Griffen was about to scoff out loud with disbelief, but stopped. He had heard stories of the gift of foresight but had never met anyone who had it. Oh, he'd had intuition strike in the past, saving his life once in a while, but it was a passing thing he put down to chance, or deja vu. Since he had learned about his dragon heritage, he could not afford to deride anything about the supernatural. After all, someone who had been given beads by a long-dead voodoo queen and hung out with shape-shifters did not have a stone to throw at anyone else's glass house.

"But I could just walk away, say no."

"You won't," Etienne said confidently. "Everybody's countin' on you. I invested everything I had, called in every favor, to make sure Fafnir was revived for dis year. And I counted on you from the moment I seen you. I knew you was de one all dis has been set up for."

Griffen hated to be the object of a prophecy. It made him as uncomfortable as being the center of attention. He hadn't earned his college nickname of "Grifter" by attracting a lot of attention. He preferred to work outside the spotlight.

"So why approach me now, not when I arrived in the Quarter?"

Etienne wriggled his shoulders uncomfortably. "Because you didn' really know who you was den. And you had some workin' out to do. Still do, but you gettin' you feet under you. People respect you, but now you respect youself. No king should stand on a Mardi Gras float who don't respect himself."

"I did have self-respect!" Griffen protested.

"Not from what I seen," Etienne said, with a knowing shake of his head. "You put on a good show, but you didn't think you deserved what you got. Maybe now you see you do."

"I bet you got beaten up a lot at school," Griffen said, wryly.

"Never mentioned the gift but the once," Etienne said. "I had to test it out to show that I believe in myself, too. Foreknowledge ain't worth a damn if the user is dead. How about it? You can't say no, Mr. Griffen. Destiny's waiting for you."