Nocturna (A Forgery of Magic #1)(13)

Enslavement was strange that way. Though his parents always spoke about what had been taken from them during Englass’s reign—their autonomy, their magic, their culture, their pride—to Alfie, it wasn’t so much about how much Englass had taken from them, but about how little of themselves Castallan had taken back after expelling their conquerors. If they’d truly rid themselves of Englass’s influence and returned to their roots, why were they still donning heeled shoes?

“Fox,” Rayan said, his voice jarring Alfie out of his thoughts. “Proceed.”

Alfie looked away from the shoe and played his turn, his hand growing stronger as the hourglass ran down. Throughout the game, Rayan would speak a word of magic and make the chairs of the players switch places, zooming around the table, leaving Alfie dizzy in his seat.

“After all,” Rayan had explained mischievously, “I can’t have you drawing from the same person over and over again, learning their tells and using them to your advantage. What would be the fun in that?”

Alfie wondered if this was just another way to keep them on their toes. He sidestepped charmed card after charmed card, putting them back into the deck once he came across them. One was meant to make him endlessly vomit, one meant to blot out his eyesight for three turns, and when he found the terrible card that had killed the monkey-masked boy in the deck, he took it as his own before discarding it to the bottom of the deck, not wanting to watch someone else cut their own throat.

Without the Monkey, the woman in the dragon mask was to Alfie’s right. As the hourglass began to peter out, she plucked the drunkening card from his hand with confident fingers. She’d probably assumed he had no charmed cards because he had yet to react to any. That assumption would usually be right, but not in this case.

As soon as she touched it, a hiccup erupted from her mouth and her whole body relaxed as she gave a slow, syrupy laugh.

“You know what I just realized?” Another hiccup. “I’m wearing a mask on top of a mask. Do you get it? Do you get what I’m trying to tell you pendejos? I’m wearing two masks at the same time!” She threw her head back and laughed, sounding as if she’d drunk a bathtub of sangria.

Rayan massaged his temples. “One of you had to do a drunkening card. Dragon, you took a card from the Fox. Please return a card, as the rules state,” Rayan said to the girl, impatient.

“You call these stupid things masks!” She gestured sloppily at her red mask. “I’ve worn more masks than you idiots can count! I could show you how it’s really done!”

“Can we get on with it, missy?” the Bear growled. But the girl just kept laughing.

Rayan gave a long sigh. “Just relinquish a maldito card, Dragon. That or forfeit your hand.”

“Fine, fine!” she said. “But the truth is right in your face! In my face, actually,” she said, chuckling gleefully like a child with a secret. Alfie did not have time for her nonsense. He was so close to securing the books. His fingers itched to turn their pages and all he could do was sit and wait for this girl to stop laughing herself into a stupor.

She finally chose a card to give up, but instead of placing it back in the deck, she flicked it at Alfie. She burst out laughing when it swatted against the nose of his mask. He should’ve let it drop to the ground. Should’ve moved out of the way or even stopped the card from touching him with a word of magic. But instead he raised his hand, letting his magic match the red shade he saw swirling in the card, and caught it as it fell from his face.

Perhaps it was fate. Or just fast reflexes. Either way, it was done.

As soon as he touched it, something jolted his finger as if he’d just pricked it on a lightning bolt. He’d been right about her magic being different; it wasn’t a trick of the eye. This card was strange. He focused on it. It was a charmed card full of the girl’s red magic. Just as when he’d watched it before, the color kept shifting in shade, a complex patchwork of reds that wouldn’t settle. He couldn’t mimic it at the drop of a hat the way he could the others’.

The magic was lithe and sharp as a whip. If this magic had a face it would be smirking, and Alfie wanted to know why. He pressed the magic further and under the surface he felt a pulse. Each pulse getting faster as if something were coming to a head. It reminded him of something. A moment too late, Alfie thought of it.

A countdown.

From the face of the card exploded a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke. Alfie dropped it on the table and shot out of his chair so fast that it clattered to the floor behind him. He covered his nose and mouth with his hands, sweat rolling down his face. Was it poisonous?

Rayan, a wind twister, pushed the air away, inadvertently saving Alfie from breathing it in too. A fit of coughing erupted in the room. Alfie heard chairs toppling over and bodies hitting the floor. When the air cleared, all the other players were knocked out cold on the ground, their masks askew. Rayan’s men had charged into the room but had fallen victim to the smoke as well. Only Rayan and Alfie still stood. Alfie looked at the table and his heart sputtered in his chest.

The prize books were gone.

Everything he’d done was for nothing. He’d lied to his family and come home to the quiet palace full of Dez’s memory for nothing.

“Thief!” Rayan screamed, pointing a sausage finger over Alfie’s shoulder.

The woman in the dragon mask had dashed out the glass doors to the balcony before clumsily hoisting herself onto the stone rail, nearly falling over the edge in the process.