The Teller of Small Fortunes

The Teller of Small Fortunes (2024) is a fantasy novel by Julie Leong and marks her literary debut. Set in the kingdom of Eshtera, which resembles medieval Europe, the story follows Tao, a young fortune teller from the Empire of Shinara, which is similar to China. She travels to various towns reading “small fortunes” while carefully avoiding looking into “greater visions” since one such vision led to personal tragedy in her past. Along her journey, Tao meets three unlikely companions: a warrior searching for his missing daughter, a reformed thief, and a baker seeking adventure. Together, they push Tao to confront her deepest fears and reconcile her heritage. 

The novel explores themes such as Finding a Sense of Home in Relationships, The Weight of Foreknowledge, and Navigating Identity Amid Prejudice and Expectation.

This guide is based on the 2024 Ace paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of racism, graphic violence, physical abuse, anti-gay bias, emotional abuse, and death.

Plot Summary

Tao, a young Shinn woman and traveling fortune teller, arrives with her wagon and mule in the Eshteran hill village of Necker. She discovers the village in an uproar because the candlemaker’s apprentice, Cam, has lost the entire goat herd. Having passed by a stream earlier where she heard goats bleating, Tao pretends to have a vision and foretell their location. When the villagers find the goats exactly where she indicated, they welcome her. Tao sets up her blue silk tent in the village square, explaining that she only tells “small fortunes,” not fate-changing visions. She reads fortunes for a queue of villagers and earns a good sum of money. 

As Tao travels on, her path is blocked by a massive fallen tree in the foothills. She spends hours hacking at it but is unable to clear it. Suddenly, two travelers appear on the other side: Siltarien “Silt” Silvertongue, a talkative former thief, and “Mash” Mastrick, a towering ex-mercenary laden with weapons. Though Tao is immediately suspicious of them, she accepts their help to clear the path and offers to read their fortunes as payment. She reads Mash’s palm and sees a vision of him giving his young daughter a kitten. On hearing this, Mash is visibly shaken. He reveals that his four-year-old daughter Leah was abducted by raiders six months earlier; he and Silt are on their trail. Suspicious of Tao’s abilities but desperately hopeful, Mash insists on accompanying her to test the truth of her predictions.

The trio arrives in Shellport, which is a shabby western fishing port. At the market, Tao sets up her fortune-telling tent next to a baker’s stall. To impress Kina, the baker’s pretty, red-haired apprentice, Silt buys her entire tray of baked goods. The group discovers that her treats are misshapen but delicious. When Kina asks for her fortune, Tao sees a vision of Kina traveling on Tao’s wagon. Kina is excited to hear this and impulsively decides to join them, loading her clay oven and supplies onto Tao’s wagon. 

As the four travel eastward through the mountains, they develop bonds despite their differences. Mash recites poetry about his wife Anna, Silt flirts with Kina, and Tao, who once cherished her solitude, begins to enjoy their company. In the village of Culic, they encounter xenophobia when the innkeeper insults Tao for being Shinn, demonstrating the prejudice she regularly faces. However, her friends speak up for her, showing solidarity. 

Their stay in the town of Turtling proves more pleasant, with Tao and Kina making good money with their fortune-telling and baking. Kina invents fortune cookies to complement Tao’s business, and they test a joint venture. Tao accompanies Mash to pray at the local church, deepening their friendship. The village headman tells them that raiders have been captured in the town of Whitelake, so they decide to head there. Mash is hopeful that he might find Leah. En route to Whitelake, they discover that a mangy one-eyed cat stowed away with them in Turtling. Kina decides to adopt it and names it Fidelitus.

When they reach Whitelake and speak to one of the captured raiders, he claims that they never abducted children. Mash is devastated since he has lost his only lead, but he and Silt decide to keep traveling with Tao. As they head out, a magefinder (a person who seeks out magic practitioners) chases them on horseback, saying that he has been following the trail of Tao’s powerful magic. He orders her to appear before the Guild of Mages in Margrave, Eshtera’s capital city, so she can be trained to work for the Crown and protect the kingdom. To his shock and outrage, Tao refuses.

That evening, Tao confesses to her friends that she has the power to see bigger visions, but she chooses not to do so because of a personal tragedy: When she was eight, she used this power for the first time and saw a vision of her father dying. She warned her parents about this, but they couldn’t prevent his death. This experience left Tao feeling guilty and traumatized because she couldn’t stop fate. She also wonders if her prophecy caused these events. Tao weeps as she talks of this, and instead of rejecting her like she feared they would, her friends offer support and compassion.

Back on the road, the group encounters a curious recruiter named Master Jacopo. He offers them a quest to retrieve a mysterious treasure from the Splinthorn Woods, promising a substantial reward that includes funding a kingdom-wide search for Leah. They accept and enter the woods, experiencing strange time dilation and magical barriers, including a wall of water and a sandstorm. In an underground chamber, they discover a golden sphere guarded by a blind phoenix, and they deduce that this is the treasure they seek. Kina knows that music lulls phoenixes to sleep, so Tao plays the flute, and Silt steals the sphere while the bird sleeps. However, when the phoenix awakens, it speaks, revealing that the sphere is its egg and the last hope for its species. Despite the promised reward, the group returns the egg, moved by the phoenix’s plea. Master Jacopo is furious at their failure.

During a spring fair in the town of Burlton, a magefinder from the Guild of Mages reappears with soldiers to capture Tao. This time, Tao surrenders voluntarily, hoping to trade her service to the Guild in exchange for a kingdom-wide search for Leah. She is taken to Margrave, the capital city, which is where her stepfather and estranged mother live. Their relationship begins to heal after her mother apologizes for blaming Tao for her father’s death years ago. 

At the Guildtower, Tao meets High Mage Melea, who explains they need her “greater vision” to avert a looming war with Shinara. Tao agrees to help if the Guild will fund a kingdom-wide search for Leah, and Melea agrees to these terms. Atop the Guildtower, Tao confronts her fear of using her greater vision for the first time since childhood. Looking into the Bowl of True Sight, she sees not an invasion of Eshtera but a Shinaran civil war that will divert the emperor’s armies inland. After her vision, Tao collapses. 

Meanwhile, her friends attempt a rescue by infiltrating the tower but are arrested. When Melea discovers they are Tao’s companions, she brings them to her as she recovers after her vision. Melea also honors their agreement, funding a search for Leah, rewarding Tao with 500 silver coins, and granting her a writ of citizenship.

The reunited group waits hopefully for news of Leah, raising funds through fortune telling, baking, and performances. During this time, Fidelitus gives birth to kittens, and Tao recognizes a tabby with a bent ear as the same kitten she saw in her vision of Leah. At the spring fair, a seamstress brings Leah to Tao’s tent, saying the girl is looking for her family. The emotional reunion between Mash and his daughter culminates in him giving her the kitten, fulfilling Tao’s original vision. They discover how Leah was lost: She fell asleep in a trader’s boat, and when she woke up, she was already far from home. Since she did not know details about her village or family, the seamstress took care of her. 

The group escorts Mash and Leah to his farm, where they joyfully reunite with his wife Anna. On hearing about the group’s adventures, Anna expresses a desire to travel with them, and Leah excitedly agrees. Silt and Mash purchase a third wagon and plan a show featuring Mash’s strength and Silt’s sleight of hand. They join Kina the baker and Tao the fortune teller and head west together for more adventures.