Seven found a tiny, pathetic library of all things sequestered away between the slime racing track and the blackjack parlor. It was fairly quiet for its location, and while the sound of voices and laughter rumbled through the walls on occasion, it was mostly silent in the little hut. The wizened old man running the place barely looked up at her as she selected a book and tucked into a curtained booth with it.

  Most of the library was filled with tattered picture books, some adorned with crayon, and, strangely, the other gaps in the shelves were filled with legal textbooks. Where those had come from, she wasn’t sure—nor did she have any idea why such a pathetic library existed in the town at all. But the entrance was free, and the booth was private. It was all she could ask for.

  She tried each dice in turn, wincing at the beautiful colors, the sense of power dancing in the back of her mind. One for incredible strength, she thought, turning a ruby d20 in her hands. She wasn’t sure how she knew it, but it seemed even more powerful than the strength she’d shown that night in the inn room. She was astoundingly lucky that the first man hadn’t had the chance to roll it at all. If he had, she’d probably be dead. She held it in front of her nose and—

  It faded at her touch.

  Another one was green. Perhaps it would have patched up the gash in her side, had it been usable for her at all.

  It also went dark at her touch.

  Sighing, Seven went through the dice bags with little hope. She could have sold the dice for much more than she’d get now, of course—had she only touched them with her gloves—but as each faded, her headache ebbed just a bit, and she couldn’t help but feel like some sort of compulsion was satisfied.

  It was its own form of gambling, she supposed. The infinitesimally small chance that one of those dice might respond to her. Might glow instead of fade. Might accept her finally and prove that she wasn’t just a curse, a dud.

  A spare.

  The practical part of her understood the foolishness of her endeavor; certainly dice with plenty of uses left would have fetched a decent price in the shops, but then she’d never know. What if one of these dice had been the one? With each dice that glowed, then faded, she went through a cycle of hope and defeat over and over again.

  And came up with nothing.

  No dice retained their glow. None gave her any hope that her curse might have been lifted somehow upon leaving Veilhome. Now bitter and defeated, Seven cashed in her now dull dice to a nearby shopkeeper who asked few questions, then went to the first parlor she could find.

  Half her money went to the buy-in, and the other half, to the largest tankard of ale she could buy.

  She sat down, and played.

  ***

  Seven quickly realized that she had very little alcohol tolerance. Her first sip was tolerable. Her second, dizzying. Her third, disorienting. As the dice were distributed and bets placed, she fought to keep her head straight.

  Why didn’t I eat something first? She thought, trying to keep her vision straight on the dice. It was practically an impossible task. She hadn’t meant to be utterly wasted the first few bets of the night, but in the panic of fleeing from the last town, she realized she’d also forgotten her meals—for an entire day. Her stomach rumbled unhappily, and the alcohol hit her with such force that she wondered if she’d make it through the night.

  The others at the table were quick to notice. She’d lost most of her chips in the first few hands, and while she was making an admirable effort of making that pile up, she didn’t seem to be able to get ahead. To make matters worse, she’d started with fewer chips than anyone else at the table, and with each placed bet, she was getting bullied off the table.

  “Call or raise, kid.”

  Seven squinted at her dice, a few already locked into the table. The odds were in her favor, but it was hard not to have a sense of unease as she watched the others at the table. There were only three there besides her: one wiry man who was practically vibrating with nerves, a heavyset man looking tired and washed out, and a man near her age she was having a hard time taking her eyes off of.

  To say he was handsome was an understatement. A criminal one. Seven had seen handsome courtiers come and go, many vying for her hand in marriage, but even the best looking ones hadn’t looked like this.

  She choked a little, staring at him across the table as he shook his hair from his face with a perfect tilt of a well-muscled neck, looking straight out of some of the magazines she’d caught stuffed away in servants’ quarters. His jaw was chiseled, his golden eyes warm and perfectly shaped, his brunette hair far too coifed for his occupation.

