“Thank you,” I said as softly as I could. And I didn’t just mean for the coins.
He still wasn’t looking at me, sorting his own coins into neat piles of five. But there—the briefest jerk of his chin. Acknowledgment.
Greta, who had provided the bone dice, started the round. We set our bets—mine as conservative as possible—and began. The rules came back to me as we went through a few tosses. Unlike at the gambling hall, where the game had been played seriously, here it was clear the game was just a pretext to taunt each other.
I enjoyed the game. It gave me something to focus on beyond my own anxieties that plagued me at every moment. When I rolled the dice, I wasn’t a necromancer or a vampire or Raphael’s fledgling. I was just another player.
And I wasn’t half bad. My fifteen coins turned to twenty, twenty-five…
“What exactly did Thea teach you?” Demos groused. He was down to two pieces of silver.
“How to win, I suppose.” I tossed the dice for my second throw of the round.
Larissa laughed when threes came up on all sides. Just what I’d needed. I claimed the spoils and passed the dice to Raphael.
“Then she taught you well,” he said, taking them and rolling them in his palm.
Another hour passed. Our table attendees dropped by half, as people left to find their rooms once they’d lost their coins, or interest.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Larissa murmured. “I mean, there’s luck, and then there’s this.”
I’d thrown precisely what I needed again—a one, two, four. “It’s only my second time playing. Beginner’s luck, perhaps.”
“It must be Lixa’s luck herself,” Demos groused. He’d folded, but stayed seated with us, bantering back and forth. His shoulders had lost a slight amount of stiffness, which was a win for our frosty relationship at the moment. Though he was probably staying here to ensure I didn’t poison Raphael again.
My surprise must have shown on my face because the general frowned at me. “What?”
“I’m surprised you’re invoking a witch goddess, that’s all.”
Demos snorted. “The gods are the gods, neither witch nor vampire. Just because we don’t pray to them doesn’t mean we don’t know them. Though perhaps Nightsworn should start.”
Larissa had tossed the dice, and it had just cost her the remainder of her silver. “Too late.” She shoved back on the stool. “I’m going to get another drink. Anyone want anything?”
We shook our heads—my goblet was still full, after all—and resumed. The rounds went quicker now. Another vampire dropped, then a third.
It was just Raphael and me now. His pile was almost as large as mine. We tossed the dice back and forth, and his pile began to shrink. Fifty coins went to forty-four, thirty-eight, thirty-one, then twenty-five. I had four times that.
“Perhaps you need Lixa too,” I teased.Bragging is unladylike,my mother’s voice said in my head.
But my mother had never won a pile of silver from the king of the vampires.
Raphael leaned back, considering the dice and me. “I doubt she’ll grace me with it. But there’s another bit of luck I might borrow. Demos, will you lend us your set?”
I twisted to look at the general. “You carry a set as well?”
The side of Raphael’s mouth turned up. “He always takes them when he travels. Thea ordered him to.”
Demos’s eyes narrowed, but he reached into his bag on the floor and pulled out a pouch, much like the one Greta had. Butwhat rolled out, plink-plinking over the table, weren’t carved bones, but stone. They were different colors, beautiful red, purple, green. The common feature on all of them was the “one” was carved into a stylized pupil.
“She said she wanted to keep aneyeon him while he was away.”
“They’ve never been particularly lucky for me,” Demos groused. “Cursed, if anything. Maybe it’s bad luck they aren’t bone.”
I lifted one, turning the cold stone over in my fingers. Demos watched me handle the die like I was liable to swallow it whole. “Is it so unusual?”
“It’s unorthodox, but with her, what isn’t?” Demos said. He did a good job sounding beleaguered when I knew full well he adored the oracle. Maybe more than adored, but that wasn’t my business.
“She certainly has her own way of doing things,” I agreed. I missed her fiercely. I wished she could’ve been here, bantering with Demos and swiping silver from everyone, instead of doing whatever she was off taking care of.
