing tournament only for them to discover that, due to a miscommunication, the venue had been double booked. A badminton tournament was already in progress. While Mme. Tsurugi laid into M. D’Argencourt, Adrien’s bodyguard ushered him back to the car and began to drive him home. Flush at the thought of free time, Adrien was just about to text Nino when he remembered his mission.

“Can you take me to the Tuileries?” he asked. “I need to stop at a shop nearby.”

The Gorilla grunted. Adrien beamed. He knew a ‘yes’ grunt when he heard one.

They found parking and Adrien’s bodyguard insisted on getting out the umbrella and holding it above the boy’s head as he got the car door. He didn’t quite want to relinquish it when Adrien tried to take it, but he let go after a tug or two and pulled up his hood. He waited for Adrien to cross the street and seek shelter beneath the colonnades before falling in step behind him. Adrien paid him no mind as he searched for Voyance. It was a bit further down than he thought.

In the day, weak as the light was, the shop looked completely unremarkable. Just another dusty shop in a row of dusty shops. A sandwich chalkboard sign had been placed outside that read ‘Rainy Day Sale – All incense ½ off’ in curly script on both sides, the corners decorated with the same concentric shapes carved into the door. Looking at the door now though, Adrien wondered if it had always looked that worn, and he could’ve sworn the carvings had been a lot more intricate the night he and Ladybug stopped by.

His pause had allowed the Gorilla to catch up. The man sensed Adrien had arrived as his destination and pushed the door open for him. Adrien stepped inside the dimly lit space.

Madame Magda jumped up from her stool behind the counter the instant she heard the door creak open and slammed down her magazine. Adrien swore he felt the whole ground shake. Today the woman looked like a bonfire, sporting a muumuu of clashing reds and oranges. Her headscarf was black and tied off into a braided knot.

“Welcome!” she said, no sign she recognized Adrien. It was always refreshing to be treated no differently than any other customer.

Adrien heard an odd, strangled grunt behind him and turned to see the Gorilla staring at Madame Magda, mouth agape.

“Why, yes, of course, darling,” purred the woman, eyes still glued on the Gorilla as she came around the counter and offered Adrien her oddly dainty hand. Her nails were painted to look like liquid mercury. Adrien swore he could almost see his reflection in them. “Madame Magda, tarot reader extraordinaire, at your service.” She turned her kindly eyes on him, as if they had been there the whole time. “How can I help you, young man?”

“I would like a reading, if that’s okay.” Adrien made a move for his wallet when a credit card suddenly appeared above his head. The Gorilla had hastily dug it out of his own pocket.

“I can’t believe we’re here again. Why couldn’t this lady run a cheese shop or something? Nothing in here is edible!”

“Plagg!” Adrien hissed.

“Ooo! Shiny!” said the Kwami, flying over to a bangle on display. It looked a lot like Chloé's braceletPlagg got stuck on his head once.

“No, no, no!” said Adrien, swiping Plagg out of the air. Luckily, Madame Magda’s voice rang out from across the shop.

“Are you ready for your reading, darling?”

Plagg phased out of sight, much to Adrien’s relief. He turned, everyone else in the room none-the-wiser. “Yes, ma’am.”

Her skin wrinkled on one side as she widened one eye, but after considering him for a moment, she merely smiled. “Then follow me,” she said, sweeping over to the reading area, her zōri thwacking against the soles of her feet. She gently parted the curtains before turning to the Gorilla. “I understand your curiosity, but this will be a private reading. If you don’t mind waiting outside…?”

Adrien’s bodyguard seemed torn, so Adrien spoke up for himself.

“I’m not going anywhere, and someone needs to watch the door.”

Grunting, the man headed out, accidentally knocking into a table on the way. Adrien winced, watching the Gorilla use his huge mitts to keep the salt lamps from falling off the table, mussing the display. He backed away slowly only to knock into the coat rack. He spun around and froze as it wobbled, but it didn’t fall. He offered them a sheepish grin before attempting to duck through the door. He smacked into the side of the frame, his face turning purple as he was finally able to extricate himself from the shop.

“Actually…” Adrien lowered himself onto the single stool that was ready and waiting for him. “I’ve been struggling with my identity lately. Do you have a reading for that?”

“Well, let’s discuss this first,” suggested the woman as she took her seat, rocking from side to side to adjust herself. She pulled her cards towards her and began to shuffle them. Adrien noticed the table was set up less formally than it had been for him and Ladybug. He was secretly pleased. “Identity is a broad topic. Why are you struggling with it?”

“I don’t know. I guess…I thought I knew who I was. But ever since I…uh…gained more freedom, it’s like I’ve become a different person.”

“I see. Tell me darling…do you have strict parents? Ones who insist you be a certain way?”

“Y-yeah. My father.”

“Ah. And let me guess. When you are free, you act the opposite of how you normally do.”

Adrien’s eyes rounded. “How did you know?”

“Because when you are given a chance to do as you please after years and years of feeling restricted, you’ll inevitably go too far the other way, darling."

“Butwhich one is the real me? Who am I?"

Madame Magda put her cards aside. Cupping her hands together, she stuck out her pointer fingers and tapped them to her teeth. “That is the question, isn’t it? Okay, I’m going to do a modified spread for you. It's a lot of cards though, so please bear with me.”

“Modified?”

“There are as many spreads in tarot as tarot readers to come up with them. This is my own spin on a Tree of Life spread meets a Pyramid spread with a little bit of Chakra spread thrown in. See, you feel as if you have two selves, but that’s just on the surface. Whether you are your father’s perfect son or you are participating in a little teen rebellion, who you are at your core is the same, and that core is made up of three parts—a physical self, an emotional self, and a spiritual self.” Taking up her deck again, Madame Magda held it out to Adrien. “So let’s find you in that mess, darling. Please shuffle the cards and split them into three even piles. As even as you can. Doesn’t have to be perfect.”

Adrien did as he was told, only shuffling the cards a minimum because he wanted to get to the reading as fast as possible. Madame Magda took from his center pile and made a vertical line five cards long.

“Your spiritual self,” she explained.

Drawing from the top of the right pile, she used seven cards to build off the spiritual self.

“Your emotional self,” she said.

Then she drew from the top of the left pile and did the same on the other side.

“Your physical self,” she said. “I call it the Butterfly Spread, for obvious reasons. I hope it transforms the way you look at yourself.”

Adrien pulled back. He wasn’t sure if he should say anything, but the cards formed a shape that looked suspiciously similar to the logo on his shoes.

“We’re going to start here—the source of pain and challenge for your physical self,” explained Madame Magda, pointing to the base of the left wing. “Then we will explore outwards, looking at the action you take in response to that pain or challenge in hopes of reaching your desired result, and then the non-action you take and how to combat it. Only then can we understand your future in this sphere. Then we’ll circle back to here.” She tapped the bottom of the wing. “That’s the root cause.”

“And then we’ll do the same for the emotional self?” guessed Adrien, remembering what Madame Magda told him last time about symmetry.

“You got it, darling!” she said. “Now…without further ado…” She flipped the first card over and Adrien sucked in a breath. He should’ve known. “The Knight of Swords,” announced Madame Magda. “You know, lately this card has been representing Hawk Moth.” She tilted her head at him. “Just what have you been getting yourself into, young man?”

“Uh…”

The woman tossed her head back with a riotous laugh. “I kid, I kid. Most likely the Knight represents someone you know or a situation. It’s challenging you, maybe even hurting you physically, which is strange. Emotional warfare seems more the Knight of Sword’s style. He uses words, and logic…but I suppose he’s also an authority, so…Oh! Oh.” Her ever present smile faded and her voice dropped. “Your father.”

Even though Adrien knew the Knight of Swords represented Hawk Moth, he would have a lot of explaining to do if he disagreed. He’d just have to keep in mind who the reading was really about. Besides, it wasn’t like his father didn’t make sense—he just didn’t make the most sense.

“He’s very overprotective,” Adrien explained. “He hardly ever lets me leave the house. And when he does, I need to have a bodyguard with me.”

“So a father who isolates you then. That must be very difficult, but you are finding ways to deal with the situation.” She flipped over the card next to the Knight of Swords, revealing yet another that Adrien was intimately familiar with—the three men, the cloister. “The Three of Pentacles—teamwork, planning, and competence.”

This wasn’t telling Adrien anything he didn’t already know. He, Ladybug, and some super powered friends were working together to fight Hawk Moth and defeat his Akumas. But that didn’t address Madame Magda’s line of thought.

“Maybe…maybe that’s talking about…” Adrien had to think fast. “I’m allowed to attend public school this year. Yeah! It took a lot of convincing, and I couldn’t have done it without the help of my father’s assistant, but he eventually agreed.”

Madame Magda’s smile returned, like the sun peeking out from behind a cloud. “That’s wonderful to hear, darling! And what are you trying to achieve by attending school?”

“I just want to feel normal, and be free.”

“Well, let’s see…” She flipped the card at the very top of the wing. Adrien recognized it as a part of the Major Arcana, but not one he had ever seen before. It depicted a young man, a roman gladiator crossed with an angel, riding triumphantly in a carriage being pulled by a black sphinx and a white sphinx. In chicken scratch script it read, ‘The Chariot.’

Madame Magda sat up a little straighter, the stool beneath her creaking. “I thought it might be the Four of Wands—Freedom, you know—but this is…this is interesting.” She scratched the side of her face. “Well, The Chariot means victory, which is good.”

“If it’s good, then what’s wrong?”

“Er…Well. The Chariot usually stands for the strengths associated with combat. Are you planning on physically fighting your father?”

“No!” Adrien insisted, but he could tell from Madame Magda’s face that she was skeptical. He continued. “My father might be distant and controlling, but I know that he loves me, and I love him. I would never hurt him.”

“Ah, well…there are different ways to read The Chariot. It can also mean standing up for yourself, which you did when you insisted on attending public school, or achieving hard control.”

“Hard control?” Why did that sound familiar?

“Control can be achieved by either directing or influencing people’s behavior or the course of an event. Directing is hard control. It’s obvious who is in charge.”

Now he remembered. It was from the Strength card—how he viewed Ladybug. “And influencing is soft control?”

“You’re a quick one, darling. Yes. It’s clear to me that you want to be in control of your own life, and you want your father to see that. In essence, you wish to show him that he was wrong, that your freedom is a good thing and not something for him to fear. Not sure if rebelling against him is the best course of action to show him that, but to each his own, I suppose.”

Adrien was almost tempted to wave her off. This had nothing to do with his father. It was about Hawk Moth, and, yes, he would physically have to confront him someday soon and remove his Miraculous.

“I don’t mean to rush you, ma’am, but I don’t have a lot of time,” he said, glancing at the door. It wouldn't be long before someone in his fan club noticed his bodyguard and let the whole world know where he was.

“Oh! My apologies. Why don’t we move on? While you are taking steps to stand up for yourself, there is also something you’re ignoring. Some bad habit, or maybe even an addiction, that’s made coping with your father’s isolation more difficult than it needs to be. A non-action that needs to be amended.”

Adrien did the word substitution in his head. What was he doing (or not doing) in his fight against Hawk Moth that was making things difficult? He was curious to find out, so he leaned forward slightly. He was glad to see a card he was unfamiliar with as Madame Magda flipped it over. It was the silhouette of man with a visible thought bubble. He was thinking of cups, each one filled to the brim with things like jewels, castles, and laurel wreaths of victory.

“Seven of Cups,” said the woman. “I’m not surprised to see it here. One thing it represents is wishful thinking—daydreams.”

Adrien bit his lip. There was only one thing he dreamed about and it was Ladybug. Ladybug returning his feelings. Ladybug adopting a hamster with him. Ladybug running away with him to a deserted island…

“But it’s a really common coping mechanism,” he argued.

“Daydreaming that things are different might provide temporary relief, but it is distracting you from solving the actual problem.”

“Er…” Adrien had forgotten they were talking about his father. “Okay.”

“We all need a little outside help sometimes, darling. No shame in that. The cards can advise you on what to do. See?” Madame Magda flipped a card on the edge of the butterfly’s wing. Adrien had to smile when he saw it. It was the card that represented his first meeting with Ladybug. “The Three of Cups.”

“What’s it mean?” he asked, as if he didn’t already know.

“Friendship. Exuberance. Being in community. I take it you’ve made a lot of friends at school?”

“Oh, yes.” Adrien couldn’t think of a single person in his class he wasn’t friends with, and it all started with Nino and Marinette. But relating it to his actual problem—he assumed the card was directing him to Chloé—er, Queen Bee, Carapace, and Rena Rouge. With more people on the team, he had more focus and his mind wandered to Ladybug less. And maybe that was a good thing? Or…maybe they could help him turn his daydreams into reality!

“That warms my heart to hear. Perhaps with the help of your new friends, you’ll be able to ground yourself in reality and achieve your goal of taking control of your life! But what you want might not come to pass. Let’s look at your future now.”

“Well, a future, right?” Adrien gave Madame Magda his most winsome smile and some fear and trepidation seemed to slough off her.

“Young man, you are simply a breath of fresh air! Yes, the future the cards show is never permanent. Time is always in flux, and the decisions you make today will affect what happens tomorrow. Let’s see if you achieve your goal…” It was another Major Arcana card Adrien didn’t recognize, an androgynous figure on a throne dressed in red robes. Adrien couldn’t decipher the script this time around, but a sword and a set of scales was a pretty well-known symbol, so he knew what it was before Madame Magda even made her announcement. “Justice.”

“That’s great!” said Adrien. He could just imagine Hawk Moth stripped of his Miraculous and sentenced by a court to rot in jail for the rest of his miserable life. “He’ll finally get what he deserves.”

Plagg punched Adrien from inside his shirt. Had he said that last part out loud? Apparently, because Madame Magda was peering at him with slight alarm. He must’ve sounded strange, especially after defending his father so vehemently not eventen minutes ago.

“Sorry!" he said. "I…uh…”

“What do you think your father deserves? What is justice to you?”

“I just want…I just want him to realize how much he’s hurt me and not do it anymore.”

Madame Magda nodded slowly, wisely. “Remorse,” she said. “You want him to feel remorse.” She paused, turning away as if she couldn’t stand to look at Adrien a moment longer. Her benign smile was long gone. “It deeply troubles me that he doesn’t feel that already.”

Hawk Moth, no, but Adrien knew his father. “He does! Sometimes. But other times…I don’t know, it’s like there’s this wall and I can’t get past it.”

“We can explore that!” said the woman hopefully. “Your father’s overprotective behavior is for a reason. The cards can guide us as to why he feels so strongly about keeping you at home.”

Adrien knew the reason, not that it mattered. However, he didn’t quite know what motivated Hawk Moth. When Madame Magda flipped the card over though, Adrien’s insides curled. Again, the card he wanted, assigned to someone else.

“The Lovers…” said Madame Magda in a hush tone.

It made sense. During Adrien’s first reading with Ladybug, The Lovers had come up in relation to Hawk Moth. He thought it represented the Peaco*ck Miraculous holder. Was that the same case here? Was the Peaco*ck Miraculous holder the driving factor behind Hawk Moth and his actions? People did crazy things for the ones they loved. But Madame Magda was looking at Adrien with a question in her eyes, so he answered with something else.

“It’s probably talking about my mother,” he explained. “My father has always been overprotective, but it got a lot worse after my mother…” Adrien couldn’t bring himself to finish.

“It sounds like a difficult situation,” said the woman softly. Her eyes focused on the flickering flames of the candles on the table. One of them had sputtered out. “And if that’s the physical, I can only imagine the emotional. Are you sure you wish to continue?”

Adrien looked down at the spread, with only one wing of the butterfly revealed. Despite what Madame Magda had said, his physical self had centered completely around his life as Chat Noir. It was safe for him to assume, then, that his emotional self would focus on his life as Adrien. That left the spiritual self in the middle. That’s what he was after. If only Madame Magda would agree to skip the emotional self altogether, but Adrien knew how tarot worked by now.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

Madame Magda sighed and pulled away from the light. Adrien took note of her weathered skin—had it always looked so wrinkled?

“Very well…” she said, clearing her throat. Adrien wished her smile would return. “Moving on to your emotional self, let’s look at the root of your challenges or pain you face there.”

She flipped the card fast, as if touching it burned her.

“Your father again,” she said.

“Huh?” Adrien tilted his head. It looked to be an old man sitting on a stone throne. In one hand he held a scepter, in the other he held a Sovereign's Orb. “But I thought my father was the Knight of Swords?”

