Spindle Fire (Spindle Fire #1)(18)

Throughout the game, Binks continues his rhythmic tapping. The sound becomes mesmerizing as Isbe begins to lose track of the game, so she’s startled when the tapping seems to skip a beat at one point . . . the second right thumb tap, if she’s not mistaken. Isbe wonders if it’s just that Binks has become distracted, or if perhaps it’s a sign that he has a weak hand. Could it be his tell? She would nudge Gil or try to send him some signal to pay close attention, but there’s no way to communicate with him without Binks noticing.

Finally, in the seventh round, Binks reveals a set of four queens atop the ten of hearts. He has slain the hart.

“I’ve won!” he declares, not even bothering to clean up the table as he stands to collect the debt. “Let’s shake on it, good man,” he says to Gilbert.

Isbe’s heart sinks. She can tell from the weight of Gil’s silence that there’s no doubting the play. Binks has indeed succeeded in collecting all four queens, despite the fact that they constituted a full third of the cards in play: an extremely unlikely occurrence. Then again, Binks’s tribute is luck; he has an unfair advantage when it comes to elements of chance.

Gil stands and takes Binks’s hand, then gasps and steps backward, knocking into his chair.

“What is it? Are you all right?” Isbe asks, standing too.

“It’s fine, I just . . . it stung.”

“May not be faerie magic powerful enough to put a palace to sleep, but it does the trick when it comes to collecting,” Binks says, his voice snide, all the joy from winning now morphed into a thin, twisted pride. “Better luck next time!” he adds. “My servant will see you out.”

Binks creaks back down to reshuffle his deck with a smug ruffle-snap, ruffle-snap, ruffle-snap.

They can’t be sent away. Not this easily.

“It’s all right,” Gil whispers as they follow the servant out into the hall. “We’ll find out who this faerie Violette is. Somehow we’ll get our answers.”

“It isn’t fair.” Despair, frustration, and rage are shuffling through Isbe’s mind just like that stupid deck of cards, making her feel shaky, like she might just grab the next bec de faucon she can find and smash all the fancy chandeliers she hears clinking overhead. She’d like to take a saber to Binks’s face, which she imagines must be puffy as an overcooked pastry and crumbly to the touch. “He’s disgusting. A single ring from one of his stupid fat fingers would pay for all the food Roul eats in a year.”

“It’s the system we live in, Isbe. Binks wears ten matching rings and gambles away his lot, while people like us must dress like this,” he says, tugging at her sleeve, obviously hoping to cheer her up.

But something he said has snagged in her mind. “Ten matching rings?”

“Rubies, all of them.”

Isbe freezes. One-two-three-four-FIVE-one-two-three-four-FIVE. Except sometime in the fifth round when he momentarily lost his rhythm. . . .

Or had he?

“Miss, miss!” the servant barks as Isbe turns around, desperately trying to feel her winding way back to Binks’s office. For a moment she bursts into the wrong room and stands there in silence before realizing her mistake. She backs out and heads farther down the hall, Gil joining her. He grabs her elbow.

“What are you doing?”

“Please,” she pants. “I need to see Binks.”

Gil wordlessly steers her to the right door.

“Master is busy,” the servant says, running up behind them.

But Isbe doesn’t listen. She shoves open the door to the office where, as she suspected, Binks is still sitting there, smugly shuffling his deck with a ruffle-snap. “It’s customary,” she says, before he can speak, “to allow the spectator to handle the cards at least once. To verify the legitimacy of the deck.”

Binks huffs. “You’re welcome to count them. They’re all here.”

“I’m sure they are,” Isbe says, holding out her hand.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the servant says from the doorway. “I tried to stop her.”

“Not to worry. I’ve seen many a sore loser in my life.” Binks hands her the deck of cards. “Count away, my dear. And might I recommend a visit to my groom on your way out? Someone should do something with that unruly mane of yours.”

Isbe ignores the dig and feels the cards he has laid into her palms. They are definitely sturdy. Possibly gold or silver leafed. She doesn’t count them, though. She just quickly goes through each card, placing it at the bottom of the pile, feeling the surface of each, until . . .

“Which card is this?” she asks, holding one up to Gil.

“It’s—it’s the queen of clovers. Why?”

“Lord Binks has cheated you,” Isbe announces. “The card has been marked.”

“I don’t see a mark,” Gil says, taking the card from her.

“No, I imagine it’s not easy to see. But I felt it—a soft scratch, from something sharp, like the beveled edge of a ruby.”

“Preposterous!” Binks blusters.

Just as Gil says, “I’ll be damned.” His voice is amazed. “You’re right.”

“It’s too late,” Binks snarls. “Your luck is mine. There’s no way to get it back.”