by Emma Savant
“What can I get you?” the bartender asked. He had to be an elf; his voice was low and musical but still carried perfectly through the cacophony of music and voices.
“We’ll have—” Brendan started, and I cut him off.
“I’ll have club soda with a pinch of fairy dust,” I said loudly. I turned to Brendan. “I ended up in jail last time you got my drinks at a club, remember?”
He grimaced and ordered a Pixie Stinger. I raised an eyebrow at him.
“What?” he said.
“Didn’t realize you drank on duty.”
“Some of us can hold our liquor,” he said.
I snorted at him. “Yeah, I’ll bet.”
Alcohol wasn’t restricted in the Glimmering world the way it was in Humdrum society. We had far more potent substances available, and it was up to the proprietor of each establishment what sorts of rules they wanted to enforce for their patrons. But except for the first time I’d met Brendan—which had been a very bad day—I’d always followed the Hum guidelines and avoided alcohol. All the underage Daggers did. We were always busy training and studying, which meant no one had time to risk a hangover.
I paid for my drink and followed Brendan toward the back of the club. A set of shallow stairs led us into a space filled with gaming tables, and the pulsing club music instantly faded. It was replaced by the upbeat crooning of a live musician on a corner stage; I couldn’t quite make out his face through the haze of sweet smoke that coiled through the air.
We walked slowly through the room, and I sipped my drink and tried to act like I belonged. A group of mountain dwarves in an intense game of poker huddled over their cards, and a cluster of elves and witches lingered at a roulette wheel.
Most of the people, though, were clustered around a velvet-topped table that held piles of gold-backed tarot cards and silver dice. A pair of snakes, one white and one black, lay coiled together in a silver moat embedded into the center of the table around a central bowl filled with coins.
My heart fluttered with an uneasy feeling of recognition.
“Whoa,” I breathed. “Is that…?”
Mesmer was a game that had been all but banned in the Glimmering world. It was too dangerous, the Faerie Court claimed, and too few people were properly equipped to train and handle the snakes at the center of the game.
Mesmer had originally been invented by witches and used the tarot cards, but I’d never seen a game in person. I leaned forward to get a better look over the shoulder of the water sprite in front of me.
“Careful,” Brendan said. He put a hand on my shoulder.
I didn’t like him telling me what to do, but I did like the weight of his warm hand. I let it stay there as I stood on tiptoes.
The dealer shuffled out a fresh hand of cards and gave a single card to each of the three players at the table. They all turned expectantly toward one of the men. He surveyed his cards, then narrowed his eyes and surveyed the other stacks on the table.
He tossed a silver coin into the bowl at the center of the table, then picked up one of the dice and rolled it. It had more sides than a usual gaming die, and turned up an eight.
The man threw another silver coin into the bowl.
“Was the Eight of Cups in the previous hand?” the player asked.
The dealer searched through what I assumed was a discard pile and pulled out the Eight of Cups. She set it faceup on the table.
The man was thoughtful for a long moment, and the tension of the people around us built.
“The Eight of Pentacles,” he said.
He flipped the card over onto the table. The people around us groaned and exclaimed in either disappointment or exultation, depending on where they’d placed their bets.
“The Eight of Wands,” the dealer said for the benefit of the audience. “Roll.”
The man’s hand was stiff as he threw the die. A six.
“Even,” the dealer announced. “Fire.”
From within the silver moat, the white snake stirred. It lifted its head, and its forked tongue flicked at the air. The elegant creature slithered out of the moat and along the table toward the man.
They stared at one another, man and serpent, for a long, silent moment. The witch next to me hissed in through her teeth when the snake’s tongue flicked out again.
The man didn’t blink.
Finally, the snake turned and slithered back to the bowl. The people around me let out a collective sigh, and I did, too.
I’d never been bitten by an ignis serpent, but tales of the fiery pain that burned through its victim’s veins were legendary.
The dealer nodded to the woman on the first man’s right. She tossed a coin into the bowl and rolled her die. It came up as an eleven.
“That means the card in her hand is in the minor arcana,” Brendan whispered into my ear.
I glanced over at him—why did he know so much about this game?—and quickly turned my attention back to the woman. She put a thoughtful finger to her lips, then tossed another silver coin.
“Additional card,” the woman said.
The dealer laid a card faceup on the table in front of the woman. The Seven of Cups. I winced a little inside; it was a card of indecisiveness and too many options. If my guess was correct, the card was warning the woman that she didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell at guessing the card in her hand.
She pursed her lips and tossed another coin into the bowl.
“Additional card.”
The Knight of Wands. A risk-taker who follows adventure.
“The King of Pentacles,” the woman said.
She flipped over her card.
“The Nine of Cups.”
Finally, the woman rolled the die, and it came up as—not a number. I squinted, and Brendan leaned over to me.
“The star,” he said. “It means she doesn’t have to confront a snake this round.”
The crowd sighed, some in relief, some in disappointment, and the game moved on. The third man rolled his die, then requested a card from the discard pile, then a fresh card. He made his guess, wrongly, and rolled an odd number.