“A person can be more than one card, darling. Humans are complex like that. But take a look at The Emperor’s arms and legs.”

Adrien gave the card a closer look, noticing the light bluish-gray. “He’s…wearing armor?”

“Underneath his trappings, The Emperor is still a knight.”

“Okay…but how do you know it’s my father?”

“The Emperor stands for fathering, with an emphasis on structure, authority, and regulating. It sounds very much like the man we have been talking about this whole time.”

Adrien crossed his arms. Madame Magda was both completely wrong and worryingly right at the same time and he hated it.

“What is it?"

“Your father has restricted your freedom and kept his distance, yet you do not hate him. Despite everything, you are a very kind and loving young man. Anyone would be lucky to have you as a son, or as a friend.”

Adrien would never understand how the woman got all that from one silly-looking card. “That’s what the Page of Cups says?” he asked, a little incredulous.

“Pages are interesting court cards because they represent suggestions or invitations. Be Emotional. Be Loving. Yet this is your action, your response to The Emperor. If your father is going to be cold and distant to you, you have chosen to be the opposite. Not many people in your situation have the strength to do that. Most would grow callous and hard. But not you. Not you.”

“Thank you,” said Adrien, deeply touched. Inside his shirt, he could feel Plagg snuggle against his body, a warm knot over his heart.

“And why do you do this?”

Adrien opened his mouth to answer only to realize it was a rhetorical question. Madame Magda was already flipping over the card at the very top of the wing. It was another recognizable card, again from the reading he had done with Ladybug. His heart had ached when he first saw it—the rainbow, the happy family. The Ten of Cups was all he ever wanted, more than even The Lovers, and it had to do with Hawk Moth. He gave a sigh, half wistful, half relieved, to see it here, applied to him.

“You’re trying to restore harmony in your family,” said Madame Magda. “Or perhaps you are building a found family? Either way, you are trying to achieve a sense of joy and peace that can only come from being content with life.”

“Do I get there?”

“The Eight of Wands,” observed Madame Magda. “Fascinating card, really. It’s like a mix of three other Major Arcana cards, despite falling into the Minor Arcana. Like The Fool, it represents beginnings, starting an action now before it is too late. And like Death, it means endings, everything drawing to a conclusion. And like The Tower, it can sometimes mean a revelation, receiving news you weren’t expecting. If one of those three cards appears as we explore this wing, we’ll know which one the Eight of Wands refers to. Otherwise…does anything jump out at you?”

Adrien wrinkled his brow as he thought the Eight of Wands over. “Maybe…the first one?” Ladybug thought of him as The Fool, after all. “It makes the most sense. If this card is exploring my non-action to my emotional state, it must be talking about something I haven’t started yet.”

“I suppose…but what non-action is it?”

They started at each other, both at a loss, until Adrien shrugged. Catching the gesture, Madame Magda moved on.

“Well, I suppose there is no sense in dwelling on it,” she said. “Why don’t we explore a way to overturn this non-action, whatever it may be?” Running a finger horizontal along the butterfly spread’s wing, the woman's hand lingered on the last card beforeshe turned it over.

There were a lot more cards in the deck than Adrien originally thought. He was rather amazed that, even after two readings, he was still coming across new cards that helped guide him to new revelations. The one in questions was a dual sword-wielding woman in white. For whatever reason, she was sitting down by the edge of the ocean, blindfolded. Adrien was reminded of another card, the Eight of Swords that encapsulated his fear of being trapped, since it also featured a blindfolded woman.

“The Two of Swords…” said Madame Magda. She considered what she wanted to say, silence enveloping them for a moment before she launched into a speech. “The Two of Swords is about the barriers we put up between ourselves and others, but also those we create within ourselves. We block ourselves off from our emotions and refuse to feel them. Call it…compartmentalization. Like your Seven of Cups, it’s a coping mechanism, but it’s to help you rather than to hurt you. Compartmentalization allows conflicting ideas to co-exist…which points to the Eight of Wands being about receiving news. Why else compartmentalize unless you have discovered something shocking that is difficult to comprehend?”

“So my non-action is…not knowing something?”

“It’s more…not paying attention to something. Sometimes news comes to us disguised, so it’s important to stay alert. Receiving news could mean finding a missing piece of information, discovering the truth, or having a meaningful conversation.”

“I’ve tried to have meaningful conversation with my father,” said Adrien glumly. He crossed his arms and hunched, eyes downcast. “He just won’t listen.”

He felt a tentative hand on his chin. Madame Magda had reached across the table to gently lift his head. In her coal black eyes Adrien saw himself, exhausted and lonely. “Maybe you’re not having the right conversations,” she suggested. Her voice wasn’t accusatory—it was more a gentle reminder than anything else. She drew back and smiled in such a way that it was infectious. Adrien mustered one in return. “But maybe someday you will, darling. Shall we peer into the current future?”

She waited for Adrien to dip his head before revealing a black card. With a spike in his heartbeat, Adrien first thought it was Death, but it was a bizarre tower instead, shaped like the rook in chess. It was on fire, people leaping from the windows. He would’ve been frightened if not for the fact that it looked like the sky was also raining lemons. Tarot was weird.

“The Tower!” said Madame Magda as if she were announcing the winner of an award.

“Wait…didn’t you say…?”

“Indeed, darling! So we were headed down the right path with the Eight of Wands! It represents receiving news, which means The Tower represents having a revelation. Suddenly realizing the truth. Exposing what was hidden. Getting the answer. Whatever it is will bring change and upheaval to your life.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s not good or bad, darling—it’s needed. For your emotional well-being…but also for your physical. They’re connected, you see, and it could not be any more obvious—the wings on your butterfly mirror each other. Your father is the source of both your physical and emotional challenges. You won’t be able to overcome one side unless you also overcome the other at the same time. And if the source of your challenges are the same, then I’m betting the root cause of that source is the same as well.”

The bottom card was flipped and revealed: The Empress.

Adrien’s eyes darted from The Empress to The Emperor and back again. Their color-schemes were similar, but they were opposites in every way. The Emperor sat rigid on a stone throne while the Empress reclined on a mound of pillows. There were mountains in the background of his, but forest and farmland surrounding her. He was old while she was young. He looked uncomfortable wearing heavily structured clothes and armor while she relaxed in a loose-fitting dress.

Adrien knew The Lovers wasn’t his mother, but The Empress definitely was.

“What does she stand for?” Adrien wondered. “Besides mothering, I mean…”

“An abundance of life. Good experiences. Nature and nurture. Does that sound like your mother, darling?”

He nodded, a knot forming in his throat that left him unable to answer verbally.

“With your mother gone…well, there goes all the things The Empress represents. It seems to me that this has devastated your father. He’s lost himself, and he is both simultaneously afraid of losing you, and afraid of letting you find him. You’re not the one who is split, young man. He is.”

Adrien blinked. Madame Magda was wrong, he was sure she was wrong, but he saw her point. While his father was mostly cold and unforgiving, there were brief moments where something else shown through, usually during the rare hug. Why was his father keeping that part of himself, his emotions, hidden?

“But this spread is not about your father,” Madame Magda reminded. “It’s about you. Now that we’ve seen how you react to the challenges and pain you have in your life, both physical and emotional, it’s clear you are a remarkable young man. You are not without your faults, of course. You are prone to fantasies, and are a bit oblivious, but you are a kind young man who doesn’t give up. And all this stems from your spiritual self.” The woman gestured to the five cards between the two wings that were still face-down. “Think of this line of cards as a body. We’ll start at the bottom, with the ‘legs.’” She put a hand on the card closest to her. “This card represents where you derive your energy from—how you are able to move around your obstacles, so to speak.”

It was a card full of branches again, shooting into frame like the Eight of Wands, but they came from below, and a young man was beating them away with his own stick. Adrien was reminded of how he wielded his staff as Chat Noir.

“The Seven of Wands,” explained Madame Magda. “This makes sense! You’ve told me yourself that you’ve been a bit rebellious, a bit defiant. It can be an aggressive card too—there may even be some areas in your life when you’ve been a little too aggressive and need to back off—but it all stems from yourfirm convictions.”

“My convictions…”

“Take your insistence on attending public school. You believed in your position and yourself. You possessed integrity and strength of character, which saw you through. Since your cause was just, you were eventually able to achieve your goal.”

“You’re right!” Adrien sat up straighter, trying to contain his excitement. This was it. This was him. This wasn’t Adrien or Chat Noir—it was the in-between. “What does the next card say?”

“My, you’re eager! Well, I’d hate to keep a customer waiting…Next we have your heart. How are you treating yourself? How are you treating others?”

Madame Magda neatly turned the card over. Adrien pulled back, wincing. He closed one eye, disturbed by the picture of a man face-down on the ground, a multitude of swords protruding from his back. He expected the tarot reader to start clucking her tongue, but, instead, her booming laughter was absorbed by the surrounding curtains.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” she said. “I know the Ten of Swords looks bad, but look—no blood! Not to say it probably doesn’t hurt to have ten swords in your back, but ten seems a bit excessive, doesn’t it? A bit overdramatic, maybe?”

“I…I guess…” Adrien had no clue where the tarot reader was going with this one.

“You’re kind, darling. We know that. Your life has not been easy. You make sacrifices. The Ten of Swords supports all this. But I’m sure there have been many times where you’ve maybe been a bit overdramatic about it, and maybe have even fallen victim to self-pity.”

Adrien opened his mouth to argue—his mother was gone, his father was distant and controlling—he had every right! ...But then he remembered last Christmas. He transformed into Chat Noir and left the house after his father didn’t come down right away to see his Christmas decorations. He felt so bitter, so alone, that he nearly used Cataclysm to destroy the city’s official Christmas Tree. Only the memory of his mother stopped him. What would she think of him? In the end, he returned home, only to find out that, if he had just waited ten more minutes, his father would’ve come down.

Overall, it had not been one of his better moments. Overdramatic was a pretty good description.

He closed his mouth.

Madame Magda smiled blithely. “You treat yourself as a victim. I can see why. But do not let that define you. Because it doesn’t just affect you, but how your treat others as well.”

“I don’t understand, ma’am.”

“Okay. How about this. Outside of your father, what was the last bad thing that happened to you?”

Adrien’s mind immediately went to Hawk Moth slipping away, but his secret life as a superhero was off limits. He thought a little further back though and an example came to him.

“My oldest friend almost moved away,” he said, thinking of Chloé. “It was terrible.”

“How did you react?”

“I was really sad, especially since…I mean, I know she’s not very well-liked at school—she’s a bully—but everyone else was celebrating her leaving. Can you believe that?”

“So you were upset with your classmates?”

“A bit, but I didn’t say anything. Well, I did to one of them.”

“What did you say?”

“What I just told you. That it was terrible and I wasn’t going to celebrate. She's my friend.”

“And how did that make your classmate feel?”

“I…uh…I left after that, so...I don’t know.”

“Do you think it maybe made them feel guilty?”

“Maybe?” He gave it a little more thought and hung his head. He had hurt Marinette, hadn’t he? “Yes…”

“Do you think it was fair of you to guilt trip them?”

“But that’s how I felt!”

“You were playing the part of the victim. Don’t get me wrong, you had every right to be sad, but your classmates had every right to be happy. People are allowed to disagree with you. Be mindful that you don’t try to guilt them into coming around to your way of thinking. It’s manipulative.”

Never in a million years would Adrien think he was manipulative, but now that Madame Magda was talking about it, he did have trouble accepting things when they didn’t go his way. Didn’t everybody though? That’s why there were so many Akumas.

But I’m a superhero, he reminded himself. I’m Chat Noir. I have to be better than that.

“I’ll try to be better, ma’am,” Adrien told her.

“A bold proclamation,” observed Madame Magda. “Let’s seeifthe next card supports this. See, it represents your mouth—what you say and how you express it.” She flipped the card with the flourish. It was yet another wand card, depicting a forest of branches. A young man, bandaged and leaning on his own branch for support, stood at the ready. “The Nine of Wands,” she explained. “This further supports the Seven of Wands that is your feet! There is much conviction in you, young man. You not only mean what you do, but you also mean what you say! And what you’re saying is that you’ll never give up. Perseverance is an admirable trait. However…we can’t tie the Nine of Wands to your feet unless we go through your heart first.” She tapped the Ten of Swords and Adrien grimaced. He was not a fan of that card—probably because it told an uncomfortable truth. “What you say supports your sacrificial nature. You’re a protector, aren’t you?”

Yeah, though Adrien. A protector of Paris.

“But you also don’t know when to quit. You don’t know when to take ‘no’ for an answer. And that can take you down a dark and dangerous path. See how the young man depicted in the card is injured? You’ve been hurt already, and you keep on getting hurt—physically and emotionally, since the spiritual self is at the crux of the two. You don’t have to tell me…but think about it—Is there something you said recently, something you keep on saying, that has caused you hurt?”

Adrien didn’t mean to…he was used to plastering on a smile and keeping everything neatly tucked away inside. Even behind closed doors, he didn’t allow himself more than sighs of sadness and groans of frustration. But his eyes welled up and he felt the sting of potential tears. Bile built up in the back of his throat as his mind’s eye conjured up the image of his beloved Ladybug. He would never stop loving her, no matter how many times she rejected him. He had originally thought it romantic that he was never going to give up on her, but he was starting to grow resentful and it was twisting him up inside. Each rejection was like another sword to the back.

Listen, I don't want to play around with your feelings. It would be the same as lying to you. I don't want to do that. You're more than a partner, Chat Noir. You're my friend. And I'd never want to lie to a friend. Because there's this boy…

I can't accept this rose from you. I told you already, I'm in love with someone else.

Yet he refused to change targets. He continued to pressure Ladybug. It was no wonder she was in love with the Queen of Wands and not him.

“I don’t think I like the real me that much…” he said. Blinking his eyes clear though, he found Madame Magda shaking her head at him.

“You misunderstand, darling," she said. "Every card in the deck is complex, with positive and negative connotations, because humans are complex, with positive and negative qualities. What’s important is that we celebrate the positive and learn from the negative but acknowledge that both of them come together to create the mosaic that is you.” She paused, searching his face with a type of motherly affection. “Are you okay? Do you need a tissue?”

“I’m good. Thank you, ma’am.”

“Then let’s move on. There are only two more cards left…” She glanced at the door and, for the first time, Adrien noticed there were shadows gathered beyond the frosted glass. It looked like his fans had found him. “…and I sense we’re running out of time.”

“So is the next card my nose?” Adrien guessed.

Madame Magda laughed, grateful for the levity. “Goodness! That would be interesting, wouldn’t it? No, it is your eyes, darling. It explores the vision you have for your life. What you would like out of your future.” Her fingers danced around before flipping the card in question. Her benign smile ballooned. “Ah! There you are, my little Four of Wands. I was wondering where you went.”

Adrien recalled that Madame Magda had been expecting the Four of Wands earlier, when they were discussing his goal for his physical self. It was a lovely little card depicting a quaint castle. A crowd of people celebrated at its base beneath a canopy dripping with greenery and flowers.

“That’s…uh, freedom, right?” he said with a sly wink.

“More than just freedom, as you can see. The card also stands for celebration, feeling excited. This is why you do what you do.”

Adrien nodded. Yes, that was exactly why he enjoyed being Chat Noir!

He froze. Wait…

“This is why you rebel,” continued the tarot reader none-the-wiser. “Because you are currently unhappy with the way things are, doing something about it—anything—makes you happy. You expressed to me earlier that you feel like two people, and you wonder which one you are. The truth is in the middle, but I mean that figuratively as well as literally. The act of your transition between your two personas is who you are, if that makes sense. At least, that’s what I think. Let’s see if the last card supports my reading…”

“What does this one represent?”

Madame Madga put a thumb to her forehead, right between her eyes. “Your mind, darling. When it all comes down to it, who are we really but what we tell ourselves to be?”

Adrien’s eyes widened. He felt faint, so he grabbed the edge of the reading table to keep himself steady. “So this is it? This is who I am?”

“Who you are, your life’s purpose, yes, yes, all these things, but it is important to look back at how we arrived here.” The woman gestured to the nineteen cards that littered the table, their intricacies woven together to create a butterfly. Chat Noir was on one side, battling Hawk Moth (Or dealing with his father’s imposed isolation, as far as Madame Magda knew). Adrien was on the other, struggling to understand a distant father. And where those two stories came together was him, just trying his best. “Do you see now that you are not as split as you mayhave thought?"

