Tella carries the Aracle card with her wherever she goes. Since childhood, when she drew the card from her mother’s Deck of Destiny and saw how “the edges were covered in ornate swirls of molten gold, and the center was like a mirror,” Tella has carried a Fate in her hands (4). The card challenges Tella’s ability to distinguish between reality and illusion by portraying the futures it wants her to see. Because the Aracle card that Tella carries is the true Aracle, containing an actual Fate, its prophecies are impossible to avoid. Like Nigel the fortune-teller, the imprisoned Fate can manipulate others, encouraging them to work toward specific futures that it wants to create.

Garber uses the Aracle card to represent the self-fulfilling nature of fate. As Tella learns more about the influence of the Fates on her life, she questions the prophecies of the Aracle. As the narrative states, “For years Tella had trusted the Aracle without question. But if the real Aracle was trapped inside this card, wouldn’t it show Tella whatever it needed to so that she would help it escape?” (319). The mirror

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