  And luck above, his occupation somehow helped his good looks. His muscled forearms rippled beneath rolled up sleeves, and while his shirt was caked in dirt and dust, he was still so handsome he was almost feminine. He smiled at her from across the table, and extended a hand towards her.

  “Emmet,” he said, still smiling. Seven nearly fell out of her chair.

  “Raise,” she said hurriedly, pushing the rest of her chips into the pile and ignoring his extended hand. Emmet shrugged, a small twinkle in his eyes, and the other men whistled.

  “Now, why would you do that?” Emmet asked, tapping a slender finger on the table. “A bold move for someone down to their last chips.”

  Seven considered saying nothing, but the alcohol had its own plans. “I know the odds,” she snapped, the alcohol making her words come out slightly slurred. The table swam in her vision, but she forced herself to focus on minimizing as many of her tells as she could—surely she could handle that still. Three of her dice were locked. Two were still in play, ready to be revealed on the main table. The math was simple, or should have been simple, anyway, but it slid away from her each time she tried to grasp it.

  The wiry man gave her a look like she’d soured his milk, then folded immediately. The heavyset one grunted, looking between Seven and Emmet, then tossed his dice aside, leaving the table for another drink.

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  That just left her and Emmet.

  He leaned back in his chair, still watching her with that infuriating calm. “You’re good at this,” he said, winking. “Better than you should be, given how much you’ve had to drink.”

  Seven tapped the table impatiently. “Are you calling or folding?”

  A slow, lazy smile spread across his face, and Seven had to chase away the flutter she felt in the pit of her stomach. It had to be the alcohol, surely. She hadn’t been this smitten with anyone since childhood, and she wasn’t sure she had the proper judgment to be smitten now.

  Focus, she told herself, though it did little to chase away her stupid decisions. Without winning, she’d be sleeping on the streets tonight—and without dinner, to boot. Even abstaining from the ale wouldn’t have netted her enough chips to hold her own at the table, though certainly she’d be in better condition physically.

  She raised her eyebrows at him. “I’m calling,” he said. He pushed his chips forward to match hers. “But I’m also curious—where’d you learn to count probabilities like that? Gambling is a stupid art, but it is one, nonetheless.” He pointed a chip at her, considering. “I can tell the difference between someone gambling their money because they have nothing left and someone who makes plays only because it’s statistically the best lead.”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” she said, watching for the remaining dice to flip over on the table. The truth was, she certainly was gambling her chips because she had nothing left. “I’m just lucky.” The dice clattered into a locked position, and Seven’s heart sank as the numbers resolved. “Was lucky,” she muttered. It was close. So close. But not quite close enough.

  Emmet flung his dice onto the table, and they magicked themselves back into their resolved position. They were better, by a smidge. The odds of that were, quite frankly, nearly impossible, but Seven sighed, her head clearing with the pang of losing.

  “Well played,” Emmet said, and strangely, it didn’t sound particularly condescending. It was practically appreciative. Seven squinted at him, trying to figure him out. What was a man handsome enough to be a model, smart enough to read the legal texts in the library she’d just abandoned, and strong enough to win plenty of money fighting in the plazas in Veilhome doing in Luckville, of all places?

  She stared at the empty space where her chips had been, suddenly annoyed. The last of her energy evaporated. It was too much. The lost dice, the lost chips. Exile was bad enough, but did she have to lose while being exiled? At least in Veilhome she’d been able to win more often than not. To get taken for a ride her first night in Luckville was…

  Seven forced herself to her feet as the wiry man trailed away, off to the bar to get another round. She had to steady herself with the table as the room spun, but her hand missed, and she nearly plummeted to the ground—until Emmet lurched forward and caught her by the wrist.

  There was an awkward moment where Seven couldn’t help but stare before she snatched her hand back.

  “Where are you going?” Emmet asked when she’d had a chance to steady herself.

  “Away,” Seven said simply, and pushed through the crowd, past the burly man who’d decided to occupy the table for another round. She needed somewhere to sleep this mess off, at least. Maybe in the morning she could apply to LMC and see if they would take her in, at least. Then she could get back to the business of finding Rook and bailing herself out of this mess.