He nodded, not fully listening, his eyes locked on the last card. Sensing this, Madame Magda flipped it. It was a Major Arcana card, which Adrien took as a good sign. On it was a woman wrapped in lavender silk and floating in the sky, surrounded by a circle of thick rope. In each of the four corners was the head of a man, an eagle, an ox, and a lion.

“Ahhhhhhh…” said Madame Magda, as if she was just sitting down after a long day on her feet. She peered down at the card with a profound yet inscrutable expression on her face. “It all comes together here.”

“The World?” read Adrien, beyond confused.

“Does that not make sense? It’s not just freedom or harmony that you’re after, darling. You want to be a part of something larger than yourself—a family, a class, a group of friends, a team…The World. You want to be a part of the rest of the world. You want your life to have meaning and connection. You want to feel whole.” Suddenly, Madame Magda jerked back and slapped her hand to her forehead. It sounded like it hurt. “Of course! That is why you feel so fractured! You were missing a piece before you even started to rebel.”

“What piece?”

“Happiness.” The tarot reader paused, chewing the inside of her cheek, jowls shifting. “Or maybe a better word would be 'wholeness'. The World stands for integration, accomplishment, involvement, and fulfillment. You’ve taken steps to achieve all of those things—going to school, making friends—but there are barriers. Your father is the most obvious one, but I suspect there are others.”

“You have no idea…” said Adrien, a grimace pulling his face taunt as Hawk Moth’s purple visage flashed across his mind. But he also thought of his mother’s absence and Ladybug’s rejections. “How do I overcome them?”

“The card suggests acts of service—actively contributing to the world. By making it a better place, you create your place in it. This can range from being a good friend to volunteer work.”

To protecting Paris from Hawk Moth, added Adrien silently, looking down at his silver ring.

And then it dawned on him. Why he was in love with Ladybug. It wasn’t because she was pretty or courageous or smart (though she was all of those things), but because she was a hero. A true hero. Superpowers had nothing to do with it. While he jumped at the chance to become Chat Noir to simply escape his house, she truly wanted to help people and keep them safe. He fell for her the moment she proclaimed that. Because, in that moment, he realized she had what he lacked. She was integrated. She was accomplished. She was involved. She was fulfilled. She represented the world Adrien longed to be a part of, so he found himself drawn to her, and unable to move on from her despite her rejections. He wanted to respect her decision, but he saw her as withholding the key to his wholeness and happiness, so he kept on asking, hoping she would change her mind. But Madame Magda’s reading had opened his eyes to the truth. Ladybug didn't hold the key. He did.

While Ladybug would always be the love of his life, she wasn’t his only route to happiness. When Adrien closed his eyes and thought of his happiest moment in recent memory, Ladybug was nowhere to be seen—he was at home, Christmas Eve night, at a table surrounded by his friends and family.

He wasn’t two people. He was on two routes in an attempt to achieve the same goal: Finding fulfillment and happiness. As Adrien, he strove to be perfect, hoping to gain the love and approval of his father and friends. As Chat, he did as he pleased, enjoying his freedom and the company of Ladybug. Neither attempt was somehow more “real” than the other. They were both valid. He was valid.

Madame Magda gathered the cards back up as Adrien thought these things. “And so ends the Fool’s Journey,” she said to herself.

“What was that, ma’am?” Adrien asked, feeling as if he had misheard her.

“The Fool’s Journey,” she repeated, Adrien’s heart suddenly pumping faster. He was The Fool, or at least Ladybug currently thought about him that way. Madame Magda continued. “The Fool's Journey is a metaphor for the journey we each take through life. Each Major Arcana card stands for a stage on that journey—an experience that a person must incorporate to realize his or her wholeness. The last card in the Fool’s Journey is The World.”

“So…I’m a Fool?”

“Oh! Oh, no, no, no, darling! It’s called the Fool’s Journey because it starts with The Fool card, which represents beginnings. Perhaps a better way to think of it is as a Hero’s Journey instead. Your journey.”

“A hero…”

And then everything clicked. He found it. His identity. It had been sitting in plain sight for months. He was a hero. There was certainly room for improvement, and he had allowed his feelings for Ladybug to sidetrack him, but whether he was Adrien or Chat Noir, he was always helping people, protecting people.

“You’re an interesting young man,” Madame Magda observed. “Lots of Wand cards make up your spiritual self.”

Well, I am the Knight of Wands, thought Adrien.

“You are a boy of fire and passion,” the tarot reader said as she rose from her seat to tower over him. She offered her hand and lifted him to his feet with ease. “Let it inspire you, but not overcome you, darling.”

“Thank you, ma’am. For the advice and the reading,” Adrien told her. He felt strangely still—weightless, almost, as he followed her back into the cool of the store. He realized it was a sense of peace he hadn’t been privy to in a long time. Something told him he was done with tarot readings, at least fornow.

With a resounding knock, Madame Magda let the Gorilla know they were finished and the man scraped his shoulder struggling to slip inside. Outside girls screamed and called Adrien’s name, one even slipping her hand into the shop. She yanked it back before the door closed on it though.

“Well, it looks like you’ve provided me with some free publicity!” the woman said. Adrien grinned. Well, he had promised as Chat to tell everyone about her shop. “Thank you very much, Mr. Agreste.”

Adrien flinched at the sound of his name on her lips. “You know who I am!?”

Her booming laughter made even the Gorilla crack a crooked smile. She reached over for her magazine and held it up. On the back cover was an ad for Adrien, the fragrance, with his picture beside. He colored a little.

“Everyone is Paris knows who you are, darling,” Madame Magda pointed out. “But I make it a habit of treating all my customers the same.”

Adrien turned redder still. If she knew who he was, then she knew exactly who his father was. What if she said something? What if—

“Don’t worry,” the woman said, as if she could read his frantic, rampaging thoughts. “All my readings are confidential as well. Ta-ta, now!”

She waved them off, the Gorilla opening the door and sweeping Adrien out into the swirling crowd of fans.

Chapter 6: Nino Lahiffe, Page of Cups

Chapter Text

It started with a sort of weird conversation in science class.

Mme. Mendeleiev had just dismissed them to begin working on their lab when Adrien turned to Nino. He had come to class just as roll call was starting, so they hadn’t been able to talk before then, but Nino knew his best bro. Something was definitely up.

“How would you describe me, Nino?” his friend asked.

Nino blinked, a little caught-off guard. “Dude, why would you even ask that?” he wondered. Obviously Adrien was 100% certified fresh or they wouldn’t be friends. Duh. But there was an anxiety in the guy’s voice as if he didn’t already know that. The way he grimaced only confirmed it.

“No reason,” Adrien said, trying to act all casual.

Honestly, it sounded like a question Chloé would ask Sabrina. “I mean, you don’t strike me as someone looking for an ego boost,” Nino said. “So I gotta believe you really don’t know. But me telling you isn’t gonna help either.”

“Why not?”

“That’s just how I see you, dude. And that’s gonna be different from how your dad sees you or how Mme. Bustier sees you or how Chloé sees you.”

“But I can’t even see myself right!”

“That’s deep, man.” Nino grew thoughtful. “Do any of us see ourselves right? It’s like this total quest for identity. Alya’s hype on that right now.”

He dropped his girlfriend’s name on purpose, knowing full well that she would hear it. She was so cute when she was nosey. Sure enough, she spoke up. “You boys talking about me?” she asked, a glimmer in her eye and a mischievous smile lighting up her face.

Nino felt a little hot beneath his cap, so he lifted it a little as he grinned at her. He couldn’t help it. “Adrien’s trying to find himself.”

“Me too!”

Man, she was cute.

“It all started with her trip to this fortune-teller lady…” he teased, knowing she’d correct him.

“Tarot reader,” she said without skipping a beat, casting him a look to let him know she was wise to his game. “I mean, she was a total fraud, but she gave me a lot to think about. You know, about personal growth and who I am as a person and all that. It’s a good starting point.”

Mme. Mendeleiev yelled at them to get back to work shortly after that, but Nino continued to turn the conversation over in his head for the next couple of classes. He thought of his own growth as a person, as a man. Becoming Carapace was sweet and all, but he had failed to protect Alya when it mattered most and he had gotten Akumatized because of it. He could only imagine how disappointed Ladybug had been. He was lucky she still wanted his help after all of that.

“Yo! Earth to Nino!”

Nino felt something sharp poke him in the arm. He looked to find Alya peering at him though her glasses and wielding a plastic fork. The cacophony of the cantine surrounded them. Across the table, Mylène and Ivan were sharing earbuds and jamming out to a song.

“You okay?” Alya asked, forking a potato off Nino’s tray and into her mouth. “Your lunch is getting cold.” She stole another. “And eaten.”

“Dude! Not the potatoes!”

She tried a third time, but Nino picked his lunch tray up and held it aloft. Alya stood, so he stood.

“Not fair!” she cried, scrambling to get up on a chair, but Nino easily stepped up on one too, lifting the tray completely out of her reach. “Why do you have to be so tall?”

“Hey!” yelled M. D’Argencourt from across the room. “Get down!”

The two did as he asked, but before Alya could take her seat, Nino had plopped down his tray and grabbed her hand. He spun her around and dipped her. She laughed into his shoulder, her breath warming his chest, as he pulled her back up.

“What are you doing?” she wondered.

Nino shrugged, sinking back into his chair. “M. D’Argencourt said to ‘get down’.”

Alya collapsed next to him. “You dork…don’t think I’ve forgotten that you still haven’t told me what’s up.”

There was never hiding anything from Alya. Any time he tried, she always figured it out. Really, he should’ve told her he was Carapace from the start. “I didn’t know you thought that way about the tarot lady since you said she was a fake,” he said, gobbling up his fruit bowl before Alya ate that too. He loved him some cantaloupe. “Maybe I should meet with her too.”

Here Alya’s nose crinkled. “Why?”

“I dunno, man. I just thought…you know…maybe she could help me be a better me. I, uh, kind of stepped in it when we were doing you-know-what.” He pantomimed a few punches, making corresponding sound effects. Alya grabbed his wrists and pulled his arms down, alarm rising in her eyes as she looked around the cantine. She took their superhero identities very seriously. Luckily, no one seemed to notice or care and she calmed down.

“You know, I have been meaning to verify my findings. She was right about me, and right about Marinette except for one thing,” said Alya as she slid her phone out and opened her calendar. “When are you free? I’ll take you there. We can make a date out of it.”

Nino’s DJ schedule had been packed ever since he appeared on The Challenge, but they found a date that worked for them both. When the day came though, there was an Akuma attack. Some police detective named Jacques Hughes became J’accuse, an Akuma who made you do all the bad things he accused you of so he could have an excuse to arrest you. The visit to the tarot reader was forgotten in favor of Alya getting the scoop and Nino getting dragged along in his attempt to stop her and/or keep her safe. They tried again the next week, and, after hitting up Andre’s, Alya led the way to the Tuileries. They strolled through the park, enjoying their coconut, banana, and passion fruit ice cream cones while the sun set. Once all that was left of their treat were their sticky fingers, they crossed the street to Voyance.

Nino heaved open the wooden door. “After you!” he told Alya before following her inside.

It took Nino a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the dim space. It smelled musty and old and orange, somehow. Not like the fruit. Like the color. The first thing his eyes gravitated to was a little display of colorful bands like the ones he wore around his wrist. Their neon colors clashed with the dark jewel and muted earth tones of the rest of the store.

“Sweet!” he said, going up to have a look. Each color meant something, which Nino thought was pretty baller. Lime green was for kindness, violet was for compassion, red was for courage, sky blue was for trustworthiness, and yellow was for positivity.

“The intrepid journalist returns!” boomed a voice.

Startled, Nino turned around. What he had first mistaken for a piece of furniture draped in a poppy-print bedsheet turned out to be Madame Magda. She had looked so much smaller in Alya’s video.

“Hi Madame Magda!” said Alya.

“Miss Césaire, always a pleasure,” she said, floating over. Her movements reminded Nino of classical music despite her bombastic marching band looks. As she warmly grasped Alya’s hand, she turned her attention to him, her beetle black eyes shining with reflected light that didn’t match the room. “And who is this young man?”

Alya slipped her hand into Nino’s, where it fit perfectly. “My boyfriend Nino,” she said, surprisingly soft and shy. Nino felt his cheeks burn.

“Awesome to meet you, dudette,” he said, ignoring the explosions going on in his chest as he tipped his cap towards the tarot reader.

Madame Magda drew back, placing a hand over her heart. “My, my,” she said. “My daily reading told me I’d be visited by The Lovers today, but I didn’t expect it to be you and your boyfriend, Miss Césaire!”

Aghast, Nino turned to Alya and found on her face the same way he felt—shocked, of course, but also kind of secretly pleased. He gently rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb as he broke out into a nervous grin. Love was a big word. It was too early to say, but Nino had confidence in it when the time was right.

“I take it you’re not here for a love reading?” guessed Madame Magda. “Seems you two were able to guide yourselves to each other just fine.”

“Nah, we needed a push,” said Alya.

Nino covered his eyes and laughed as he remembered Ladybug locking them in a panther cage for their own safety the day Alya’s dad was Akumatized. “Totally.A literal one.”

“We do want a reading though. Well, Nino does.”

Madame Magda’s eyes widened. “Oh?”

“Chyeah,” said Nino. “Alya said it was fifteen Euros?” He slipped his wallet out of the pocket of his jeans. “She said I should have a question in mind too.”

“Very true!” The woman had slipped behind the counter while Nino was preoccupied, giving the appearance that she had warped there to get a pad of paper receipts and a pen. “Your question should be focused, but not too detailed. You don’t have to ask it now though. The cards will understand it better. But I have a question for you: What are you looking to gain from your reading?”

"Some guidance would be primo.”

“Perfect! That is exactly what the cards do. What kind of guidance?”

“Er…” Nino looked to Alya for help, but she just shrugged.

“Let me put it this way,” Madame Magda suggested. “What sphere do you need guidance in? There are seven—social, emotional, spiritual, environmental, occupational, intellectual, and physical.”

Nino doffed his hat and scratched his bristly scalp. His first instinct was to say ‘occupational,’ but he honestly felt like that limited him to just his time as Carapace, and he didn’t want Madame Magda to suss out his superhero identity. Besides, he was more than just a mask, and didn’t always have access to the Turtle Miraculous.

“Spiritual?” he tried.

Madame Magda didn’t seem to hear the question in his voice. “So you are looking for guidance on a personal matter involving the values and beliefs that provide a purpose to your life! Very good, darling. One eight-card Spiritual Guidance spread, coming right up!”

Nino traded his money for the receipt, barely able to grab it before Alya dragged him away to the back of the shop. She parted the velvet curtain hanging between two towering bookcases, tucking the fabric back into two hooks to reveal a little nook with a table and scattered stools. Nino took note of the unlit candles on the table. One had fallen over onto a pack of tarot cards, so he set it up right again.

“You’re too sweet,” Madame Magda said as she crowded into the space behind him. Nino felt a bit like a baby chick in the shadow of a mother hen. He smoothly moved to the side, where Alya had pushed forward two stools, and took his seat next to her. She was already messing with her phone.

From the folds of her navy and white polkadot dress, Madame Magda produced a slim box of matches with a 1950s-esque design on it. She struck one with exaggerated movements and used it to light the three candles on the table. Their weak glow made a huge difference. It was as if someone had turned on a lamp.

“Do you have my good side?” Madame Magda asked Alya. She turned a little to the right, somehow shedding years off her face. Nino squinted. Maybe his mom was right about him needing new glasses after all.

“Perfect!” said Alya, raising her phone up a bit. “I like your paper flower, by the way.”

Nino only now noticed that Madame Magda’s headscarf was adorned with an origami poppy. Madame Magda touched the red paper, then produced another in her other hand. Just how many pockets were in her voluminous dress? It was like the TARDIS or something.

“Then have one. I always make extras.”

“Thank you!” Alya took the flower and tucked it behind her ear. Nino made a mental note to buy her poppies for their next date. He knew there was a reason why red was his favorite color.

“Ready?” said the woman, staring right into Alya’s camera. Alya nodded, so Madame Magda picked up the tarot cards and shuffling them once. She turned them over to Nino. “I’ll need you to shuffle the cards. Let them gain a good feel for you.”

“No sweat, dudette!”