The white snake slithered toward him, and I held my breath. He stared at the snake, and the snake stared back. It was a contest of wills, or so I understood from the few times I’d heard people talk about the game.
The snake shifted, and the crowd tensed. A moment later, though, the creature appeared to relax. It turned around, ready to go back to its moat.
In a flash, it spun around and struck, sinking its fangs deep into the man’s cheek.
He screamed, and the crowd around us erupted into screams and cheers and expletives and laughter. A look of agony took over the man’s face, and he shrieked and clawed at the serpent.
The dealer waved her hand sharply, and he froze, his eyes wide with pain but the rest of his body unable to move. She calmly stepped around the table and unlatched the snake from the man’s skin. Blood poured down his face.
The dealer scratched the snake on top of the head, and the creature closed its eyes, apparently unaware of the damage it had just caused. She set it carefully back in the moat, then snapped her fingers high above her head. A large bouncer—at least part troll, by the looks of it—came and hoisted the snake’s frozen victim up from under his armpits. The dealer waved her hand again, releasing the binding charm, and the man fell limply into the bouncer’s arms as his eyes rolled up in his head.
I clutched at Brendan’s arm.
“He’ll live,” Brendan said, jaw tight. “Probably.”
13
I grabbed Brendan’s hand and dragged him to one of the chairs at the edge of the room. I downed my drink, the fairy dust tingling through my veins with a jolt of energy I didn’t need anymore.
“Stay cool,” Brendan warned me in a low voice.
I nodded tightly. We couldn’t draw attention to ourselves. But that game back there—
“That was vile,” I whispered. “Did you hear them laughing?”
&
nbsp; “That’s the game.”
“It’s disgusting.”
“Now you know what we’re dealing with,” Brendan said. His gaze darted around at the room behind us. He leaned back in his chair and sipped his drink like he was in the middle of a relaxing night out; his eyes were the thing that gave away his nerves. “If we’re even barking up the right tree here.”
Mesmer did seem like my mystery wolf’s kind of game. I couldn’t forget the feeling of his tongue against my face.
“We need to get more information,” Brendan said. “Let’s circulate. We need to know who the owner of this club is. I doubt most people here will know whether he’s a werewolf or not, but a name will give us something to go off of.”
There was a second bar in the gaming room, so I ordered another club soda, this time with a shot of dragon tears. A tall man standing farther down the bar nodded at me, and I offered a slight smile back. Seconds later, he was at my elbow.
“You look a little young to be here,” he said.
I raised an eyebrow. “You look a little old to be hitting on me.”
He wasn’t that old, maybe only in his early thirties, but the response was enough to make him laugh.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
“I’ve already ordered, thanks,” I said. The bartender handed me my drink, and I tossed him a couple of coins, enough for the drink and a tip. I winked at the man next to me. “Maybe you can get the next round.”
“Are you here to play or watch?” he said.
“Watch.” I swirled my soda, and a burst of steam from the dragon tears erupted as the bubbles fizzed around in the glass. “Heard this was the spot for mesmer, and I came to see if it was true.”
“Happy with what you found?”
“I don’t know if happy’s the word,” I said. “The game is vicious.”
“The game is as vicious as the stakes are high,” the man said. “No risk, no reward.”
“Do you play?”
“No,” he said, grinning wryly. “I’m not crazy. I’m here for the poker and the women.”
I rolled my eyes at him. He smirked.
“And I have to say, while the poker is average, the women are excellent.”
I laughed. “Wow. Wow.”
“Too much?”
“By a mile. But I admire your effort.”
I raised my glass, and he clinked it. I took a drink. The hot dragon tears burned all the way down.
“How long has this place been open?” I said. “I just heard about it, but it looks like I’m the last one.”
He shrugged. “Don’t know. I only heard about it a week ago myself.”
“Who runs this place?” I asked. “Guy’s got guts to run mesmer games in sight of that many people.” I nodded toward the other room; the pulsing lights illuminated a crush of dancing bodies.
“Oh, they’re not,” the man said. “Anyone who came here just to dance doesn’t know the gaming room is here.”
I watched the dancers for a moment, and realized he was right. Their gazes never landed on anyone in this room, even out of idle curiosity. Several people even stood at the top of the shallow flight of stairs with their backs to us.
“Wall glamour?” I said.
“Most likely.”
“Lucky I found my way in.”
“Lucky you had someone who trusted you with the directions,” he said.
Which begged the question, who had trusted Brendan with the directions? And why?
I smiled up at the man. “I’m going to go catch the start of the next mesmer.” I gestured with my drink toward the table, which had attracted a cluster of people so thick that I couldn’t see the table through them.
“Catch you later?” he said.
“Maybe.” I tossed him a smile and left for the table. I didn’t really want to see the snakes attack again, but it was clear that the mesmer game was the highlight of the night, and anyone who knew anything was likely to be either watching or playing.
