Then her attention returned to her table. No flicker of interest. No acknowledgment. Maybe she’d be useful. Maybe she’d have information.
She was worth investigating, at the very least.
I made myself move, taking the empty seat as another player collected his chips and left.
“Buy-in is ten thousand minimum.” Her voice was neutral, smooth as the felt stretched across the table. “House rules on the display, standard Flux variants apply.”
I placed fifty thousand in chips on the table. Not to impress her, that wouldn't work. To establish that I had resources, that I belonged here, that I was worth her time.
She converted my chips to playing stacks. Those elegant fingers sorted them into denominations without looking. When she dealt my first hand, our fingers might have brushed. Might not have. Her expression gave me nothing either way.
The other players barely registered my presence. I played three hands straight, deliberately losing each one. But not randomly. The loss pattern was specific.
A Ter'gathi variant, modified to say something. A sequence with a message embedded. She’d either spot it or she wouldn’t.
She dealt the next hand without a single change in rhythm. No acknowledgment. No response.
“Rough luck,” the ambassador muttered, his gaze following the dealer's rake as it claimed my chips. “This table's been cold all night.”
“Luck is irrelevant.” I kept my eyes on the dealer. “It's all mathematics.”
Nothing. Not even a micro-expression. She collected the chips, her movements flowing into the next deal as if I'd commented on the weather.
The Nexian matriarch went all-in on a terrible hand. Lost everything. One of the Poraki at the next seat stood as shestormed off. “Thanks, Sabine,” he muttered, collecting his modest winnings.
She nodded without looking up.
The other Poraki tried to run their scam on me. I let them start, just to see how she'd handle it.
She shut them down without saying a word. Just dealt the cards in a sequence that made their system impossible to execute. They didn't even realize she'd done it. Just looked at each other, confused, and quit while they were ahead.
Careful. Controlled.
And giving me absolutely nothing.
I leaned forward to place another bet, close enough that she'd have to either back away or hold her ground. She held, but only because backing away would have interrupted her deal. When I asked for a card and deliberately brushed her fingers, she pulled her hand back to exactly the distance required. No closer. No farther.
Maybe I caught her breathing change once. A slightly shorter inhale when I shifted and my shadow fell across her hands. But it could have been anything. Concentration. Annoyance. Nothing.
After losing thirty thousand credits in my carefully coded pattern, I gathered my remaining chips.
“I think I'll call it a night.” I stood, making the announcement to the table at large.
“Thank you for playing, sir.” The same words she'd said to every other player who'd left. The same tone. A practiced curve of her lips that never reached her eyes.
I left the table and headed for the exit.
But as I walked away, I found myself thinking about that one moment when our eyes first met. The way she'd cataloged me with that same cold assessment she used on everyone. Except my body had responded like she'd touched me.
Interest. Attraction. Something primal that didn't care about her ice-wall attitude or my objectives.
I could do this job alone. But it would be easier to have someone on the inside. Someone smart. Someone curious. And humans were always desperate.
Besides…
No. That’s all it was. Do the job. Retrieve the piece of the Regalia. Get back to the Penumbra.
She didn’t matter to me any more than that, and neither did my past.