He started off shuffling the cards like normal, but quickly grew bored, so he laid them on the table in tiny piles and spun them into each other like they were miniature turntables. Not caring for the silence, he also started beatboxing a little. If he made a playlist for tarot cards, what would it look like? There would be some Queen, of course. Kings of Leon. Ace of Base. Maybe some death metal? Rolling Stone’s ‘Sympathy for the Devil?’ Jagged Stone had that one song ‘Sword Rock Emperor’ that would be a perfect fit. Before he knew it though, the cards were back in a neat pile and he shelved his thoughts.

“I’ve never quite seen a shuffling like that before, darling,” said Madame Magda as she accepted them back. “But I can certainly tell you like music!”

She laid a card face down on the table, paused, and then started a new row of seven cards above it. The remaining cards vanished, presumably into one of the folds of her dress to keep the matchbook and paper poppies company.

“Remember how I told you the cards would understand your question or concern better that I?” she asked. “Think of it now. You’re not obligated to share it, but keep it in the forefront of your mind.”

“Gotcha.” Nino closed his eyes and concentrated. How can I be a better hero?

“Nino,” said Alya, jabbing him. His eyes sprung open and his girlfriend nodded her head in the direction of the table. Madame Magda had already revealed a card, the one that was in a row by itself.

“My bad!” Nino leaned forward. It was a very yellow card. It looked like a prince in a kissing booth? There was a symbol on the booth, a golden snitch carrying a shield with a picture of a spinning top on it. And there were sphinxes too. Sphinxi? Or was the plural of sphinx just sphinx? He didn’t have any clue what the card meant, but it looked cool. “Legit!” he said. “What is it?”

“This is The Chariot. It stands for achieving victory, exercising your will, asserting yourself, and achieving hard control. Your question…you want to be successful, don’t you, darling?”

“Dude.” Alya was right. Madame Magda was good.

“…But not in the traditional sense,” the woman realized, tapping a finger to her weak chin. “If this were, say, an occupational reading, success could be defined as doing well on a test or getting a raise at an afterschool job. But this is a spiritual reading, meaning the success you’re looking for is very personal in nature. It is as you define it and no one else. So what does success look like to you?”

“I just wanna be a better me, you know? And keep my peeps happy and safe.”

“Ah, I see. Asserting yourself is all about looking out for your interests, and your interests are other people. That means a win in your eyes isn’t simply that the ‘bad guys’ lose, but that no one gets hurt. You’re a protector, or at least you’re trying to be. You’d like to know how to improve.”

“Whoa…” Nino turned to Alya to make sure she was getting all this on camera. She could only look at him as if he had done something adorable.

“But what has brought this need for improvement on?” wondered Madame Magda aloud. “Obviously, something happened.”

“Er…” Nino turned back to the tarot reader, a sheen of sweat breaking out across his forehead. What was he supposed to tell her? That, as Carapace, he was unable to protect his super powered girlfriend Rena Rouge and she ended up sacrificing herself for him? That he allowed his emotions to overcome him and became Akumatized, making things so much harder for Ladybug and Chat Noir?

But Madame Magda didn’t appear to be looking to him for answers. As she poured over her cards, she turned over the one far to her left.

“The Five of Cups,” she explained, clucking her tongue. “Loss. Grief. Regret. Of course.”

“Regret’s a pretty good word for it. No joke,” ventured Nino as he looked at the card for himself. There was a figure in a black cloak, staring down at three cups, their colorful contents spilled across the ground.

“You’ve been disappointed by the way things have gone. You want to turn back the clock and make different choices.”

Nino found himself nodding. If only he had defeated the Pharaoh sooner and seen Dark Cupid’s arrow coming. If only he had been stronger and stopped Alya from Akumatizing herself. If only he hadn’t allowed his emotions to get the better of him when he saw his girlfriend overcome with darkness and rage. Even now his fingers curled into fists and he shook a little. If only, if only…

“Darling, you’re too hard on yourself,” observed Madame Magda as she eyed his hands. Her smile had faded. It was still there, but shadowed by concern. “Look at the man on this card. He is so focused on the tipped over cups that he has failed to notice that he has two that are still standing. Think about that for a moment. Sometimes we make mistakes and it’s all we can see. It is only after time has passed and we have healed that we realize our mistakes were not the end of the world. We still have a lot left.”

Nino felt Alya’s warm hand cover his and he looked up to see her smiling at him, as if reminding him that everything had turned out okay in the end. Ladybug and Chat Noir saved them. Sure, Hawk Moth got away, but nothing irreparable had happened.

This time, at least.

“I wanna learn from my mistakes,” Nino explained. “So I don’t make them again."

Madame Magda nodded. “I’m not surprised you feel that way, Nino darling. That’s a positive aspect of the Five of Cups. It opens up new possibilities for growth and change. But change is often accompanied by anxiety and concerns. Lucky for you, the next card explores that.”

“Oh! Awesome!” He glanced at Alya’s camera again and began to bounce up and down.

There was a rumble like a bass drop. It took Nino a moment to realize Madame Magda was chuckling to herself as she turned over the second card in the row of seven. Nino was more on the ball this time and saw that it depicted an impish man who appeared to be picking up swords that others had dropped, like some kind of…sword…hoarder. Wow, try saying that five times fast, he thought. Sword hoarder, sword order, sword derder, swordorder, sworsworder…

“Now this is a card I have not seen in a while,” observed the tarot reader. “But it makes sense. The Five of Swords, for all intents and purposes, is the opposite of The Chariot. Remember how we spoke about how you want to protect your interests—your friends, your family, Miss Césaire here? One of the things the Five of Swords represents is self-interest. I assume this is the mistake you made. During a time when you should’ve been selfless, you were selfish. You only cared about you and your pain.”

“Nino…” said Alya, her voice cracking. Confused, Nino turned to see his girlfriend looking absolutely sick with guilt. “When I…I mean, I didn’t think—”

Nino grabbed her hand, interlocking his fingers with hers. “I would’ve done the same for you,” he said. “It just stunk that I couldn’t. That’s what really got me.”

“You were in a difficult situation,” insisted Madame Magda. “A hostile environment…and you temporarily lost sight of what was right. You forgot about the big picture. Why do you think that was?”

“My emotions, dudette. I saw Alya get…uh…um…” Nino looked to Alya, eyes wide with panic. He had started to say too much.

“It’s okay. You can tell her,” said Alya lightly. She turned to address Madame Magda. “I got transformed back into Lady Wifi the day of the red Akumas.” Nino blinked. Alya always was much better at lying than he was, not that it was hard. Still, it was downright bizarre to watch the queen of exposing the truth obfuscating it instead. “We knew we were targets, having been Akumatized before, so we were trying to get to safety and not make things any harder for Ladybug and Chat Noir. I saw an Akuma coming straight for Nino though, so I pushed him out of the way and took the hit. I was hoping it would buy him time to escape, but he stayed with me and also got Akumatized.”

“I was super bummed out,” Nino explained to her. “I promised to protect you and I failed. I wasn’t even strong enough to stop you. Once you were Akumatized, I just sorta…gave up. I really am a weakling.”

That’s what Alya had called him when under Dark Cupid’s influence. A weakling. Just like Nora had. Like sister like sister, Nino guessed.

“Ah. I see now. You believe your feelings for Miss Césaire clouded your better judgement,” observed Madame Magda. “You’re afraid your emotions will lead you astray again.”

“They’ve done it before. The first time I was Akumatized was because my best bud’s old man was such a hater. He wouldn’t even let his own son have a b-day party! And I only made things worse by asking.”

“Then I can see why you are so anxious! You have the best intentions, darling, so it’s a shame when you end up being unable to achieve them. But there is something about this whole issue that you are not seeing.”

Nino chanced a glance at Alya. “Er…w-what’s going down?”

To answer, Madame Magda flipped over a new card. “The Star.”

“The Star,” Nino repeated as he looked at the card. There were several stars on it, with one big yellow one in the middle. They shone on a woman as she poured out two jugs of water, one into a pond and one out onto the bank. He had no clue what it meant, but there was a chill bird in a tree in the background that gave him good vibes.

The woman clapped her hands together. “This is perfect! Like the Five of Swords counters The Chariot, The Star counters the Five of Cups. You may be overwhelmed with regret, but The Star tells us that things are not as dark as they may seem. There is still hope. In fact, you can look forward to success! What you don’t know is…you will be able to achieve your goal.”

“Seriously!?” Nino couldn’t believe his luck. His fear and trepidation and whatever had been weighing him down sloughed away. He felt so light and free in that moment that he swore he could fly. “Awesome!”

“I’m glad The Star has given you peace of mind! …But, unfortunately, that’s all it really does.”

“Huh?”

“The Star is the light at the end of the tunnel, but it doesn’t instruct you on how to reach it. It offers no solutions or answers. At most it is a cheerleader or a marker to let you know you are headed in the right direction.”

“How meta,” observed Alya.

“Very astute, Miss Césaire.”

“Is my girl being smart again?” wondered Nino, chest swelling with pride. It was honestly one of the things he liked most about her.

“She makes an excellent point,” the tarot reader explained. “The Star might be referring to this very point in the reading. The cards haven’t offered you any guidance yet—we’ve just gained a better understanding of your situation—but from this point forward, they will. In fact, the next card will offer you your best course of action or a piece of advice. It is in Position 5—” She pointed at the card next in line. “—the literal and figurative crux of this entire spread, which makes sense since it will most directly address the question or concern as revealed in Position 1.” She moved her clawed finger down one card, to The Chariot. “How can you be a better protector? Is that right?”

While it wasn’t the question Nino originally asked, he felt like it should’ve been, so he nodded. Being a protector was the basis of his heroism, after all. He would do anything to save others from danger. The card Madame Magda revealed though confused him. A huge angel was jamming on a trumpet. Gray people stood below with their arms raised, standing in coffins adrift in the middle of the sea.

Nino tilted his head, trying to read the scrawled writing inked on the bottom. “Judgement…?” He shoved himself back from the table, causing the candles to wobble. “Dude, I don't like the sound of that.”

“You misunderstand, Nino! Judgement in tarot does not stand for condemnation and blame, but for discernment and decision. You’ve judged yourself and found yourself lacking—that is why you are here. So we can skip to what comes after.”

“Uh…punishment?”

“Goodness, no! Darling, don’t you see? You are reborn. You have heard the call to improve and you’ve embraced it with open arms. Therefore, I believe Judgement is advocating for your absolution.”

“Whoa. That’s deep, dudette. So what do I gotta do?”

“It’s simple, really. You just need to—”

“Forgive yourself.”

Nino looked to his right to see that Alya had pushed up her glasses to rub her face. When she pulled her hand away, her eyes were red. Turning off her phone and pocketing it, Nino sensed things had become serious.

“This is my fault, not yours,” she insisted. “You wouldn’t feel like this if I hadn’t gotten Akumatized in front of you. I made you feel like a failure.”

“No, dude, I made me feel like a failure,” Nino countered.

“No, I shouldn’t have intervened. I was trying to help, but I just made things worse.”

“No, I wasn’t strong enough to—”

“Nino! Miss Césaire! Please!” cried Madame Magda. She looked from one to the other and then back again. “Are you always like this? Such selfless love to be sure, but, unfortunately Miss Césaire, you cannot alleviate Nino’s guilt. Only he can do that.”

“Easier said than done,” Nino pointed out.

“Exactly! Which is why there are still more cards on the table.”

“Oh.” He felt like smacking himself in the forehead. Duh.

“In fact, the next card suggests how to proceed with the advice offered by the card in Position 5. Essentially, how do you forgive yourself?”

She flipped the card fast, revealing a man in funny clothes with a crazy blue turban standing by the sea. For whatever reason, he was talking to a fish in a goblet. He seemed like a pretty cool dude.

“The Page of Cups,” explained Madame Magda.

“Who’s he?” wondered Nino.

“You.”

Alya slapped Nino in the arm, a little harder than necessary in her excitement. “No way! I’m a Page too!”

“But what makes you think this dude is me?” wondered Nino, poking at the card.

“Pages offer us suggestions,” said Madame Magda. “And the number one suggestion of the Page of Cups is ‘be emotional.’ And haven’t you described yourself as such?”

“Yeah, totally, but it’s…uncool. My emotions caused me to get Akumatized. Twice. I want to protect peeps, not put them in danger. I need to not let my emotions get the best of me by, like, turning them off or something.”

“But the Page of Cups argues the opposite. It says that your emotions are your biggest asset. If you cut yourself off from them, you cut yourself off from love as well, and isn’t that what motivates you in the first place?”

Nino thought of Alya, of Adrien, of all his friends, his mom, his little brother Chris, his whole family. The citizens of Paris. He fought for them. He fought to keep them safe.

“A Page of Cups is loving,” continued Madame Magda. “You might have love for others, but give some to yourself as well. I think that is where the problem lies. You were Akumatized because you couldn’t forgive yourself for allowing something bad to happen, both to your friend and to Miss Césaire, but the truth is you are not to blame. Hawk Moth is the one at fault, Nino, darling. Not you.”

“But—!”

“No buts! You came to me for guidance, correct? You want to know how to conduct yourself in the future, for when something happens like this again. And the cards will tell you.”

She flipped over the second to last card. Nino saw a woman in white, stroking the throat of a lion. Discerning the scribbles at the bottom, Nino hung his head. Strength. He knew it. He didn’t care what Ladybug told him—strength was what won battles and he just didn’t make the cut. Alya scooted closer to him and rubbed his back, but he was too lost in his thoughts to really take notice.

“Tell me, Nino. What does strength mean to you?” wondered Madame Magda.

Nino glanced up, aghast by how oblivious she was. “What do you mean, dudette?” he wondered. “It’s having muscles and being able to take everything down.”

“Isn’t the heart a muscle?”

“Well, yeah, but not like that.”

“Why not? If someone has compassion, wouldn’t you say they have inner strength?”

“I guess…”

“Look. The woman in the card doesn’t have muscles. Yet she was able to tame a lion! She didn’t use brute force to achieve her goal, but compassion and patience. True strength lies in courage and determination, not in how hard you can punch.”

“Nino! Nino, that’s you!” Alya said, shaking him, but Nino felt numb to her praise.

“I see now that there was a flaw with your primary question,” said Madame Magda. “Something you weren’t seeing.”

“I thought The Star was what I wasn’t seeing,” said Nino, rubbing his temples. This whole reading had gotten way more complicated than he originally thought it would be. He felt like his brain was leaking.

“That’s what I’m saying, darling. You’re concerned about successfully protecting others, but you can’t see how to achieve such a feat because you’ve been looking at success all wrong. To you, success is represented by the Chariot—hard control. By mastering your emotions, you believe you can keep them from interfering. But success is actually represented by the Strength card, which highlights soft control. This means working with others, tempering force with benevolence, and demonstrating the power of love. Don’t you see? Your emotions are an advantage, not a detriment. Yes, you should control them, but not by force of will. Befriend them. That way they can guide, empower, and motivate you. Love especially.”

“Not to be a downer, but, like, doesn’t Hawk Moth prey on emotions and stuff?”

“Negative ones, yes. Anger…fear…guilt. But if you embrace them, you can come to terms with them before Hawk Moth is able to use them against you. Imagine if you had been able to forgive yourself of your guilt by understanding Miss Césaire made her own choice to sacrifice herself for you. Such a selfless act of love should’ve inspired you!”

“That was off the hook, wasn’t it?” Nino turned to Alya and it suddenly felt like they were the only two in the room, Madame Magda impossibly fading away into the background. He leaned in close to her, close enough to see the faint smattering of freckles splashed across her nose. “I never did thank you…”

“Oh, stop,” she insisted, her cheeks gaining a rosy glow as she playfully pushed him away.

“You wanted me to keep going.My bad."

“Next time.”

“Yeah. Next time.”

“Well, it looks like I don’t need to reveal the last card at all!” said Madame Magda, jumping back in with the force of a cannonball. “But if you are interested, is shows the expected results if the guidance the cards have provided to you is followed.”

“I’m down,” Nino decided. “Let’s see.”

“You got it!”

With nimble fingers, Madame Magda turned over the card at the end of the line. It reminded Nino of The Chariot, with a victorious man as the focus. The card wasn’t as grand though. Instead of a chariot pulled by sphinxes, this man rode a horse. Instead of armor, he wore simple clothes. Instead of a crown of gold, he sported a crown of leaves. Instead of a scepter, he wielded a wooden staff topped with a wreath.

“The Six of Wands,” announced Madame Magda. “Of course. The Minor Arcana counterpart of the Chariot.”

“Whoa, crazy! I was just thinking it looked like The Chariot.”

