The Teller of Small Fortunes Summary, Characters and Themes
The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong is a heartfelt fantasy novel that blends adventure, magic, and personal discovery.
The story follows Tao, a wandering fortune teller with the unique ability to predict small, everyday events. She prefers to avoid big prophecies, knowing they often lead to unintended consequences. But when she’s drawn into a dangerous quest alongside an ex-mercenary, a reformed thief, and a baker seeking adventure, her small fortunes take on greater significance. With a blend of found family, magical intrigue, and emotional depth, this novel offers a refreshing take on destiny, identity, and the power of choice.
Summary
Tao is a fortune teller of Shinn descent, wandering the land of Eshtera with her trusty mule, avoiding attachments and grand prophecies.
She specializes in “small fortunes”—predicting things like upcoming weather, lost objects, or minor personal events. She learned long ago that foretelling great destinies only leads to trouble. Tao’s life is one of solitude, her past a secret she refuses to dwell on.
But her quiet existence changes when she crosses paths with an unlikely group of companions who pull her into a high-stakes quest.
Tao first meets Mash, a gruff ex-mercenary, and Silt, a smooth-talking former thief, when they help her clear a blocked road.
Mash is searching for his kidnapped daughter, Leah, and, desperate for answers, asks Tao for a fortune. She glimpses a vision of a kitten in Leah’s hands, a sign that she is still alive. Clinging to hope, Mash decides to accompany Tao, while Silt—always eager for an adventure—joins as well.
Together, they journey to Shellport, a bustling harbor town where Tao hopes to continue her fortune-telling.
There, a noblewoman named Lady Ilana secretly seeks Tao’s help in locating the legendary Phoenix Egg, a magical artifact rumored to grant immense power. Though wary, Tao senses Ilana’s desperation and agrees to read her fortune. Just as she foresees the Egg’s whereabouts, the Guild—a powerful organization that oversees magic—intervenes, forcing Tao and her companions to flee.
Ilana, unwilling to let her lead slip away, offers the group a job: retrieve the Phoenix Egg before the Guild does, in exchange for protection.
Reluctantly, Tao agrees, and they travel to an abandoned monastery where the Egg is hidden. Along the way, they encounter Kina, a young baker with dreams of adventure, who insists on joining them.
Their journey is fraught with danger—mercenaries, betrayals, and the ever-looming threat of the Guild. When they finally reach the monastery, they find the Phoenix Egg sealed behind an ancient spell.
Before they can devise a way to retrieve it, Lady Ilana and her hired swords arrive, revealing her true intentions—she used them to locate the Egg and never planned to honor their deal.
A fierce battle breaks out. Tao and her companions barely escape, but Ilana claims the Egg. Defeated and disillusioned, Tao questions her role in shaping fate. Returning to Shellport, they find the Guild waiting.
Instead of punishing her, they offer her a choice: submit to their authority or be branded a rogue magic user. Before she can decide, news arrives that Ilana has unleashed the Egg’s magic and seized control of Shellport, using its power to make herself nearly invincible.
Realizing they are the only ones who can stop her, Tao and her allies stage a daring heist to steal back the Egg. They infiltrate Ilana’s stronghold, where Tao’s visions reveal the Egg’s only weakness.
In the climactic battle, Mash sacrifices himself, using the last of the Egg’s power to destroy it and save the city. Ilana is defeated, but Mash vanishes in a flash of magic, his fate uncertain.
With the Phoenix Egg gone, the Guild honors its promise and allows Tao to go free, though she knows they will always watch her. Silt chooses to stay in Shellport, while Kina returns to her bakery, changed by her adventures. Tao, however, cannot settle down.
Before leaving, she has one last vision—Mash, alive, standing at the edge of an unknown land. Hope rekindled, she sets off once more, embracing the unpredictable path ahead.
In the end, The Teller of Small Fortunes is a tale of self-discovery, fate, and found family. Tao learns that while she may not be able to control destiny, she has the power to choose who she stands with and what kind of future she wishes to shape.
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Characters
Tao
Tao, the protagonist of The Teller of Small Fortunes, is a woman shaped as much by what she has lost as by what she has chosen to leave behind. As a Shinn-born fortune teller raised in Eshtera, she exists in a space between cultures, never fully belonging to either.
Her ability to read the small moments of life—predicting a coming storm or a lost animal—stands in stark contrast to the grand prophecies of so many fantasy seers. Yet, what she lacks in ostentatious magic, she makes up for in insight and resilience.
Her past remains a shadow over her journey, influencing her reluctance to engage in “big fortunes” and her deep mistrust of institutions like the Guild. However, as she finds herself drawn into the quest for the Phoenix Egg, she is forced to acknowledge that she cannot forever evade the weight of her own power.
Tao’s development is gradual but poignant—she moves from being a solitary wanderer to someone who allows herself to trust and, ultimately, to love. Her arc is a meditation on agency: does she merely predict the course of fate, or does she shape it herself?
Mash
Mash’s character defies the stereotype of the brutish fighter driven solely by revenge. While his primary motivation is to find his kidnapped daughter, Leah, he is not a man consumed by fury, but by devotion.
