At Le Cirque des Rêves in Prague, a large sign announces the circus is Closed Due to Inclement Weather, baffling visitors under a clear sky. Later, a violent storm arrives exactly as promised, sending crowds away and rattling the tents with wind and sheets of rain.

Celia Bowen leaves the circus through a hidden fence opening and walks into the rain with a heavy black umbrella. She takes refuge in a bright, crowded café and sits by the fireplace across from Isobel the fortune-teller, who is reading a book while waiting for someone unlikely to arrive in the weather. The two talk as ordinary women rather than performers, and Celia quietly shields their table from notice when Isobel prepares her tarot cards.

At Celia’s request, Isobel reads using her worn Marseilles deck, noting that one card is missing “somewhere else.” The spread unsettles Isobel, but she interprets it as Celia carrying burdens and moving toward change, with an unseen conflict that will be revealed very soon. Isobel also sees overwhelming, contradictory emotion—love and loss together—more intense and complicated than she can cleanly translate.

After Celia leaves, Isobel privately concludes the cards point unmistakably to the magical competition, so strongly that it drowns out other details; it feels like a reading for the circus as a whole. Disturbed by the appearance of Le Bateleur (the Magician), Isobel scans the café for a particular bowler hat but does not find it, then shuffles the card deep into the deck and returns to waiting alone.

Walking back through the downpour, Celia realizes she is inexplicably warm and completely dry, as if rain cannot touch her. In an open square by the astronomical clock, she confirms an invisible barrier deflects every drop and deduces the umbrella she carries is not hers. Marco appears, drenched and breathless, holding an identical umbrella and politely claims his; the moment Celia hands it back, the rain hits her. The exchange makes Celia recognize Marco as her opponent in the contest, and after laughing at her own oversight, she refuses his invitation for a drink and vanishes beneath her umbrella, leaving Marco alone in the rain.