“They are reinforcing cards, which means we can safely assume the Six of Wands stands for two things. The first is triumph! You can and will become a better protector. But be mindful that your outcome is of the Minor Arcana variety. It will not be the Major Arcana victory you were hoping for, which supports what I’ve been saying—you need to focus on soft control, not hard. The second—and this is important—is that you will also gain some much-needed self-confidence. Feeling good about your accomplishments is an important part of your future success. So no more knocking yourself down! You are not a weakling, but a strong and compassionate young man.”

Nino wanted to believe these kind words, but all he could focus on was the memory of Alya escaping from his arms and jumping into a red Akuma. He knew he had to forgive himself, to embrace his emotions, but all he had to do was think of his failures and find himself deeply shaken.

“Thank you, Madame Magda,” he heard Alya say as he focused on his lap. “I think this reading has been super helpful for Nino.” He jumped when she clamped a hand down on his shoulder. “Right, Nino?”

“Oh! Totally!” He jumped up, bowing his head multiple times. “Thanks, dude—I mean, dudette. I really appreciate it! Like, really.”

Madame Magda’s smile stretched so wide that Nino was sure it would snap like a rubber band. She lifted herself up to escort them out.

“It was my pleasure, Nino darling. I’m always happy to interpret the cards to the best of my abilities. As for you, Miss Césaire…are you a believer yet?”

Alya gave a sly, inscrutable grin. “Have a good night, Madame Magda.”

They left Voyance hand-in-hand, heading south toward the Seine. Nino looked down, examining all the cracks in the pavement. He felt worse now than he did before his reading, the memory of Alya’s sacrifice and eventual Akumatization playing out like a nightmare on repeat. He wanted to be a better hero, but forgiving himself? Utilizing his emotions instead of letting them overcome him? It was going to be tough.

“Hey,” said Alya, nudging him. Nino willed himself to look up and see that they had somehow arrived at the front stoop of Alya’s apartment building without him noticing. That didn’t seem to be what she wanted him to see though as she gently took his face in both her hands and directed him to look at her. “Remember when you asked me if I was surprised to find out you were Carapace?”

“Chyeah.” How could he forget? “You called me your ‘sweet, clueless boy.’”

Alya laughed, a beautiful sound. “You should’ve seen the look on your face!” She dropped her hands to his shoulders and began to play with the collar of his shirt as she looked off to the left. “But I should’ve just told you the truth: That I’ve always known you were a hero, from the day you befriended Adrien when no one else would. So when you disappeared during the fight against my sister and Carapace showed up…well, it was obvious. I knew you would never abandon me, so Carapace had to be you.”

“We’ve been in trouble together before,” Nino pointed out.

Chapter 7: Chloé Bourgeois, Knight of Cups

Chapter Text

On a normal day, Chloé wouldn’t be caught dead in a New Age shop. They were cheap and tacky and filled with unpleasant smells and people with poor hygiene. The problem was, there was a sandwich chalkboard sign outside of this one that read ‘Shop where Adrien Agreste shops!’ and Chloé found herself incensed on his behalf. Adrikins would never dream of stepping foot in a place like this! And if he did, wouldn’t he have told her? He was her best friend. They shared everything!

Well…they did…

“Are we stopping here, Miss Bourgeois?” wondered Jean Luc-whatever, arms weighed down with a collection of brightly colored shopping bags. She ignored him. The fact that she was marching into the store was obviously answer enough.

While the butler struggled to get through the doorway, Chloé crossed her arms and glared around the shop, which was bursting at the seams with people. She recognized the desperation of Adrien’s fan club when she saw it. Teenagers and some creepy adults who should really know better were trying on necklaces, smelling little sticks dipped in incense, and generally rubbernecking about. Three girls gathered around a barrel filled with polished, multicolored rocks, giggling.

“I bet Adrien touched these rocks…” said one dreamily as she shoved her hands in, burying them. Her friends followed suit.

“There you go, darling,” said a deep rumble of a voice. “Thank you for shopping at Voyance!”

Chloé turned to see an absolute monster of a woman, decked out in an aggressive orangey yellow from head to toe. She looked like a humongous mango. Chloé watched as the woman lowering a shopping bag into the hands of a teenage boy dressed in one of Adrien’s signature outfits. Gross.

“No, thank you!” the boy cried. He trundled out of the shop admiring the bag, tears filling his eyes. Jean Pascal, still struggling, backed away to allow him to pass. “To think Adrien Agreste was looking at this bangle!” he said with an insane amount of enthusiasm as he hugged his purchase to himself. “I’ll wear it every day!”

“Now where was I…?” wondered the woman-shaped mountain as she turned back to a girl Chloé vaguely recognized from school. Aurora or something. There were three cards on the glass counter between them. Two were face up, but one was still face down. “Ah, right. The future!”

Aurora squealed, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“Ugh!” cried Chloé, wrinkling her nose. She shoved her way through the horde of customers, reaching the counter and knocking Aurora to the side.

“Hey!” complained the girl, but Chloé didn’t care.

“Is this your eyesore of a shop?” she demanded, glaring up. She faltered a little—the woman was much larger than she realized, like some sort of half-giant, and as hairless as a baby. More unnerving though was her placid smile, as if Chloé had calmly entered her shop to offer up a compliment instead of the opposite.

“Indeed it is, darling!” she boomed, the volume of her voice causing Chloé to cover her ears. “My name is Madame Magda. How may I be of service to you?”

“Excuse you, Chloé,” said Aurora. “I’m getting my cards read.”

Chloé looked at the three cards for a moment before brushing them onto the floor. “And now you’re not,” she said as Aurora yelped and dove down to collect them.

Chloé fully expected complaint from Madame Mango and readied her response that her daddy was the mayor. Instead, the woman whipped out her business card and offered it to Aurora.

“Why don’t you come back another time, darling?” she suggested. “I’ll even upgrade your three card spread to a full reading, free of charge. Just call for an appointment.”

Aurora cast Chloé the stink eye, but Chloé was much too busy examining her nails to care. With a heavy sigh, Aurora traded the three tarot cards for the business card.

“Fine. I don’t want to be near this girl anyway.” She curtsied. “Thank you, Madame Magda.”

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!” Chloé trilled after her.

Aurora brushed passed Jean Claude, who had finally battled his way inside and was standing uncomfortably in an alcove decorated with papier-mâché masks. He tried to wave at Chloé only to accidentally knock over a coatrack. Rolling her eyes, Chloé turned back to Madame Mango.

“I’ll have your know that my daddy is the mayor and I am Queen Bee, Protector of Paris, and we don’t take too kindly to blatant lies on our streets,” Chloé explained.

The skin that made up the woman’s forehead wrinkled. “Would it be Miss Bourgeois, then? I haven’t foggiest idea of what you’re talking about.”

Chloé backed up, aghast. The nerve of this woman! “Adrien Agreste would never shop someplace lame like this. The very thought is ridiculous! Utterly ridiculous!”

“Where have you been?” wondered a freckle-face girl waiting patiently behind Chloé to purchase a dusty old book and a deck of cards. She had been scrolling through her phone, but found a picture and showed it to Chloé. It was of Voyance’s front door, Adrien stepping out with his gorilla of a bodyguard. Chloé blinked rapidly. Why was he…? But then her keen eyes noticed something odd.

“If he shopped here, then where’s his bag?” Chloé chided. “He probably just came in here to escape you guys.”

“Actually, he bought a tarot reading,” Madame Mango explained, turning to a bulletin board set up on the wall behind her. Amid star charts and horoscopes and pithy little sayings was pinned a carbon copy of a receipt.

“Ha! Nice try,” said Chloé. “I know Adrikins better than anyone and—”

Madame Mango placed the receipt on the counter. "Or, rather, his bodyguard did."

Chloé recognized the signature. She wanted to argue that the bodyguard bought it for himself, but everyone and their mother knew the man simply did not talk. Buying it for Adrien really was the only reasonable explanation.

“Hm!” she snorted. She refused to show any weakness in front of his smiling clown. “Fine. Maybe he did have a reading. But he probably just did it because he felt bad about leaving your pitiful little shop without buying anything. He’s so sweet that way.”

“While I do not doubt that is something Mr. Agreste would do, he came specifically for a reading.”

This made zero sense. If Adrien came here, that meant he had free time, and if he had free time, shouldn’t he have spent it with her? “Why!?”

The woman tossed her head back and laughed, the sound grating Chloé’s nerves and vibrating her bones. “Customer confidentiality, Miss Bourgeois! All I can really tell you is that he was another satisfied customer.”

“She’s really good!” gushed Freckle Face. “I came a couple of days ago to get a love reading and—”

“Did I ask you?” wondered Chloé, shutting the girl up. She turned back to the giant mango in the room. “I don’t like the idea that you’re capitalizing off Adrikin’s fame. Take the sign down. Now!”

“Hmmmm.” The woman stroked her multitude of chins. “I’ll tell you what. How about I give you a tarot reading? If you’re not satisfied, then I’ll take down the sign. I’ll even give you a hero’s discount.”

“Hero’s discount…?”

“Of course! I would never charge the likes of Queen Bee after all you do to keep Paris safe.”

Chloé smirked. She was pretty amazing, wasn’t she? And she might as well see what all the hype was about. “Okay, Madame Man…gda. You’ve got yourself a deal.” Chloé snapped her fingers. “Jean Paul!”

The butler rushed to her side, crashing into customers along the way. If any of Chloé’s purchases were mussed or broken, she swore she was going to have her daddy dock his pay.

“Yes, Miss Bourgeois?” he asked.

“Take my bags back to the limo. I might be a while.”

“As you wish, Miss Bourgeois.”

He vanished, or at least tried to. It took him a bit of maneuvering to exit the shop.

Chloé turned back to find Madame Mango writing up a receipt for Freckle Face. “Uh…hello!?” Chloé demanded. “I thought we were doing my reading!”

“Oh, you were expecting it now, darling? I’m a little tied up at the moment, but I would be more than happy to—”

With a beleaguered sigh, Chloé turned away from the counter and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hey! Losers!” she shouted. Everyone in the room stopped talking and milling around to look at her, some of their faces twisted with offense. The truth hurt, Chloé knew. Not everyone could handle it. “That’s better,” she said. She cleared her throat before pressing a hand to her chest. “You are standing in the presence of the great Chloé Bourgeois. That’s right! Queen Bee herself. And if you all know what’s best for you, you’ll leave so I can get my reading done.” She paused. Ladybug couldn’t have said it better herself, in her opinion. Oh, wait. “Thank you,” she added. There. Perfect.

There were dark murmurs, but everyone seemed to be heading towards the exit. Madame Mango finished up with Freckle Face and waved her goodbye. Chloé followed closely, much to the girl’s annoyance, closing the door and locking it behind her.

“There!” Chloé said, wiping her hands. “Now where were we?”

She turned back to find the shop completely empty. No…wait…there was movement between two bookcases in the back. Chloé tiptoed over. It was impossible for something as large as Madame Mango to move that fast and that quietly, she was sure of it. When she peered in between the rich velvet curtains though, she jumped back at the sight of the woman basking serenely in the candlelight with her eyes closed, her pack of cards in her hand.

“How did you do that!?” demanded Chloé.

Madame Mango’s eyes fluttered open and she tilted her head with a grin. “Do what?”

“N…nevermind.”

Chloé wasn’t going to let this woman get to her. Clearly she had a few tricks up her voluminous sleeves.

Stumbling through the nook, Chloé took her seat on one of the tufted stools that littered the area, dragging herself up to the table. Madame Mango probably left them scattered about like that so all her customers would look undignified pulling up a seat. Chloé glanced up, expecting to see the woman trying to hide a laugh, but her poker smile remained perfectly preserved as she began to shuffle her cards.

“I take it this is your first time getting a tarot reading?” she asked.

Chloé rolled her eyes. “I don’t need cards to tell me how to live my life.”

“Some people do, some people don’t, but you don’t know until you try, darling. So let’s start by doing a basic Celtic—”

“Since I don’t care, you can just skip to the reading.”

“Of course, darling.”

Chloé frowned. Yes, Madame Mango was doing exactly as she asked, but something was…off. She wasn’t like Sabrina, fawning over Chloé and bending over backwards to please her. It was almost felt as if skipping the explanation was Madame Mango’s idea and Chloé had agreed to it.

While Chloé tried to figure out that mind screw, the woman held out the deck of cards. “Here. Shuffle the cards to imbue them with your energy.”

All it took was one look at the grubby cards for Chloé to wrinkle her nose and shrink back. “Ew! Gross. I’m not touching those. Find me a new set.”

“This is my only set that gives accurate readings.”

“Then you’re not a very good tarot reader.”

“Oh, I’m a very good reader, darling. Make no mistake. But no matter how good you are, you need the right tools to be successful. Wouldn’t it be hard to fight Akumas without your Miraculous?”

Chloé’s hands instinctively went up to where she normally put her bee comb. It wasn’t there, of course. Nothing but flaxen hair.

“Fine,” she said, grabbing the cards. They were worn and slightly sticky. Flipping them over to look at the grotesque pictures, Chloé fought the urge to throw them right back into Madame Mango’s face. She did, however, spot some cards she liked—The Lovers, the Ten of Cups, the Nine of Pentacles. There was no shame in stacking the deck, as her daddy always said, so she made sure to place good cards at the top while she was shuffling before handing the deck back. Madame Mango was too busy fixing her tangle of garish necklaces to notice.

“Thank you,” said the woman kindly as she began to lay the cards facedown. “I’ll try to keep things concise. I’m going to flip cards over two at a time since one will inform the other and vice versa. First we’ll look at your present. This involves a primary issue and a secondary issue that will either oppose or reinforce it.”

“Uh…” said Chloé, hand reaching forward. She hadn’t thought this through. She didn’t want good cards to be made into issues! But Madame Mango’s hands were more nimble than Chloé gave them credit for and she flipped over the two cards in the middle of the spread before Chloé could do anything about it.

At first, Chloé was relieved. The cards she saw weren’t the ones she had put at the top of the deck. Wait…they weren’t the ones she put on top of the deck! Her mouth parted, but she realized there was nothing she could say without letting Madame Mango know she was trying to cheat. She slammed her mouth shut.

“Everything all right, darling?” Madame Mango asked.

Chloé searched the woman’s face. She must have been faking her distraction, caught on to what Chloé was doing, and used sleight of hand to rearrange the cards. I’m on to you, Chloé thought, but she outwardly smiled.

“Peachy.”

“Perfect! So, right here we have the Seven of Wands…” She tapped a card with a gnarled finger and Chloé finally took note of it. It depicted a man in a green dress (tunic, whatever), fighting off sticks with a stick of his own.

“Honestly?” said Chloé. “Same.”

“What makes you say that?”

“This man is getting attacked, right? That happens to me constantly. It’s like, all these Akumas are always after me—Stoneheart, Evilstrator, Zombizou. It’s a problem.”

“That’s definitely one interpretation, but the cards are not always so literal. Would you say you go after what you want, Miss Bourgeois? And you never back down?”

“Yes. That’s something everyone loves about me, I know. My daddy calls me tenacious. And it obviously makes me very brave in a fight when I’m Queen Bee.”

“Mmm, I see. So, all battles are worth fighting, no matter what?”

“Of course!”

“Why?”

“So…so I win.” Chloé faltered here, though she couldn’t explain why. She forced herself to press on. “Everyone loves a winner.” It was something her mom always said.

Madame Mango paused, pawing at the cards. Chloé looked at the other one that had been revealed, the Four of Pentacles. On it was an ugly, middle-aged woman, tired and worn with bags under her eyes. There was a giant coin on her head, one in her hands, and two below either foot.

“Let me ask you a question, Miss Bourgeois,” said the woman. “Do you have everything you want?”

“Of course. Whatever I don’t have, I can have daddy get me. Or I can just buy it myself.”

“What about the things you can’t get that way?”

Chloé paused, turning the words over in her head, before she burst out laughing. “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes of fake tears, careful not to smudge her mascara. “But what you just said is utterly ridiculous.” There were a lot of things people said money and power couldn’t get her—friends, happiness—and she had proved them all wrong.

“So the Bee Miraculous…” suggested Madame Mango

Chloé felt like she had run headlong into a brick wall. “Oh. Well. Um…” She crossed her arms. “Okay, fine! But that’s because it’s Ladybug’s. She lets me borrow it because we’re friends.”

“So, you can borrow it whenever you want?”

“Of course!” Chloé lied.

“Oh! In that case, darling, I suppose you don’t need the cards’ advice on how to get it back then.”

