“It was definitely you,” Velario retorted.
Danten turned to Reyn. “This is slanderous. They are besmirching my honor, implying that I would waste brandy. It was the good stuff, too.”
“Which is why we were all afraid of anyone finding out we had been drinking it,” Selona added. She looked over at Reyn, her eyes twinkling. “We had drunk quite a bit at that point, and for some reason we decided that the ruined card would give us away to our parents. So we went out, stumbling all over each other, in the middle of the night, to fetch a replacement.”
Velario groaned and put his head in his hands. “I remember that. How drunk were we that we thought that was less likely to get us in trouble?”
“Very,” Selona answered him before continuing the tale for Reyn. “Not only did we decide that we needed to replace the card right that second, we tracked down a similar deck and pulled out the needed card, and then burned the rest to hide what we had done. It didn’t even occur to us to burn the old deck and replace the entire thing.”
Danten laughed. “I forgot about that. We were very drunk.”
“I can’t remember though,” Selona said in a tone that struck Reyn as off. “Was it the emperor of spears or the queen of roses?”
“It’s the four of roses,” Reyn said without thinking about it.
Selona smiled, and Reyn realized that this was the plot. For whatever reason, Selona had set the entire evening in motion just to get Reyn to name that card.
Danten broke the silence first. “How do you know that?”
Reyn looked from him to Velario, then shrugged. “The red on that card is a slightly different shade, and the lettering is different. Even the back of the card is slightly different. The border around the edge is narrower. Look for yourself; it’s in Velario’s hand right now.”
Velario pulled the four of roses out and placed it in the center of the table. Danten pulled the nine of roses from his own hand and placed it next to the four. Everyone inspected the cards in silence.
After a minute, Velario flipped them both over. Then he looked at Reyn. “That card has been in my hand the entire game. You noticed the difference when I flipped through the deck earlier?”
“Yes.”
Velario looked at her a moment longer, for once not challenging her, but evaluating, weighing. Then he looked over at Selona and nodded once.
Reyn didn’t know what verdict had been reached, but she suspected her afternoon of identifying banknotes for Selona had led to this moment. Had she just proven herself to Velario? And if so, why? What was going on?
The morning aftertheir card game, Velario swallowed his misgivings and asked Selona to arrange a meeting with Lady Reyn. For the sake of secrecy, he went to Reyn. It felt like he was paying a call on her as a suitor rather than a businessman, and he didn’t like it—especially since Selona had planned the location of their meeting.
Reyn and Selona were already seated across from each other in the parlor when he arrived. Velario took the seat next to his cousin, but couldn’t bring himself to broach the reason for his visit.
Reyn watched him for a heartbeat, then looked back at Selona. “Are you finally going to explain what was going on with the cards last night?”
“I was proving a point. Velario didn’t believe me when I described your eye for detail.”
“Ah.” Reyn turned to him. “You have need of someone to identify the stitching in a rival’s waistcoat, so you can order the same for yourself? Fideo’s tailor uses a double herringbone around the seams. Lord Enzi favors cable stitch around the pockets.”
Either Reyn had spent more time in close proximity with those gentlemen than Velario wanted to contemplate, or she really did notice details as a matter of course. Velario pulled out a banknote from his own waistcoat pocket. He wondered what double herringbone and cable stitch were, and if he had either.
He must have looked at his waistcoat a bit too intently as he fetched the banknote, for when he looked up again, Reyn’s blue eyes were dancing.
“Your tailor prefers chain stitch, Lord Velario.” She glanced at the banknote in his hand. “And that matches the bills from Farleigh Street and Velale Square.”
Velario’s eyebrows drew together. What in the world did that mean?
“She means it is counterfeit,” Selona added.
Reyn’s eyes went wide. She looked back at Selona. “Counterfeit? Those notes were different because they are forgeries?”
Selona nodded. “That’s why we are here. We can identify the counterfeit money, but we take considerably longer than you. You have the eye of a true artist.”
Reyn snorted. It was such an unladylike sound that it took Velario completely by surprise. Reyn did not look the type of woman who could make such a noise.
“I am no artist. I gave up drawing years ago. Nothing ever looks right when I draw it.”
