The Teller of Small Fortunes

Tao is an immigrant from Shinara who travels the villages of Eshtera with her mule, reading fortunes for coin. She keeps them small: whether hail is coming next week, which boy the barmaid will kiss. Experience taught her that larger predictions carry larger consequences, so she stays quiet and stays moving.

Her routine breaks when two people hire her to help find a missing child. One is a thief who has mostly given up the trade, the other a former mercenary. As the search widens, a baker with a taste for adventure joins them, along with a cat that has a little magic about it.

This is a cozy quest fantasy in a world that feels like Renaissance-era Britain, loosely drawn. The tone is warm and gentle, with a slow-building found family at its center and a quest that moves along without much menace.

Tao has built walls to survive, and each step on the road asks her to lower them a little more. Meanwhile her own past is closing in. She has to decide whether a home she never expected to have is worth risking everything she has.