As she started to rise from her seat, Chloé’s eyes narrowed. It was impossible to tell if Madame Mango believed Chloé’s lie or was calling her bluff. Either way, Chloé found herself scrambling to get her to continue the reading. “Wait, wait, wait!” she cried. Madame Mango paused and Chloé realized just how desperate she sounded, so she took a step back and played it cool, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “…I’m listening.”

Madame Mango collapsed back on to her stool, causing the ground to shake and the curtains to sway. “Lovely! So, what the Four of Pentacles tells me is that you are currently resisting change. You do this to stay in control. You like being in control and you like when everyone does as you say. In fact, you’re doing it right now, insisting I take down my sign because you don’t like the idea that Adrien came here. But you’ve relinquished control before—I saw it on TV on the day of the red Akumas. You followed Ladybug’s direction. You changed for her.”

“So…what? Give up control? That’s your advice? You’re just trying to keep your stupid sign up!”

“Why does my sign upset you so much, Miss Bourgeois? Because I have reason to believe it’s not because you think it’s a lie or that I’m taking advantage of your friend’s fame, but because it’s proof you can’t control Adrien. Not only did he do something you evidently didn’t approve of, but he didn’t even tell you about it. And that hurts.”

Chloé pressed her lips together. So what if this woman was right? She wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of knowing that.

“But there is a reason you are this way, something that happened in your past that has an unconscious influence on your present,” Madame Mango continued. “It drives you to a certain outcome that you’re hoping for, presumably tied to your desire to possess the Bee Miraculous.”

A tiny bead of sweat formed on Chloé’s temple. Part of her was incredulous that this talking fruit would be able to figure her out in just a few cards, but part of her knew what was coming and she regretted ever setting foot in this tacky shop. Something kept her rooted to the spot though and she watched as Madame Magda flipped over two new cards.

“Ha!” said Chloé, pinning down one with her finger that depicted a skeleton in black armor. He rode a white horse, bearing a flag with a flower on it. The word below was clear: Death. “Your cards are wrong! No one I know has died!”

“It is actually rare when the Death card means physical death,” the woman said with a simpering smile. “Such a view is rather limiting, don’t you think? We actually ‘die’ all the time. Every time we change, the old us falls away and the new us comes into being. Therefore, Death is more likely to represent endings or transitions. A big change happened in your life when you were younger, Miss Bourgeois. And since you were a child, that change was inexorable. You could do nothing to stop it.”

“That’s a lie…” muttered Chloé to herself.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, that’s a lie. She left because—” Chloé stopped short, stricken.

She hadn’t meant to share.

“No, no, it’s okay,” said Madame Magda kindly, as if coaxing a wild animal. “I didn’t want to say anything, but I follow fashion—” Chloé snorted, which the woman chose to ignore. “—and I know your mother has only recently returned to Paris after spending many years away. You essentially grew up without her. But you think there was something you could’ve done to stop her from leaving?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” snitted Chloé.

“Readings are a dialogue for a reason, Miss Bourgeois, but I’m not going to force you to talk about something you don’t want to talk about.”

“Good—!”

“I’ll just read your mind instead.”

“W-what!?”

Madame Mango pressed the tips of her fingers to her temples and squinted at Chloé. Chloé looked to her left and right, trying to figure out what she should do. This woman was getting a negative review on Google, that was for sure. She was absolutely insane. But could she read minds? No. It was impossible.

“You think she left because you weren’t exceptional enough to make her stay,” Madame Mango announced after a moment. Chloé’s jaw dropped. “By the way, darling, I’m just joking. I can’t read minds. That was simply the conclusion I’ve drawn from Position 5 and your own words, but your reaction affirms it.”

Chloé had just about enough of this awful woman’s words. She stood up, her Louis Vuitton cross-body purse swinging wildly. “That’s it!” she cried. “My daddy will be hearing about this! Expect a call from our lawyers about the amount of emotional distress you’ve caused me—!”

“She’s wrong, you know.”

“I…uh…”

“You are exceptional. Or, at the very least, have the potential to be so.”

Chloé paused, then returned to her seat. “…Go on.”

“We’ll get to that in a moment. First, let’s explore the Six of Wands.” She wiggled the other card she had flipped alongside Death. Chloé rolled her eyes, annoyed to have fallen for what was clearly a trap to stretch on this charade even longer, but took a look. She thought it was interesting that both Death and the Six of Wands featured white horses, but the one in the Six of Wands was ridden by a man, his head held high. Instead of a flag, he carried a staff. “Triumph. Acclaim. Pride,” said Madame Mango. “You want to win because everyone loves a winner. You want to be a hero because everyone loves a hero. At your base, you just want to be loved, and you’ll do whatever it takes to possess it. But love isn’t something you own, Miss Bourgeois. It cannot be bought or achieved through intimidation. It is freely given. If it’s not—if it comes with strings attached—then it is not love.”

“But you said I’m exceptional…?”

As if to answer, Madame Magda flipped over two more cards.

“Your recent past. Your immediate future. These are incredibly important, but especially for you, Miss Bourgeois,” the woman explained. “See how they both are Major Arcana cards? And the past I can see quite clearly.”

She framed the card in question with her fingers. It depicted some sort of compass, sailing through the sky on the back of a man with the head of a jackal. There was a sphinx, a snake, a winged ox reading a book—all sorts of strange things that were all a little off-putting. Chloé wrinkled her nose.

“What’s this?” she wondered.

“The Wheel of Fortune, darling,” explained Madame Magda. “It counteracts the Four of Pentacles from earlier, and supports what I’ve been saying. Though you normally refuse to change, you did so to help Ladybug as Queen Bee, and that is a sign of how exceptional you can be. Tell me…when you received the Bee Miraculous and used it for the first time…did it not feel like it was your destiny?”

Chloé sat up a little straighter, suddenly hanging on to every word.

The woman continued. “You felt a movement inside of you and you suddenly became aware that you could change things in your life for the better.”

“Yes! Yes!” said Chloé, nodding. The moment she had met Pollen, she knew that all her dreams were now within her grasp. Becoming Ladybug’s best friend, impressing her mom, gaining legions of adoring fans…her classmates would be falling over themselves to apologize for the way they’ve treated her.

“But all of it happened by chance.”

Madame Mango’s words were like a bucket of cold water. “N-no!” Chloé argued, even as she recalled stumbling over the little jewelry box on the stairs of the Eiffel Tower. “I told you before that Ladybug let me borrow it. She chose me.”

“But then, why did you say—on live TV, mind you—‘Finders keepers, losers wheepers’? Doesn’t that imply that you found it, darling?”

“That doesn’t mean she wasn’t going to give it to me!”

“Miss Bourgeois, just because something happens by chance, doesn’t mean it was an accident. There is a plan in store for you. I see it right here in my cards. Take a look at The Hermit.” She tapped the other card she had turned over, a bearded old man in a gray robe, with a walking stick and a lantern. “This is your future.”

“Ew, gross,” said Chloé, sticking out her tongue.

The words had no affect on Madame Mango. She appeared to be on a roll. “There will come a time sometime soon when you will start to question why things are the way they are. It wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t received the Bee Miraculous, but now the wheels of fate have been set into motion and there is no stopping them. In fact, it may have already started.”

Chloé was taken back, to the helipad several weeks ago. Her mother stood there with her arms crossed, ready to take off once again. Chloé was sidled up next to Jean-Yves, watching Dupain-Cheng reject her mother’s generous offer to take her to New York. Then she stepped aside so Chloé could ask what she had to ask, what she had always wanted to ask. And she did, in a tiny voice that didn’t sound like her.

Why don't you love me, Mom?

This had shocked her mother, so much so that she decided to stay. The gifts didn’t work. Agreeing with her constantly didn’t work. Impressing her by being Queen Bee didn’t even work. But that small question had, somehow. And she never would’ve asked it if she hadn’t failed so spectacularly as Queen Bee. Her vulnerability got the better of her and she just needed answers.

“Maybe,” said Chloé.

“It is difficult to discern what will happen going forward,” said the tarot reader. “Maybe you will spend some time alone, reflecting on yourself and your actions. Or perhaps you will find guidance in a mentor.”

“Well, which is it?” demanded Chloé.

“Perhaps another card in this spread can offer us clarity.”

“A likely story! You just don’t want to tell me one thing, and then turn out to be totally wrong. Pathetic.”

“On the contrary, Miss Bourgeois. Take the Four of Pentacles and Wheel of Fortune. Had the Four of Pentacles not appeared first, I would have a difficult time understanding the Wheel of Fortune. Certain cards inform others, but they’re not always in order. That being said…the next two cards will definitely clarify The Hermit. One represents internal factors—that’s your potential self-reflection—while the other represents external influences—a possible mentorship.”

“Well?” Chloé swept her hand. “Get on with it then. I don’t have all day.”

Madame Magda bobbed her head, looking a bit like a chicken as she turned over the two bottom cards on the line off to the side. One was the Five of Swords, which showed a man gathering swords up as others walked away. They were probably just sore losers who threw their swords down in frustration, leaving the man to take advantage of free swords. The other was the King of Wands. The king in question had a sort of woodsy aesthetic, complete with a pet lizard.

“A mentorship it is!” announced the woman with gusto. “With Ladybug, in fact.” She winked.

“What! Really!?” Chloé slammed her hands down on the table and leaned over for a better look. “That would be amazing! How’d you get that out of those two cards?”

“It’s simple, really. Lately, the King of Wands has been standing in for Ladybug—someone who is creative, inspiring, forceful, charismatic, and bold. It’s in Position 8, which represents things that are outside of you that have an impact on you and your actions. Sounds very much like a mentor, does it not?”

“Yes. But are you sure—sure—that it’s going to happen and not that other one?”

Here, Madame Magda grimaced. “I’m pretty sure self-reflection is off the table.”

Chloé’s eyes narrowed again. “Why?”

“It’s in the card, darling.” She tapped it. “Does this look like a man who is thinking about his past actions?”

Chloé had to agree. His impish face spoke of someone who enjoyed benefiting from the misfortune of others. “Wait a minute…” she realized, her eyes becoming all but slits. “That man is me, isn’t he!?” She rose from her seat. “What, you’re saying I’m not capable of self-reflection!? How dare you!”

“Are you capable of self-reflection?”

“Of course I am!”

“Then why are you so upset? If you know yourself to be one way and the cards suggest you are another, you should take their advice with a grain of salt.”

“I’m upset because you are attacking me! Just like everyone else.”

“It’s you against the world.”

“That’s right! Wait…” Chloé’s thoughts and emotions felt like a tangled mess. She grabbed her head and growled. “Stop playing mind games on me!”

“There’s no trick here, darling. I’m just reading the cards. The Five of Swords supports the first card we looked at, the Seven of Wands.”

“What, that stuff about me being tenacious?”

“Exactly. You accepted my reading of that card. You go after what you want. You play to win. You are aggressive. Defiant. Full of conviction. You embrace conflict. And why? The Five of Swords answers: Self-preservation. You think ‘This is who I am. This is who I must be.’ Anyone who is not accepting of that is your enemy and since few are accepting…you have a lot of enemies.”

“Exactly! I am the victim here!”

“Yes. You are. And the perpetrator as well.”

Silence. Chloé blinked rapidly. She could find no retort, no barbed comment. The moment she opened her mouth to at least try though, Madame Mango was already moving on, revealing one of the last two cards, this one showing a man tied upside-down to a tree. It gave the woman pause, her hand hovering over the last card.

“You’re a tricky one, aren’t you?” she said, though Chloé couldn’t tell if the comment was directed at her or the card. Madame Mango looked up, her eyes flashing. “You, Miss Bourgeois, are a paradox,” she explained. “You are a perpetrator and a victim. A villain and a hero. And that is because, as the Hanged Man in Position 9 shows us, you both fear and hope for change.”

“I…what…?”

“Let me put it another way. You’ve based your entire identity around acting a certain way. You know you need to improve, but you’re afraid. Do you even know how? And if you did change…would you even be you anymore?”

Chloé felt shaken. Her knees buckled and she found herself sinking back down onto her stool. Madame Magda seemed as if she expected such an action.

“We saw this already displayed in the previous two cards,” the woman pointed out. “You won’t self-reflect, but you’re eager to learn from Ladybug. That tells me something—essentially, you need people to support you on your journey to self-improvement. I saw on TV that Ladybug and Chat Noir have been helping you do that. At their insistence that you do the right thing, you returned the Bee Miraculous to them. No doubt it is because of that progress that Ladybug returned the Bee Miraculous to you when your father was Akumatized, and again on the day of the red Akumas.”

Actually, that time it was Chat Noir, thought Chloé to herself, but she nodded. Madame Magda was right.

“That must have been difficult for you to do though, giving it back,” she observed. “But that is exactly what the Hanged Man encourages: Letting go and sacrifice. It was only by giving up the Bee Miraculous that you were able to earn it back. Perhaps you can see this elsewhere in your life as well?”

Chloé thought of her mom again. By not trying to impress her mother and just being herself, she ended up impressing her enough to stay.

“Now think of what else you can do, in the future,” suggested Madame Magda. “By not picking fights, you’ll win them. By giving up control, you’ll gain it. I know it can be scary because it seems like it would be counterintuitive, but you’ll just have to trust the process, because if you do…”

She turned over the last card, revealing a farmer admiring a thick, leafy bush that grew gold coins: The Seven of Pentacles. Madame Magda’s face lit up as if she had just won the lottery.

“You’ll reap the rewards.”

“The Bee Miraculous!?” asked Chloé, excited.

“Oh, I think it’s safe to assume you’ll be rewarded with more than that! But it won’t be easy, Miss Bourgeois. You may have come a long way, but you have not reached the end of the road just yet. In fact, I believe your journey is just beginning. It is up to you whether you keep going or not, but if you do, the results will be everything you dreamed of, and more.”

“Okay, so all I have to do is…” Chloé tried to do some calculations in her head only to realize that no amount of money or power was going to be able to help her here. “Ugh!” she said, collapsing on the table. “This will be impossible!” She banged the table with her fist to punctuate her words. “Utterly. Impossible!”

“Now, now…” Chloé felt a comforting hand rub her shoulder. “I have something that might help.”

There was a squeak from Madame Magda’s stool as she got up. Chloé braced herself, ready for the woman to bump the table on her way out of the nook, but she somehow slipped by. Chloé lifted her head and leaned to the side to see the woman digging through the cabinets behind the glass display counters. Curious, Chloé headed over to join her.

“Now where did I…I could’ve swore it was…hmmm…” the tarot reader murmured to herself. Then she bolted upright. “Ah! That’s right!” She shoved a hand into her heinous yellow-orange muumuu and produced a pack of tarot cards. “Here it is!” she trilled.

“Oh, no…” said Chloé, taking a few measured steps back. “I am NOT having another reading done.” This one had been harrowing enough.

Madame Magda chuckled as she shook the cards out of their packaging into her hand. The light caught them and Chloé realized they were edged in gold leaf. “Have no fear, Miss Bourgeois. I couldn’t do a reading with this pack if I tried—it’s missing a few cards. But there is a card I want to show you…one I would like you to keep.”

She sifted through them, eventually producing the one she was looking for. She held it out, but Chloé sneered. She wasn’t going to take a used card.

“Go on now, darling,” said the woman before Chloé could open her mouth to reject it. “It’s yours. Ladybug and Chat Noir got one too.”

“What!?” Chloé snapped the card up and had a look. It was purple with a white horse (what was with all the white horses?). Its rider wore a winged helmet of gold with matching armor and carried a goblet. Both his tunic and the horse’s bridal had a gold and white fish print. The card was labeled in bold letters: The Knight of Cups.

“It’s a card that I believe represents you, darling.”

“You’re clearly losing it,” said Chloé, trying to hand it back. “You obviously meant to give me the Queen of Cups. I am Queen Bee, after all.”

“No, no. You are very much a knight. Knights go on journeys, and I hope this card will be of some encouragement to you as you go on yours.”

Chloé looked at the card again. She did like the winged armor, and the white horse. Maybe she could work with it. “What’s it mean?”

“All knights have positive and negative energies. They must be mindful that they don’t stray too far into the negative though, or the traits that define them can become corrupted. For example, a Knight of Cups is a sensitive soul, but can become extremely temperamental if things don’t go their way. They appreciate the finer things in life, but can become obsessed with them as well. They think big, but can also be unrealistic in their expectations.”

Chloé’s nostril’s flared. “Are you calling me—!?”

“Capable of great things? Yes. At your best, you will willingly seek self-improvement.”

“And at my worst?”

