“…PLAYING WITH SOMEONE ELSE’S MONEY—every gambler’s dream!”

Ganzer had said it—and now, after a year and a half as a proposition player, Kal was in the position of doing it again, in what might possibly be the last hour of his life.

He’d risked his poor feet on a breakneck run back to the track, where he’d cashed the Vermilion bet. Dodi hadn’t bet much compared with what he’d dropped on Time for Flatcakes. The payout was just a hundred Cantocoins—exactly what Kal had gotten by betting with Dodi on hazard toss at the beginning of the evening. He didn’t know if it was a wink from Dodi or not—how could he have known how much betting Vermilion would pay? Whatever, it felt like another of the mathematical curiosities that followed the Suertons.

They were nowhere about this time, though. Any magic would purely have to be his own. He hurried through the casino, looking for anything at that predawn hour that might save him. He passed up game after game. Dice, the wheel, slots: These were not the things he knew, any more than he knew fathier racing. He wouldn’t go down seeking a lucky break on a game he didn’t know. He’d need a lucky break on a game he did know, and that took him to the place he had spent so much time: the card room.

It was only a quarter full at this hour. There was no time to consider Savareen whist or his late ex-love, zinbiddle. No, only his first love would do: an easy game he’d learned as a child and savored as an adult. In the wing devoted to it, he saw several indefatigable players amid matches—and nearby, the equally tireless Vestry proctoring trainee dealers.

“This is pazaak.” Her back to Kal, Vestry gestured to rows of two-person tables. “It’s a classic from the days of the Old Republic. Easy to learn, hard to master. At this hour, the Canto Casino deals no cards and takes no rake in these hundred-coin minimum pickup games, but you may be asked to assist in high-stakes contests.”

As Kal searched fruitlessly for any player without an opponent, Vestry brought the dealers before an active game and continued. “Each player takes turns drawing from a common table deck whose cards are numbered one through ten. The object is to reach twenty without going over.”

Minn, apparently back bright and too-early after her rough first outing, pointed to the cards in each player’s hand. “The cards they’re holding are different. What’s that about?”

“Each player may bring a side deck,” Vestry said. “Specialty cards permitted by the rules and available on the open market. For every card drawn from the main deck, the player may use one of these side cards. Most alter the total: plus one, minus five, and so on. Others offer a choice of plus or minus—and there are cards still more rare.”

Kal had worked on his side deck for years, and it was a marvel. Not good enough to beat an Orisha Okum, surely, but it might help him now.

How many times will I have to double up to hit eight hundred thousand? Kal did some quick calculating and swallowed hard when he figured the result: thirteen times. He was contemplating that figure when Vestry noticed him.

“Master Sonmi, I don’t care for loitering now any more than I did last night.”

“I agree,” Kal said, finally spotting an empty seat across from a Rodian. “I’m here to play.” He plopped his hundred-Cantocoin bet on the table.

“Welcome,” said the snout-faced creature, more glassy-eyed than normal from drink and time of day. “No matches at this hour, just single hands to win. Side hand refreshes each time.”

“I love it.” He didn’t have time for more. He reached for his side deck—

—only to remember it was back in his coat. The one he had surrendered to the administrative office the day before.

Oops.

His opponent chose his own hand of side cards and shuffled the table deck. “Hold on,” Kal said. “I don’t have my side deck.”

“—and while the player can go without a side deck, it is very foolish,” Vestry lectured her students. “It puts the player entirely at fortune’s feet.” She turned and flashed him a tart look; she’d overheard him.

“Are we playing or not?” the Rodian asked.

Someone else’s money, someone else’s money, Kal told himself. “You know what? Deal.”

The Rodian peeled from the table deck. “Eight.” It was a good card.

Kal’s was better. “Ten,” he said.

“Nine,” the Rodian said, “making seventeen.” He played a blue card from his hand. “I add two for nineteen and stand.”

Kal whistled—and did so again when another ten dropped. “Twenty. I win.”

“Lucky.”

“I hope so,” Kal said, moving the pot onto his betting circle. “Two hundred this time.”

The second game was messier, with more cards being drawn on both sides—but Kal found himself breathing easy. He had no decisions. He could only ride. After a night of wild ups and downs, some only moments apart, it felt good to let go of the reins and just play.

“I bust,” the Rodian said.

“Again. Double or nothing.” Someone else’s money, someone else’s money.

Two hundred had grown to four hundred—and when it became eight hundred, the Rodian called out to his companions at another table. “You have to see this,” he said, not yet upset about his losses. Nor would he have any call to be, Kal thought: Playing against an opponent with no side cards would be an easy day for anyone. Eventually, Kal had to lose.

But not yet. “Sixteen hundred’s the bet,” Kal said after the fourth hand.

“Too much,” the Rodian said.

His buddy, somewhat better dressed, took his seat—and the challenge. “Easy money.”

A fifth win. The Rodian, a spectator now, asked, “Are you sure he’s not cheating?”

“This is a square house,” Vestry said, having overheard again. She suspended her lecture and called her students over. “It would take some nerve,” she said, glaring at Kal, “to cheat before an audience of dealers.”

Her attitude didn’t alter Kal’s mood at all. In fact, by the sixth win, he couldn’t describe what he was feeling. Was this what it was like to be a Suerton, he wondered? Existing purely and completely free from the game, unafraid of losing and being pleasantly surprised at winning?

“I stand at sixteen,” Kal said, having landed a horrid draw.

“Twenty-one. Blast it!”

Vestry watched, spellbound. “Is…this a new system?” she asked.

“Shh,” Kal said. “Don’t disturb the players.”

—

The eighth win exhausted his opponent, and a new, wealthier one took his seat. It had become a challenge, a sideshow in a place made for them—the rare event able to gather a crowd at less than half an hour before dawn. “You got to see this,” he heard someone say. “There’s an idiot drawing blind, double-or-nothing—and winning!”

Not how I wanted to be known, but…“Twenty,” he said, after the most peculiar run of cards he’d seen. He was above fifty thousand now, more than he’d had at his peak before the fathier races.

“Tournament table,” Vestry said. “I want this under the lights.”

Kal knew what she really meant: at a place where the surveillance cams were more numerous, to spot any funny business. Kal dutifully lifted his tray of coins and carried them through the card room, leader of a parade of spectators and dealers.

“Minn, deal for them,” Vestry said as they arrived at the table, which offered more space for spectators. “And someone send for Master Ganzer, if he’s still on shift. Our players may require refreshment.”

Kal needed nothing—but another opponent, after the one he’d brought with him busted. “Player wins his tenth pot of a hundred and two thousand four hundred,” Minn announced.

“But who’s counting?” Kal said, nearly delirious.

“Do you know what the odds against this are?” a gawker asked.

“The same every hand,” declared someone from behind Kal. He turned to see Orisha Okum approaching to a rumble of murmurs of her name. She’d changed clothes yet again, now in exquisitely tailored business wear—again, in her trademark red. She had a large satchel under her arm.

“The past doesn’t matter, in hands or in life,” she said, approaching the vacated seat. “This is my table, you know. I’ve won several events here. But if you’re here to play, Kal, I’m game.”