Casual? Alright, then. Nemo smiled tolerantly at Virgil's lukewarm response to her witchcraft. She'd kept it fun; she wasn't a show-off. The little drifter might have known better, though. Virgil was anything but his surface. Next time she'd offer to read his entrails.

"Oooh, high praise," she drawled with a little laugh.

Virgil was having a long moment with his own hand. Certainly wasn't anything she'd told him he didn't already know. It was her turn to watch him watch himself. Poor guy. Look on his face, he had some stories.

"Hmm?"

The sleepy-eyed star looked up and after a blasé recitation of his own magical cred, Virgil offered to return the favor. Second time in a night, a spooky old soul was asking for her pale, bare arm. Now that she'd passed it up once, there was no way she'd miss it a second time.

She pulled back her sleeve and presented her small right hand with a flourish, palm hovering over the table. Short nails with a few layers of chipped polish. Pinky took a dog-leg, ring finger a little crooked as well. Nicks, scars, calloused finger tips.

"Go nuts. Spare nothing."

She wiggled her fingers in a wave.

He smiled to himself, finishing off the last of his second coffee. Nemo took some pride in her showmanship - even when it didn't involve musical instruments, apparently. In spite of his casual reactions, however, she still offered him a hand to read. He jerked his head to the side and wiggled his fingers to mean her other hand.

Virgil had seen her play in the alley and she was right-handed. It was customary to start with the non-dominant hand if you wanted to read fortunes untainted by proactive measures.

"We would be here an hour if I spared nothing," he raised a sardonic eyebrow at her and held her left hand in both of his, delicate. "Hm. You're of a fire temperament... which makes you unpredictable and enthusiastic. Extroverted. You act courageously, without having to think."

Carefully, he let her hand rest in his right while he traced her palm with his left. Hunched over the table, his sharp eyes narrowed down to the small world encapsulated by the little wrinkly lines of Nemo's calloused hand.

"Look at your heart line. Unstable beginnings, head line as well," his index finger trailed down to the head line and he smiled. "Curved. A creative mind, marred by the odd crisis. You will have many crises, see?" he pointed out where the line broke off into clashes and resumed smoothly.

Virgil abandoned it in favour of her health line, which arched away from the side of her hand. "You have plenty of energy but-" he lingered, unable to tell if her line breaks off in the middle or simply overlapped, "- either an injury or change in lifestyle awaits you. Your fate line..."

The wizard trailed off for a moment, tilting his head to the side. When he resumed, he spoke more softly.

"It changes directions several times and seems to fade out here," Virgil pressed a thumb down on where her fate intersected with her head, "so I suppose life's an open book for you, isn't it? You made a decision or you're going to make a decision that could lead you just about anywhere at all."

He relinquished her hand, giving it a final squeeze - her short fingers encased by his long spindly ones. Virgil smiled. Her nails meant she was critical and sarcastic but he wouldn't share that part with her. "There. Free of charge, four years worth of Divination lessons at Hogwarts."

Getting a reading was different than doing a reading. Being touched was different than touching. Nemo kept her thoughts in check and ignored the concern in her spleen, concern of her past being a 'right bugger'. Virgil was going about his magic with the practiced weight of duty, but that didn't make a nothing-spared palm reading any less ... risky.

Not the risk of being found out, but the risks that come from being seen. She'd felt a little too seen by those vampires. Must be that fire temperament keeping her visiting that well.

As Virgil plucked notes from the air, Nemo kept quiet. She emoted here and there.

Accepting grin at the 'fire temperament' bit. Guilty.

Guarded blank stare regarding her 'unstable beginnings'.

Raised eyebrows. 'Many crises,' he says. Well, what would life be without them?

'Injury' or change in lifestyle; she washed over any worry with shrug and an empty, "ha." A grimly practical prediction, and very unwelcome. She was finally where she wanted to be.

She found herself holding her breath while Virgil inspected her fate line in silence.

"Open book," she agreed quietly.

And in a few moments more, he was done. He gave her hand a squeeze and smiled. She folded her hands neatly in front of her, right over left. Left palm on the cool tabletop.

"No, that was good. Nicely done. I mean, you held back, but..." she said with a teasing smile.

There was no sense of charlatanism in the way he had performed his reading. Virgil took his predictions seriously, he believed in a life force that transcended time and space - believed that he was sensitive to it and responsible for what passed his lips in such instances. So he could understand the waves of emotions rolling off Nemo now.

            "No, that was good. Nicely done. I mean, you held back, but..."

He nudged her leg underneath the table, smile faltering slightly. "I never hold back. That's my problem." Virgil held her gaze for a brief and serious second before sitting back with a giggle. "Next time I'll bring my tarot and we can charge for readings in the garden," he nodded his head vaguely in the direction of the exit - meaning Covent Garden. "Muggles love a good sale and it's the one thing we can do without breaking the statute."

Already he was thinking about which costumes to pilfer from the theatre, to give them an air

"Are you alright getting home?" Virgil had never really thought about where Nemo lived or how she carried about in her day-to-day life. "I've a sofa, if you'd rather crash at ours. Unless you're allergic to cats."

It was a good thing that neither Nick nor Ari were. Dante shed her white coat around their flat like nobody's business, and he had to use a charm to get rid of the evidence every morning. He shrugged, running a hand through his tousled hair. "We're better company than vampires."

Nemo nudged him back and her smile returned. If anyone was going to be mucking around in her business, it was better Virgil than any of the other clods she knew. And she was fooling herself if she pretended it wasn't exciting. 

"Oh my god, we have to," she said, very warm on the idea of 'fortune telling'. With the right accessorizing they'd look like very convincing siblings. Twins even. She slid out of the booth and began checking her belongings. She always seemed to be schlepping something.

"Then after, once we're flush with cash and night has fallen..." she flipped her large hood over her head, "...we shall defy my exile from Camden Town Hookers!"

She laughed.

"But not until after Halloween," she added quickly. With the unicorn blood having been a complete bust, she'd have to start from scratch.

'Home' for Nemo had changed a couple dozen times over the last year. It had been much harder when she first arrived because she didn't know anyone and wasn't sure what she could get away with. After a few months and with warmer weather, she hit her stride. At the moment, she was set up nice and cozy with her friends who were house-sitting in Greenwich. They were annoyingly early-risers, though, and had probably been in bed since eight. Virgil's offer seemed more interesting. Plus, a cat. Who didn't love cats?

"I adore cats," she said and gathered up her violin case.