A beautiful woman with a buzz cut and earrings that dangled almost to her shoulders stepped aside to let me in front of her.
“Thanks,” I said.
“I’m tall,” she said with a shrug. “Always end up blocking people.”
The dealer set up the table for the next round. Seven people sat around it, some looking nervous, others stone-faced.
“You seen a mesmer game before?” the woman asked. “You’re clutching that glass like you’re trying to break it.”
I laughed and tried to loosen my grip.
“Just caught the end of the last game,” I said. “It’s so much more intense than I’d imagined.”
“It’s not for the queasy, that’s for sure.”
“How long does it take people to recover from the snakes?” I asked. “The last guy I saw looked like he was about to die.”
“They always do,” she said. “The pain only lasts a while, though, and the pot’s usually big enough that it’s worth the risk.”
“Do you play?”
“I did once.” She grinned. “The rush is something else.”
“Of playing or of getting bitten?”
She laughed. “Playing. I’ve never had the bite.”
The first player rolled her die, then requested two cards from the dealer’s deck. She guessed wrongly, and the black snake held her gaze for a long time before slithering back to its moat.
I leaned back. “How does the snake decide whether to attack?”
“It’s a contest of wills,” the woman said. “The snake’s eyes are hypnotizing. You have to hold on to yourself and not give in long enough for the snake to get bored.”
“How do the snakes know what to do?”
“Oh, I have no idea. You’d have to ask the dealer. She’s the only one who can control them. I think the club owner bought the snakes from a trainer originally. Had to import them from overseas.”
“Do you know the club owner?” I asked, trying to sound impressed instead of suspicious.
She shrugged one shoulder and looked back toward the table, where the next hand was beginning. “Not personally. I chatted with the dealer about him a few nights ago. He’s a private guy. I was hoping to meet him tonight, but he’s recovering from a cold, and I don’t think he’s here.”
My heart sank. I nodded at her and turned my eyes—if not my full attention—back to the game.
I watched the next few rounds and tried to make my own speculations as to the cards in the players’ hands. I knew my tarot deck inside and out and could usually make a fair guess at the cards in someone else’s hand when I was on my own. It was a simple enough divination exercise, and one that all the young Daggers played when we’d first sharpened our skills.
These cards, though, felt entirely impervious to my intuition. The gold backing had something to do with it, and I suspected everything on the table was imbued with spells to prevent the players from engaging in any sort of psychic cheating.
After a few hands, someone touched my elbow. I glanced back to see Brendan and made room for him to slip in beside me.
“Anything?” he murmured.
I shook my head almost imperceptibly and cut my eyes at him, warning him to hush. He fell silent, and the game played out in front of us. The white snake locked eyes with the fourth player, and their heads swayed back and forth in a perfect mirror image for a moment before the snake turned around. The crowd on every side of us exhaled as one.
“Can I refresh your drink?” he said after a while, once my glass was almost empty.
“I’ll come with you,” I said. “I need to use the bathroom.”
We carefully disengaged ourselves from the crowd around the mesmer table and went back to the bar. I really did have to use the bathroom, so I left him to order our drinks with a firm reminder that I was on club soda only tonight. When I came back, he had found a table in a corner, hidden from the view of the rest of the room by a full poker table.
I slid into the seat opposite him and immediat
ely noticed the impatient light in his eyes.
“What did you learn?” I said as quietly as possible.
14
He looked out at the room as if we weren’t having a conversation at all. His lips barely moved when he replied.
“Owner is definitely a wolf,” he said. “I can smell them everywhere.”
“He’s sick tonight,” I said, obscuring my mouth with my glass. “Dealer might know his name.”
“I’d rather not ask her.”
“Agreed.”
Brendan pulled a pack of playing cards out of his jacket pocket. He shuffled them.
“Do you know how to play Cerberus?”
“What self-respecting Glim doesn’t?”
He dealt my hand of seven cards, and I glanced over them with one eye while keeping the other on the people in the room around us. The mesmer table was still crowded, and a group of people at the poker table next to us were chatting amiably.
“They’re wolves,” Brendan said under his breath, his lips again barely moving.
I glanced sharply over at them. I caught the hints immediately—the subtle tension in their shoulders, the way their eyes seemed to take in everything, and the slight deference they all paid to one of the group, a woman whose posture was slinky and tight all at once.
“Pack you know?” I said, playing my first card.
He shook his head. I’d been playing Cerberus since I was a child, and that made it easy to put only some of my attention on the game while reserving the rest for the conversations at the table next to us.
At first, they were just talking about the game and a girl one of the guys had been pursuing. It felt pointless to sit here and eavesdrop if these wolves—assuming Brendan’s nose and my eyes were even right—were only having an ordinary conversation. But when I suggested that we circulate and try to pick up more information, Brendan shook his head.
“A good hunter needs patience,” he said softly. “I thought a Dagger would know that.”
“Knowing something and having the gift of sitting in one place are two different things,” I muttered. I laid down my final card. “I win.”