His strength is not just physical but emotional; he is a protector, a father who refuses to abandon hope even when logic dictates that his daughter may be lost forever. Throughout the journey, Mash’s interactions with Tao serve as a counterpoint to her detached pragmatism—he believes in the power of faith, in fighting for something greater than oneself.
His ultimate fate, sacrificing himself to destroy the Phoenix Egg, is a culmination of his journey: an act of love rather than aggression. However, the ambiguity of his ending—his body disappearing in a surge of magic—leaves the possibility that he has not perished, only transitioned to another unknown chapter of his story.
Mash’s role in the novel is that of the unwavering heart, the embodiment of what it means to fight not just to win, but to preserve something precious.
Silt
Silt is the perfect foil to both Tao’s reserved nature and Mash’s stoic strength. A former thief turned reluctant adventurer, he initially appears to be driven by self-interest, always on the lookout for the next profitable opportunity.
However, as the story progresses, his motivations become more layered. Beneath his sharp wit and roguish charm lies a man who has spent most of his life looking for something beyond riches—belonging.
His decision to follow Tao and Mash is, at first, an act of curiosity, but it gradually turns into genuine loyalty. His past, marked by betrayals and mistakes, makes him acutely aware of the dangers of trust, yet he is the first among them to acknowledge that their makeshift group has become a family of sorts.
His arc is one of self-worth—he learns that he does not need to be defined by his past misdeeds, nor does he have to run from the possibility of being truly known. By the novel’s end, he makes the surprising choice to settle in Shellport, indicating that sometimes the greatest act of adventure is choosing to stay.
Kina
In a group filled with fighters, thieves, and fortune tellers, Kina seems an odd addition. An aspiring baker with a love for storytelling and an irrepressible enthusiasm for adventure, she initially appears too gentle for the dangerous world she has entered.
However, her presence is essential to the group—not because she possesses combat skills or magic, but because she reminds them of the simple joys that make their struggles worthwhile. While she lacks the hardened experience of the others, she is not naive; she understands loss, fear, and the weight of difficult choices.
Kina’s arc is about proving that kindness is not weakness and that one does not need to wield a sword or cast spells to be powerful. By the end of the novel, she has not only contributed to the group’s success but has also found her own path—one where she does not have to choose between adventure and home, but rather creates a space where both can coexist.
Themes
When Insight Becomes a Curse Rather Than a Gift
Tao’s ability to see glimpses of the future is a power many would covet, yet throughout the novel, it is shown as something more akin to a burden than a blessing. Knowledge, particularly when it comes without the power to change what is foreseen, can be a form of suffering.
Tao’s refusal to tell “big fortunes” is not merely an arbitrary rule but a defense mechanism against the weight of responsibility. The novel explores the philosophical implications of foresight—does knowing the future make one its servant? If someone predicts disaster but cannot stop it, are they complicit in its occurrence?
Through Tao’s journey, the novel argues that wisdom does not lie in seeing the future but in understanding how to navigate the present despite uncertainty.
The Fragility of Identity When One Belongs to Two Worlds but is Accepted by Neither
Tao’s struggle is not just about survival or power; it is about identity. As someone of Shinn descent raised in Eshtera, she is constantly made aware that she is both insider and outsider.
This duality affects every aspect of her life, from the way people perceive her to the way she perceives herself. She is never fully at home in either culture, which mirrors a broader theme of displacement—a feeling many immigrants and diaspora individuals understand deeply.
The novel does not provide an easy resolution to this struggle; instead, it suggests that identity is not about fitting neatly into one space or another, but about forging one’s own sense of self in the midst of conflicting expectations. Tao’s journey is ultimately about reclaiming her own narrative rather than allowing others to define it for her.
The Morality of Power and the Dangers of Playing God with Fate
The Phoenix Egg serves as more than just a mystical object sought after by different factions—it is a representation of absolute power and the moral dilemmas that come with it. Throughout the novel, different characters seek the Egg for different reasons: the Guild wants to control it, Lady Ilana seeks to use it for personal gain, and Mash hopes that it may be the key to saving his daughter.
However, power without restraint always comes with consequences, and the novel repeatedly emphasizes that just because one can wield power does not mean one should. The destruction of the Egg in the climax is not merely about stopping Ilana but about recognizing that some forces are too dangerous to be controlled.
The novel presents the idea that true wisdom lies in knowing when to step back from power rather than succumb to the temptation of mastering it.
Found Family as a Counterweight to a World That Demands Self-Reliance
Each of the central characters begins their journey as a loner—Tao travels alone, Mash is separated from his daughter, Silt trusts no one, and Kina dreams of adventure without knowing who will stand beside her. Yet, as the novel progresses, they find something in each other that they did not realize they needed.
The idea of “found family” is not a new concept in fantasy, but The Teller of Small Fortunes approaches it with nuance. It does not romanticize the idea that bonds are formed instantly, nor does it suggest that trust comes without risk.
Instead, it presents relationships as something that must be actively chosen and nurtured. The ending of the novel, though bittersweet, solidifies this theme—Tao may still be searching for where she belongs, but she is no longer doing it alone.