“You’ll drown in your failure.”

“I will not fail!”

“That’s right.”

“I’ll show you!”

“I know you will.”

“You’ll see!”

“Can’t wait.”

Chloé had never felt so motivated in her entire life. Madame Magda clearly didn’t think Chloé could do it and nobody—nobody—told Chloé Bourgeois what she could and could not do. Spinning on her heels, she marched out of the shop, shoving the Knight of Cups into her purse.

“And you can keep up your dumb sign!” she shouted over her shoulder before slamming the door behind her.

Chapter 8: Gabriel Agreste, Knight of Swords

Chapter Text

Gabriel sat and listened as his son played the piano. Adrien had greatly improved over the last month or so. The boy credited the time he spent with his musically-inclined friends, but Gabriel knew better. Adrien was perfect. That was all there was to it. The only time he hit a sour note was when he was distracted. Distractions did not suit an Agreste, so Gabriel made sure to limit them. As long as every moment of the day was planned, there was no room for trivialities. That way he could focus and achieve his goals.

As Adrien moved into the bridge, Gabriel closed his eyes and allowed the music to wash over him. This was one of Emilie’s favorites. Oh, Emilie. How he longed to hold her in his arms once again, to feel her hair tickle his cheek…

Gabriel’s eyes snapped open and he stood rather abruptly.

“Sir?” wondered Nathalie next to him.

Gabriel ignored her. “That’s enough,” he told his son. He was furious. He had fallen into the very trap he wish Adrien to avoid. He had gotten distracted.

“Have I…have I done something to displease you, Father?” Adrien wondered, pulling away from the keys.

Gabriel didn’t know what to say. He sighed and marched over to his son’s desk, afraid looking at the boy’s face would break him. It was then that he caught sight of something shiny next to Adrien’s globe. Gabriel tilted his head to get a better look. It appeared to be a card of some sort, its gold foil catching the light of the late afternoon sun. It depicted a man on a horse. It made no sense to Gabriel until he read the bottom: Knight of Wands.

“What’s this?” he demanded, picking it up and holding it between his middle and forefinger.

Adrien’s eyes widened in alarm. “It’s a card—”

“It’s a tarot card,” Gabriel amended. “What, have you been dabbling in voodoos and magics now? Is that it?” One of Adrien’s friends was to blame for this, he was sure of it. It was probably that Nino boy. He seemed like the type to lead his son down a dark and dangerous path.

“Of course not, Father!” Adrien argued

“Then what’s it doing here?”

“It was a gift.”

“From who? A fan? Nathalie!”

Nathalie jumped and rushed over, tablet at the ready. “Yes, sir?” she asked.

“I thought I told you all gifts must be approved by me first. Who knows what those people are sending my son? This card could be covered in anthrax!”

“It wasn’t a fan. It was a friend!” Adrien insisted. “She said it reminded her of me.”

Gabriel made a move for Adrien’s scissors to cut the card into pieces only to accidentally jostle the mouse and wake up the computer. Emilie stared out at him from the three monitors, a picture of her and Adrien taken last year set as the desktop background. He dropped the card without explanation and stormed out of the room.

The clip of heels let him know that Nathalie had followed. She closed Adrien’s door softly behind her before rushing to catch up to him.

“Look up the Knight of Wands and tell me what it says,” he commanded as he headed to his atelier. He planned to work on his new line until his Miraculous went off. Someone in Paris had to be experiencing intense negative emotions. It was only a matter of time. Maybe this would be the Akuma who would finally bring him Ladybug and Chat Noir’s Miraculous. Then his wife wouldn’t be looking at him from just a picture.

Nathalie made quick work of Gabriel’s query, retrieving the answer before they even hit the bottom stair. “The Knight of Wands can mean action, adventure, and fearlessness. It can also mean anger, impulsivity, and recklessness.”

“Hmm…” That didn’t sound like his son at all. Adrien was polite, careful, and contained. Whoever gave Adrien that card was putting strange ideas into his head and Gabriel didn’t like it. “Question my son’s bodyguard. I want to know who gave him that card.”

Nathalie bobbed her head and withdrew from his atelier, leaving Gabriel in peace. His focus was like that of a laser and he found himself utilizing royal purples, metallic golds, and soft whites in a new design. He felt inspired to include a flame motif, though he was at a bit of a loss over what was serving as his muse. By the time the door opened again, he had produced several rough sketches.

“Well?” he wondered, not bothering to turn around.

“Go on. Tell Mr. Agreste what you told me.”

Gabriel turned to find Nathalie had brought Adrien’s bodyguard into the room with her. The man, who was normally so gruff, was acting reticent. He hunched over as he tapped his fingers together, looking at his feet. He was apparently trying to make himself look as small as possible, a rather impossible feat.

Nathalie sighed heavily. “Fine. I’ll do it,” she murmured before raising her voice. “Mr. Agreste, your son’s fencing tournament three Saturdays ago was canceled. He apparently went to see a tarot reader instead.”

“And you just let him?” Gabriel demanded. The bodyguard sunk his head lower between his shoulders. “What do I pay you for!?”

“He wasn’t present for the reading, but it seems likely the tarot reader, a Madame Magda, gave Adrien that card then.”

Gabriel clenched his teeth. Adrien had lied to him! The card wasn’t a gift from a friend, but from a New Age con woman. He didn’t know what her game was, but he was putting an end to it right now. He stormed out of the room, passing his employees.

“You, bring the car around,” he demanded, so enraged that he couldn’t even vocalize the bodyguard’s name. “Nathalie, cancel my next appointment.”

“Dinner with Adrien? But it’s just a card—”

Gabriel cut her off. “A card from a tarot reading my son did in secret. Adrien might have had a legitimate question, but he asked it to a woman who filled his head with lies. Does the Knight of Wands sound anything like him?”

Nathalie pressed her lips together, her eyelashes fluttering as she looked down.

“I’m getting to the bottom of this,” Gabriel insisted.

He seethed in the backseat the whole way there. Apparently, this Madame Magda owned a shop called Voyance near the Tuileries Garden. It was disgusting that such a shop could operate out in the open like that. Normally he didn’t care what idiotic choices fools made that separated them from their money, but no one took advantage of his son like that. He was going to demand the truth, an apology, and a refund, in that order.

As the town car pulled up to the curb, Gabriel saw an overweight woman turning away from a pair of intricately carved doors below Voyance’s sign, an old-fashioned brass key in her hands. She was swathed in fabric, looking very much like she had gotten tangled up in a colorful parachute of red, green, blue, and yellow. Perhaps she wore such an outrageous outfit to detract from the fact that she had no hair, judging by her skintight black skullcap. It seemed clear she suffered from alopecia.

Realizing the woman had probably just closed up shop for the day, Gabriel exited the car quickly. Strangely enough, so did his driver. She looked from one man to the other with a bemused expression on her face. The way she grinned, it seemed as if she were the second coming of Hotei, the laughing Buddha.

“Are you Ms. Magda?” Gabriel demanded.

“The one and only!” she boomed. “And you’re Gabriel Agreste.” She held out her hand. “It’s a pleasure.” She glanced towards Adrien’s bodyguard and gave him a saucy wink. The man looked horrified and turned beet red before diving back into the driver’s seat.

“The feeling is not mutual,” said Gabriel coldly. His demeanor slipped a little though when he took note of all the people passing by, casting them curious glances. He was reminded why he often didn’t leave the house. “If you don’t mind opening up your shop, I have private matters to discuss with you.”

“Would you like a reading?” she asked pleasantly, still holding her hand out.

“No. This is concerning my son.”

“If not for work, there’s no need to open my shop, darling. But you are more than welcome to join me on my walk home if you would like!”

She took two steps away and Gabriel realized she was far more clever than he had originally assumed. He closed his eyes, pained.

“Fine,” he said. “A reading.”

The woman’s face lit up as if she hadn’t twisted his arm to get him to agree to one. While she busied herself with unlocking the door to her shop, Gabriel opened the back door of the town car and poked his head in to address the driver.

“Circle around. I shouldn’t be long.” He turned to his assistant, who was looking at him, mystified. Gabriel did not care. “Come along, Nathalie.”

The two followed Madame Magda into her shop. It was messy and claustrophobic, and while it didn’t smell bad, it was rather pungent. Gabriel pulled his pink paisley pocket square out and held it to his nose. Nathalie didn’t seem to know where to look, so she settled on focusing on her tablet.

“To business,” he said as Madame Magda futzed around with the velvet curtains in the back, parting them to reveal a reading area. “Why did my son come to you? What did you tell him?”

“Your son was looking for guidance, as many often are. I told him what the cards had to say.”

“And what, pray tell, was that?”

“I am a professional, Mr. Agreste. I take customer confidentiality very seriously.”

“And I take my son very seriously, Ms. Magda. I have reason to believe you’ve been filling his head with lies.”

Here the woman paused, considering Gabriel’s words. “Oh, I doubt that, darling,” she said softly. “I only read what the cards say, and the cards are always true.”

“Unlikely.”

Madame Magda gave him a simpering smile and he felt his hand tighten into a fist. He did not like the way she looked at him, as if she knew something he didn’t. Of course, who knew what Adrien had told her about him? Gabriel would have to have a talk with his son when he got home about sharing their private affairs with strangers. They were famous. The masses were clamoring for a scandal. The risk of negative publicity was great. It could ruin both of their careers, not to mention put Gabriel under scrutiny. He wouldn’t be able to operate as Hawk Moth under those conditions, and then Adrien would never get his mother back, and he his loving wife.

“Well, good thing we are doing a reading then, darling!” Madame Magda trilled. “You can see for yourself.”

“I’m not doing a reading,” said Gabriel. “If you won’t tell me why my son came to see you, fine. That is your prerogative. But I demand a refund and you will be hearing from my lawyer concerning a gag order. Nathalie, make a note for me to call Macron in the morning.”

“I really don’t think that is necessary,” said Madame Magda. Gabriel expected her to be nervous by this point, but she was just as breezy as before. “If you would just sit for a reading—”

“Why? So you can pretend your cards are right by using the information my son provided you about me?”

“Then think of a question with an answer you know but your son does not. Mind you, it cannot be specific, but you don’t even have to ask it.” She reached back towards the table and came away with a yellowing deck that she shook out into her hands. “The cards will know.”

Gabriel snorted but decided to humor the woman. She hadn’t been cowed by anything he had said and he had to respect her for that. “Fine.”

“Sir—” pleaded Nathalie, but Gabriel gave her a sharp look that was enough to silence her. Her eyes dropped back to her tablet

At Madame Magda’s instruction, Gabriel shuffled the tarot cards. It took him some time though as he examined each and every card. Once he was positive there was nothing special about them, his gaze never left Madame Magda. Magicians’ main craft was sleight of hand and misdirection. He would not fall prey to her maneuvers. Cutting the deck over and over, he ensured the cards were as randomized as possible before handing them back to her.

“That was some strong shuffling,” she observed. “Now think of your question…”

Gabriel was positive she was hoping he’d close his eyes, but his icy stare bore into her instead. He waited, but she did not make a move to flip over the top card.

“I don’t have all day,” Gabriel warned.

“Nor do I. Would you like to think of your question or not?”

“I am thinking of it,” he insisted.

“Then I’ll wait until you have it.”

Gabriel didn’t have time to play mind games with this woman all night. So he thought: Where is my wife?

Bobbing her head, Madame Magda flipped the top card and showed him. It was a yellow card depicting a man with a fez, tiptoeing away with five swords in his arms, two more point down in the ground by his feet.

“The Seven of Swords,” Madame Magda explained. “It’s a secret.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve hidden something, and isolated yourself to keep it hidden.”

Gabriel clenched his teeth and squinted at her. The only sound in the shop was the burble of conversation outside on the sidewalk that quickly faded as the speakers passed. He knew he could turn around and leave. There was nothing stopping him. He could return home, keep a closer eye on Adrien, and never think of Ms. Magda again. But the insight she offered proved to be too tempting. Magic did exist, Gabriel knew, and if Nooroo could transform him into Hawk Moth, then maybe Madame Magda’s cards held the truth. Even better, it appeared he had to reveal nothing in order to gain that truth.

He cleared his throat. “How much for a reading?”

“Forty euros.”

“Sir,” said Nathalie, taking a step forward. “I really don’t think—”

“Go to the car, Nathalie.” She always worried too much. “I intend to stay a bit longer.”

She visibly swallowed, but did not move, her eyes flicking towards Madame Magda. The tarot reader offered a warm and encouraging smile, completely oblivious to the chilly dynamic in the room.

“Nathalie…” Gabriel warned. He paid the woman well for her services. Such a blatant disregard for his wishes would not be tolerated. Still, he knew she only did so because she cared about their mission. “I know what I’m doing,” he assured her, putting a hand on her shoulder. She looked at it for a moment, then up at him. She nodded and left the shop.

There was the sound of rummaging and Gabriel turned to see Madame Magda was behind the counter now, digging through a cabinet. His mouth parted in surprise. He hadn’t heard her move. She must be light on her feet.

“Here we are, darling!” she said, coming up with a pad of receipt paper. While Gabriel gave her his credit card and she took down the number, she continued to chat with him. “Now let’s talk spread.”

Gabriel nodded. He knew a spread was the way a tarot reader laid down the cards and identified what each card represented. He had gotten his cards read once before, with Emilie. It was shortly before their wedding and she thought it would be fun. It ended up being a bunch of smoke and mirrors, but she was so happy…

“You seem to me to be an extremely focused individual, so I do not think a Celtic Cross is the best spread for you,” Madame Magda noted. “So, tell me, what is in the forefront of your mind right now?”

Gabriel considered his words carefully. “A wish.”

“Oh, perfect! Say no more, I have just the spread.”

She handed him the receipt and floated over to the small, curtained area in the back, slipping inside. Following her, Gabriel heard the click of a lighter and three olive-green candles proceeded to sputter to life. Gabriel discovered they were unscented as he entered the area, and was finally able to breathe normally again, even if the air was a bit stifling. After some thought, he shrugged off his suit jacket and laid it across his lap while Madame Magda placed the tarot cards face down in a diamond pattern. Three cards formed each side and there was a card in middle, for a total of nine.

“We’re going to start at the bottom,” the woman explained, pointing to the lowest card. “And work our way to the top, flipping the cards along the edge in pairs. The middle card will be last.”

Gabriel nodded.

“This card in Position 1 explores the basis of your wish or desire. The cards know the ‘what,’ so this is the ‘why.’”

She flipped it to reveal the exact card Gabriel was expecting if what Madame Magda said about her cards was true. Adam and Eve. The angel blessing their union.

“The Lovers,” said Madame Magda. “Your wish comes from a place of love. Of course, the obvious answer is that you are motivated by your wife. You wish to bring her back.”

“H-How…?” Gabriel began to stutter, but then froze, realizing his mistake. He cleared his throat and straightened his tie before switching the question. He had to be careful here. “How much did my son tell you?”

“No more than what I’ve learned from the tabloids. She disappeared.”

Gabriel held in a sigh of relief. Madame Magda meant bring her home.

The woman continued. “The Lovers can indicate a moral or ethical crossroads as well, which makes sense in Position 1 of a Wish Spread. In essence, there is a right way and a wrong way to achieve your wish.”

“And which way have I chosen?”

“It is difficult to say. Few people willingly chose the wrong way. Sometimes they don’t even realize the choices they’ve made were the wrong ones until it is too late, or else they think the wrong way is the only way, and thus claim they had no choice.”

Gabriel felt a snarl tug at his lips. What did this idiotic woman know? Getting Ladybug and Chat Noir’s Miraculous was the only way. He had exhausted all other options, he was sure of it.

“Why don’t we move on?” Madame Magda suggested. Gabriel wondered if she sensed his rage boiling just beneath the surface of his calm demeanor and wanted to avoid any eruptions. “The next two cards I’ll flip together. They represent your past and future respectively.”

The woman revealed the two cards that bordered The Lovers. One struck Gabriel’s fancy. It was a young man standing in a garden, holding up a candle. It was burning at both ends, something Emilie always warned him against whenever she saw still working while she was on her way to bed. Next to the young man was a table filled with the symbols of tarot: a sword, a cup, a wand, and a pentacle.

“The Magician and the Five of Wands,” explained Madame Magda.

Gabriel’s gaze cut to the other card and he found he didn’t much care for it by comparison. Five men in outlandish clothes were battling each other with sticks like a bunch of schoolboys without adult supervision. He rolled his eyes.