  She was halfway to the door when Emmet cut her off. “Get out of my way,” she snapped. “You had your fun, didn’t you?”

  Emmet put his hands up in mock innocence. “Whoa whoa whoa. I’m just trying to make friends, see?” He snatched at her hand and dropped a bag into it—a bag of chips. Seven nearly dropped it.

  “If you think I’m going to—”

  “It’s a gift,” he said simply. “And a request. It’s your buy-in for the next round. Consider it an investment in your future.”

  She stared at the pouch, then at him, her head still spinning. “Why?”

  “Because you’re the first person I’ve played against in months who actually understands the math behind this foolish game,” he said. “Most of the miners here can’t even read.” He twisted his mouth, then studied her. “Although you’re no miner.”

  “Not yet,” she agreed. Though she certainly would be soon, if she had her way. Emmet jerked his head at the table.

  “What do you say?”

  “I say you’re trying to take advantage of me.”

  Emmet put that look of mock-pain on his face again. “Taking advantage of you would be letting you go out in the streets of Luckville drunk enough to fall down the nearest mineshaft. I don’t need that on my conscience.”

  “I don’t need your charity. I can take care of—”

  “Yes yes, of yourself,” he said dismissively, then clutched her hands and the bag in his own. Her face went red at the warmth in his hands, easy to feel even through her gloved hands, and she hoped it was just the alcohol. “I’m not offering charity.” That, at least, got Seven’s attention.

  “Then what are you offering?”

  “A partnership,” he said simply. His golden eyes were serious now, studying her with a sort of uncomfortable intensity. “You play at my stakes with my buy-in, and we split the winnings. Sixty-forty, my favor, since I’m covering the risk—and right now, you’re a very big risk.”

  Seven snorted at that. She wanted to argue, to tell him to shove his condescending offer up his own ass. But her stomach rumbled so loudly that even Emmet noticed it.

  “And,” he added, “I’ll buy you whatever chef special Maude has back there.” He grimaced, then added, “It’s not all bad, promise.”

  Well, that was one way to win over her heart, at least. Finally, Seven sighed, then nodded at him. “But only if you keep seventy percent,” she said. “I told you I don’t need charity.”

  “Deal,” he said, smiling.

  They played three more hands. Her head cleared slightly as the night went on and the alcohol processed through her system—faster than it usually did, in fact—and she let the familiar patterns of a night at the table anchor her to reality. It felt good to play again. Good to risk and know she had someone else’s money to lose for once. Good to risk and know that she had someone to impress. Someone to win over.

  With the chip advantage in her favor, she won all three hands. Mercifully, the other two men stormed off without another word, either too drunk or too tired to care that they’d been so easily fleeced—and by a girl with a gloved hand, no less. Seven thanked the Thirteen that they hadn’t thought to ask why she was wearing a glove over her hand.

  “I knew you were a good investment,” Emmet said as he swept the table clean of chips. She expected those to go right back into his pocket—she’d been fleeced herself plenty of times, of course—but instead, he gave her the percentage she asked for. And maybe a bit more, if she was honest. She weighed the bag carefully in one hand, almost impressed.

  “And I thought you’d take me for every coin I was worth,” she said. He grinned, holding the door open for her.

  “That comes later, of course.”

  Seven nearly ran into the door. “It most certainly does not!” Emmet laughed, and part of the tension in her shoulders fell away at that. A joke, then. It had to be a joke. Though he’s certainly handsome enough, she thought as he ducked his head in reply to several miners who passed through, thanking him. She shook her head, trying to divest herself of thought. “You don’t even know who I am,” she added, rolling her eyes. When Emmet paused there in the street, watching her carefully, she raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Of course I know who you are,” he said, recognition in his eyes. Seven’s gut sank clean to the yellow-tiled ground. He looked both ways, then leaned in conspiratorially. “You’re Princess Seventra of House Veil.”

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