Cast Forward

Human shadows reveal what their bodies are most likely to do next. Looking at your own freezes it, so licensed readers work for others beneath calibrated lamps, recording probable futures as carefully as evidence.

Sera Quill knows a reading is not a sentence. Five years ago, acting too quickly on one destroyed a client’s life. Now Marek’s forward-shadow shows Sera dying by his hand.

Every safeguard she imposes makes the image sharper. Guild procedure demands containment; experience warns that treating a person as guilty can close every path except violence. To survive, Sera must read not only Marek’s intentions, but the future her own terror is helping cast.

A shadow predicts the default, not who must become it.