“It seemed you have more of an affinity for The Magician, darling,” observed Madame Magda. “That makes sense. The Magician symbolizes the power to tap into universal forces and use them for creative purposes in order to achieve goals. This is how you turn your wish into a reality. With magic.”

Gabriel’s breath caught. How did she know of his Miraculous?

“Of course, it’s not actual magic,” mused the woman, oblivious, and Gabriel chided himself. “It only comes across that way to the uninitiated. It is your strong will that makes it seem as if you can achieve miracles. You are willing to act where others would grow afraid or falter. You believe in yourself and are not afraid to put everything on the line. Like a great fencer, you do not hesitate. You are determined and single-minded when it comes to bringing your wife back. At least…you were…”

“What do you mean, ‘I was’?” Gabriel wondered, crossing his arms. “I’ll have you know that I am still as dedicated as ever.”

“But The Magician is in your past instead of your future. Your future is the Five of Wands. This means disagreement. Competition. Hassles. You will find it difficult to achieve your wish. It seems there are those who oppose it. They don’t stop you entirely, but those little annoyances can build up until they become a very big problem.”

Gabriel gave a curt nod, but inside he was seething. Ladybug and Chat Noir had become a proverbial thorn in his side. Though they would never defeat him completely as long as he stayed out of the action, they defeated his Akumas time and time again. Even his efforts to curate the perfect Akuma—Style Queen, Queen Wasp, Catalyst—had ended in failure and he was close to the end of his rope.

“What do I do?” he wondered.

“Well, you have two options, I suppose,” said Madame Magda. “You can try harder. Use The Magician’s energy to get creative. What you’re currently doing isn’t working, but think outside the box and you might come up with a way to succeed.”

“And the other?”

“Try working with those who oppose you.”

Gabriel allowed himself a short bark of laughter.

“I’m serious, Mr. Agreste,” argued the woman. “Cooperation between competing parties is more likely to result in success. Just extend the olive branch. You’d be surprised.”

“Those who oppose my wish could never even begin to comprehend my motivations.” They were children. They still thought in terms of black and white, good and evil. They had never known love like he had, nor lost it, so how could they ever hope to understand why he had to do what he was doing?

“I suppose it’s neither here nor there. The future is changeable based on what you do with the present, darling, so let’s explore that, shall we? We have influencing and supportive factors paired together.”

Madame Magda deftly turned over the two cards on either end of the diamond. One was a sun with a sideways face, two wild dogs and a lobster looking up at it. The other was a man on a throne, draped in fabric with a grape-cluster print that was an affront to Gabriel’s eyes. He quickly turned back to the sun card. It had come up in him and Emilie’s reading. It was beauty, comfort, and greatness, but what did it mean here?

“The Sun…” Gabriel started to say, but Madame Magda waved him off.

“This is The Moon, actually, though I understand your confusion. They look very similar because, after all, what is the moon if not a reflection of the sun? In tarot, the two are opposing cards. This leads me to believe that you are currently feeling troubled and unsure. Has something happened recently that has made you question the way you're going about trying to bring your wife back?”

Despite Gabriel’s best efforts, Madame Magda’s words stirred up some terrifying memories. Adrien jumping out of Gorizilla's hand and over the side of the building. Adrien being menaced at sword point by Riposte. Adrien being turned into a gold statue by Style Queen. He refused to break his promise with Emilie, but it was difficult when his actions kept on putting their one and only son in danger. For a while, he even contemplated giving it all up.

Gabriel removed his horn-rimmed glasses and rubbed his eyes.

“…Perhaps,” he acknowledged.

“But the Moon doesn’t always have to be bad. Have you heard of the myth of Pandora’s Box, Mr. Agreste?”

“A pithy story to help the ancient Greeks wrap their simple minds around why there is evil in the world. What of it?”

“Pandora opened a box, letting sickness, death, and unspeakable evil into the world, yet at the bottom, she found hope. The Moon is similar. It represents the realm of our fears, but also offers a ray of light to lead you through that darkness. What I’m trying to say is, maybe questioning your wish was a good thing.”

“Yes…” said Gabriel. “It made me realize that I can’t give up.”

“I see…And someone supported you in that decision, didn’t they? A King of Pentacles perhaps?” Madame Magda nudged the other card forward a fraction of a centimeter.

“I know of no king, pentacles or otherwise.”

“My apologies! The King of Pentacles generally stands for someone in your life who is steady, reliable, and competent. They want to see your wish come true, whatever the cost.”

Emilie, Gabriel realized, a dull ache spreading across his chest. During his early days as a designer, she had been his biggest champion, his greatest support. As things stood now, he felt like a table with only three legs. He could still stand, but all it took was a little bit of pressure to make him collapse. He needed her. He was lost without her. His life didn’t make any sense unless she was by his side.

“The King of Pentacles is enterprising—they take an idea and make it work,” continued Madame Magda. “They are informed about practical matters and are able to juggle a variety of situations with ease, making them perfect assistants. They can be counted on in a crisis, readily jumping in to help, and always working towards their goal with a firm resolve. Does this sound like anyone you know, Mr. Agreste?”

“Yes,” was all he said, refusing to elaborate. As far as Madame Magda knew, Emilie was missing, and thus not exactly a steady presence.

“I think it does too,” said the woman. “But while she may support you, there are others out there who do not. What do you do about that?”

“I assume the cards will say.”

Madame Magda offered him a warm smile, the bite in his words sailing right over her bald head. “Indeed they will! Let’s see.” She wiggled her fingers and turned over the last pair of cards, almost as if she were selecting a donut. Instead of leaning back though to allow Gabriel a look, she hovered over them.

“I guess that answers which way you have gone about achieving your wish.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow, so the woman leaned back to reveal the cards.

“Justice and the Eight of Cups,” she explained.

Gabriel had no idea what the Eight of Cups represented. A man hiked along a craggy river, his path lit by the light of the moon. In the foreground was a stack of eight golden goblets. Justice though, was self-explanatory. Of course the law would not understand his actions as Hawk Moth. It was black and white, like Ladybug and Chat Noir.

“Love makes us do crazy things,” said Madame Magda lightly. “I would know. I once moved halfway across the world for a man. But Mr. Agreste—you have a son.”

“Why do you think I am doing what I am doing? He would understand.”

“Are you so sure?”

Gabriel narrowed his eyes again. He had momentarily forgotten that this woman had spoken with Adrien, and knew more about his family situation than she was letting on. Oh, how he wished he could command her to be quiet like he did with Nooroo! Few could ever understand his level of pain and heartbreak.

“I did not come here to be judged,” he said with an icy glare.

“You’re in luck then,” said the woman dryly. “I am not a judge.”

“Then what do you call what you are doing right now?”

“Acting as a conduit for the cards. They cannot judge you any more than a stone, or a stick, or a tree. They simply read the situation and offer guidance. If you are offended by the guidance they offer, that is on you, Mr. Agreste.”

“And what guidance is that? Work with those who oppose me? Don’t be absurd.”

“That was one of two options if you wanted your wish to come true, but your best course of action, at least according to the cards, is to let go of it entirely.”

Silence filled the confined space.

“No,” said Gabriel, shaking his head. The idea was incomprehensible to him. Allow Emilie to remain in a coma, separated from him? Leave Adrien to grow up motherless when there was a way to wake her? “That’s completely out of the question.”

“But it makes sense, don’t you think? You’ve been questioning the route you’ve taken, and your actions are on the wrong side of Justice. If you continue on in this manner, the Five of Wands has shown you your future will be most difficult. And all of this comes to a head in the Eight of Cups.” She tapped it as if to remind him. “You are growing weary.”

Gabriel blinked. He refused to believe Madame Magda had figured out that single truth from a card. He prided himself on keeping his emotions in check, on keeping his sleepless nights and total exhaustion from living a double-life behind closed doors. There were doors that not even Adrien had opened, so, unless Nathalie had betrayed him, which was an impossibility, these tarot cards knew all.

“Your drive to bring your wife back has had an adverse effect on your life,” said Madame Magda gently. “You feel tired and listless. You no longer have the energy you used to. You’ve become burned out and the things that once made you happy no longer do. Note how the moon is featured on this card. I fear you might have taken the wrong lesson from The Moon. I think your questioning should have led you to realize that it is time to move on, Mr. Agreste.”

“Excuse me…!?”

Gabriel balled his jacket into his hands as he rose from his seat, but Madame Magda responded with an eerie clam.

“Your wife may or may not come back, but it is time to abandon the notion that you will make it happen,” she said. “The past is gone—it is time for you to focus on the present.”

“What present!? There is no present without my wife!”

“But what of your son? Is there no present for him either?”

“I do what I do for him!”

“No, Mr. Agreste. You do what you do for you.”

A gust of wind blew in from underneath the door to the shop, extinguishing one of the candles. A trail of smoke drifted up. Gabriel took in the acrid scent as his nostrils flared. He was breathing rather heavily.

“I don’t have to listen to this,” he decided, throwing his jacket back on as Madame Magda leaned forward to flip the second to last card, as if the reading was continuing on as normal. He stormed away only for the woman to call out after him, almost idly.

“The World,” she said. “Like father, like son.”

Gabriel paused, but didn’t turn around.

“Adrien got the same card in his reading as well,” she added, further driving her point.

A part of Gabriel suspected this was a lie. After all, Madame Magda had refused to tell him anything about his son’s reading up until this point. This was a manipulation tactic, a show of power. She wanted to prove that she could pull his strings and make him do whatever she wanted. Well, it wasn’t going to work!

And yet…Gabriel found himself turning around and going back to the reading table. The cards had proven over and over again to know of his situation. He could not bring himself to ignore them, so powerful was their magic.

The woman did not lift her head as he returned, seemingly too entranced by the new card. Gabriel could see why—it depicted a beautiful woman floating in the sky who looked shockingly like Emilie. In either hand she held a candle lit at both ends. There was an energy about her that seemed to compliment The Magician. While he was the start, she was the finish.

“What does the card mean?” Gabriel demanded.

“Feeling whole,” said Madame Magda.

Of course. Adrien missed his mother. Without her, he no doubt felt incomplete. Gabriel should’ve realized this after the boy snuck out to try and see her movie. He thought he made it clear then that if his son had any questions, all he had to do was ask him. Yet the boy still did not trust him, to the point where he had gone off on his own yet again. But could Gabriel blame him? He decided right then and there that neither his son nor the bodyguard would be punished for the tarot reading. However, he would have to keep a closer eye on the boy’s activities.

“This is guidance for you too, Mr. Agreste,” said Madame Magda. “I believe The World stands for your son. The cards are suggesting you be more involved in his life and find fulfillment in that relationship.”

“I have a hand in everything my son does.”

The woman shook her head. “I think you misunderstand me. When was the last time you spent time with Adrien?”

“Earlier today. I listened to him practice piano.”

“And before that?”

He opened his mouth, so sure he had the answer, only to realize he couldn’t remember. Every time he was supposed to attend one of Adrien’s fencing matches or photoshoots, his Miraculous would shine, letting him know someone in Paris was ready to be Akumatized. And even if that wasn’t the case, he was behind in his work almost constantly due to his obligations as Hawk Moth. Any time he and Adrien were invited to an event, he would always send his son and staff on without him so he could video in and work at the same time. When leading a double life, multitasking was key.

“…I’ve been busy,” he admitted.

“But that busyness does not bring you any fulfillment, darling. In fact, it is hurting you, and it is hurting your son. You may think the price is worth it, but that is because you still believe you will succeed, despite everything the cards have told you. I can tell you believe them, yet you ignore them because they aren’t what you want to hear.”

“I am the master of my own destiny. The cards may be true, but I would be a fool to blindly follow their guidance.”

Madame Magda chewed the inside of her cheek. Gabriel smirked. Finally. He had her.

She flipped over the last card, the one in the middle of a diamond. It was a beautiful card, filled with joy. There was a rainbow made of golden goblets and a happy family that pained Gabriel to see. The warm embrace of the husband and wife was especially difficult to look at, as blinding as the sun.He was forced to look away.

“Even if their guidance leads to the Ten of Cups?” the tarot reader challenged. “Joy. Peace. Family. Is this not what you want?”

“Yes!” snapped Gabriel. He bowed his head, placing his hand across his chest. “With all my heart. This is why I’m doing what I’m doing.”

“But you don’t have to be doing what you’re doing. Don’t you see? The cards are showing you a different way. A better way. If the Ten of Cups is truly what you want, then you should consider giving up bringing your wife back and focus on your son. Another thing The World stands for is accomplishment. Adrien can help you accomplish what seems to you to be an impossible task. He can serve as a bridge between you letting go of your wish and achieving your heart’s desire. The World and the Ten of Cups are complimenting cards for a reason. You could be happy, Mr. Agreste.”

“Without my wife!?” Gabriel took a moment to reign himself in, but only just. “How dare you…!”

“As sad as it is, people lose their significant others all the time. And yet…they are still able to find meaning, fulfillment, and, yes, even happiness. This does not tarnish their loved one’s memory in any way. In fact, they are motivated to find happiness once their time of mourning has passed because they know that is what their significant other would have wanted.”

“I know what my wife wants. I made a promise to her!”

Again, Madame Magda paused. After a moment or two, she began to gather up the cards. “I cannot claim to know much about the nature of you and your wife’s relationship,” she said. “But I can tell that you love her very much.”

Her beetle black eyes met his and he softened just a hair. “More than anything,” he agreed.

“Such love could only be engendered by equal amounts in return. Despite what she might have said before she disappeared, do you think she would rather you burn yourself out following a dark path? Or focus on finding happiness with your son?”

Gabriel frowned. It sounded so tempting, to just wash his hands of Hawk Moth and continue on with his life. When he did so in the aftermath of Style Queen’s failure, it was the most peace he had felt since Emilie fell into her coma. But the only reason he had taken such a drastic measure was because he sincerely believed he had done everything he could possibly do. Chloé Bourgeois though had shown him the error of his thinking. He hadn’t exhausted all his options yet. He had never thought to Akumatize someone with a Miraculous until she revealed she had one. Even Madame Magda herself told him one route to avoiding failure was being creative and thinking outside the box. There were still fresh new ways out there to get Ladybug and Chat Noir’s Miraculous—he just hadn’t thought of them yet.

“Thank you for the reading,” Gabriel told Madame Magda. He flashed a smile as a new idea began to take shape in his head. “You are rather powerful, aren’t you?”

The woman tossed her head back and laughed as she stood. “I wish I could take the credit!” She held up her deck. “These cards are the ones with the power. Their accuracy is beyond compare.”

“Yes…It would be a shame if anything were to happen to them.”

“Oh, I’d be devastated!” the woman agreed. “They have been a guiding factor in so many lives. Without them, I fear I wouldn’t be of much help.”

“Indeed.”

Madame Magda showed Gabriel out. The sun had slipped below the horizon by now and night was seeping across the sky. Gabriel’s town car idled on the curb. He saw Nathalie roll down the window out of the corner of his eye, but he ignored her, waitingfor Madame Magda to lock up her shop.

“You were right,” he said, offering her his hand this time. “It was a pleasure.”

The woman grinned, completely oblivious to his machinations. She offered him her fingers and he clasped them, patting the back of her hand.

What a perfect Akuma she would make. All he had to do was steal her deck.

Chapter 9: Nathalie Sancoeur, King of Pentacles

Chapter Text

Chapter 10: Hawk Moth, Knight of Swords

Chapter Text

“You think you are The Magician because you have The Magician’s tools,” she said. “But you are like a child playing dress-up. Having the tools doesn’t matter—it’s how they are used, and you use them for selfish and evil purposes. You may tell yourself otherwise, but it is only to help you sleep at night.” Her words were like knives. She paused to twist that last one in deeper. “But you don’t…do you?”

In one quick move, Gabriel unsheathed his sword and held it to Madame Magda’s throat. She stared at its tip as if it were an unusually uninteresting sight.

“Give. Me. The cards,” he said, barely able to contain his fury, but his hand shook and his voice quavered and he felt tempted to plunge the blade into the woman’s heart.

He turned one last time to Madame Magda, who had floated up like a ghost behind him to fill the doorway to the reading nook.

Scoffing, Gabriel flash stepped away into the night. It didn't make any sense. He got the tarot cards! He had won! And yet it felt hollow. Apyrrhic victory, and Gabriel didn't even know why.

Chapter 11: Denouement: Wang Fu, King of Cups

Chapter Text

Chapter 12: The Fool's Journey

Chapter Text

The sequel to Voyance, The Fool's Journey, can be read here.