It wasn’t going well. In the sense that it wasn’t going quickly. The Steward was an extremely cautious player who rarely bet on the first round. And while I did my best to affect the shuffles, there was a limit to how specific I could be. After the shuffle ended and the first three cards flopped, I’d find mixed results in my favor, and be more or less confident in how the rest of the round would go. Even if he only bet the minimum, the results were inevitable.

If it was just a question of winning, it was already in the bag.

The problem was I was pretty sure it wasn’t about who won. The Steward had hinted that gambling was a method of getting a gauge on a person. It made sense. You could gauge a far more authentic picture of what someone was like when they had money on the line. Caution, greed, ability to evaluate risk, performance under pressure. He was looking for something, and I wasn’t sure what.

That he’d not-so-casually presented the information that he had a patron—or at least something that functioned as a patron—begged more questions than it answered. Possibly a bluff, to dissuade his opponent from cheating or a distraction from something else. I decided early to not use Azure to cheat—between Probability Cascade and the low-action happening early in the rounds, it was better not to risk it. Especially with a potential patron in play. Instead, he was lurking in the shadows of The Steward’s surrounding men, making sure none of them were paying disproportionate attention to anything problematic.

He wasn’t running squelch, so there was a real possibility of cross-talk and outside interference.

Of course, Occam’s razor said he simply wasn’t aware. Squelch was a feat that was more beneficial the less well known it was. Miles told me about it during the transposition, and I’d told a handful of others. Considering how often I ran into it passing through other regions, it was safe to assume it was a known factor in most leadership circles around the city. But it was rarely discussed openly, and well-hidden in a proverbial mountain of perks. If these people were as isolated as they seemed, it was entirely possible that no one had stumbled across it.

Which meant they’d gotten to this point—holding a sizable chunk of territory—entirely without it. More than impressive. Even if it was hard to picture. And it presented an irresistible opportunity.

He folded, and I collected the pot, netting a measly two-hundred selve. At this rate, Sunny could leisurely walk out of the settlement and be long gone by the time we finished.

After the reset, I bent back the corner of my cards. Two-of-Diamonds, Five-of-Spades. No existing pair or possibility of a strait or flush.

Dogwater hand.

“Found the spotter.” Azure communicated excitedly, voice unusually high. “Guy’s directly behind you, staying out of the others’ peripheral.”

I tilted my head, trying to get a look at the guy without giving it away. Dreadlocks framed a craggy face masked in focus. His thumbs were hooked into his belt. And he was all but openly ogling my side of the table.

I bet well over the minimum before the flop, testing Azure’s theory.

And The Steward raised, all but confirming it.

“How are they communicating?” I asked my summon, keeping my expression neutral.

“Hand signals.”

Old school.

That The Steward was cheating was disappointing, but not surprising. After all, we were both cheating. It made sense. Only a fool would wager giving a stranger access to his region over a mere card game.

However, this revelation complicated the way forward with his so-called judgment of character. With the spotter, he could see my cards even when he folded. Winning would take forever and out me as a cheater, the sort of hands I was regularly pulling with Probability Cascade being statistically unlikely, if not borderline impossible.

I needed to incentivize keeping his word. And I had a good idea how.

“Leave The Steward alone. Otherwise, gloves are off. Surface scans on everyone in the room. Go invasive if there’s something worthwhile. Don’t get detected.”

“What am I looking for?”

“Anything about their situation, their relationship with regions nineteen and twenty, resources. Anything and everything they’re afraid of. Then summarize it.”

“And the spotter?” Azure asked.

I considered that. “What’s his int?”

“Not an idiot, but nothing to write home about.”

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“Leave him for now.”

Needed to play the minimum for a while, give Azure time to work. I glanced over my cards, sighed, and folded. The Steward wordlessly collected the chips and cards and shuffled.

“How am I holding up?” I asked.

“Hm?” Now that the game was underway, he seemed annoyed by any attempt at conversation.

“Guess I’m curious if you’ve gleaned any insights, through the tao of Texas Hold ‘em.”

“Mock all you like. It does not matter. While I cannot yet make a definitive ruling, one thing is certain.” Stuart almost chewed the words. “I trust you less than when we started.”

Because you’re losing. Naturally, I didn’t say it out loud. Not that he was a sore loser, more with the combination of cautious play and cheating, he should have been winning. And he wasn’t.

“Just out of curiosity,” I started, tossing five-hundred selve worth of chips on the table and raising the pot. “If you wanted to make sure no one in this room was tossing messages back and forth, how would you do that?”

“Are you tossing messages back and forth?” Stuart asked, point blank. He called, evening out the pot.

“No. Not the point. The question is, how would you stop it?”

His expression was impassive. But not without the slightest glimmer of perplexity, as if I’d asked how one might invert gravity if they were so inclined.

“I do not have this concern. But in an increasingly complex situation, the simplest solution is best.”

“Meaning?”

“Limiting variables. To start, I would send everyone but the two of us out of this room.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “And instate a timer to increase the tempo of the game. Naturally, this carries with it other risks.” Stuart grimaced. “Not to mention questions of intention.”

Like why a person who wasn’t cheating would bring up counter-measures during a card game.

“Okay, I’ve got plenty to work with.” Azure returned, a slight imprint in the shadow at my feet.

Region nineteen and twenty had been fighting since the transposition. Nineteen ripped the other region off, potentially screwing them in the late hours, only for twenty to almost immediately make a comeback. The resource region nineteen “won,” for completion was titanslate, a rare metal with a high mana resonance that could hold significantly more potent enchantments than something like steel, seeded within the naturally occurring realms of flauros within the region.

Of course, it wasn’t that simple. If the forge fire ran too cool, the metal wouldn’t melt, and a forge fire that ran too hot would obliterate the magical properties that made it desirable. The difference between the two was only a matter of degrees.

There was only one reliable method for stabilizing the forge fire at a perfect temperature. Kolbor. A substance which, to the knowledge of everyone present, only existed within region twenty.

Cue the ensuing clusterfuck. Which was, coincidentally, the only thing allowing the Galleria to remain untouched. They were an entrenched, otherwise unaffiliated third party. Neither region nineteen or twenty could afford to commit to an extended engagement with them, for fear of creating an opening for the opposing region to swoop in. Not that they hadn’t tried. Both regions had sent envoys to the Galleria, all of which were politely but firmly turned away. An utterly prudent decision, if you didn’t have a manner of controlling the flow of information.

The steward and his people existed in a perilous balance.

Of course, none of this was my problem. But in a vacuum, I was more inclined to help these people than either of the surrounding regions. Both nineteen and twenty had turned their regions into wastelands out of little more than short-sighted greed.

The Galleria folk, by contrast, just wanted to exist.

I increased the tempo of play, slowly, but surely draining Stuart of his chips through the blinds. He maintained stoicism better than most, but after a while, his irritation shone through.

“I have a proposition.” I said, finally sensing the desperation I was looking for.

“What sort of proposition?” There was a growl in his throat.

I lowered my voice. “I have no desire to embarrass you in front of your men. But it’s obvious where this is going. In less than an hour, the game will be over. And you will have nothing to show for it.”

“The money is not the point.”

“Sure,” I leaned forward. “It’s about evaluation. So, evaluate. I’m in a hurry, so next hand, after the flop, I’m going to raise my bet. If you win, it will be enough for you to break even and then some. If you lose, you keep the remaining chips. We never agreed to play until one of us was out, correct?”

He nodded slowly. “So. That would be the last hand?”

“Exactly.”

“This proposal is slanted. The onus of time is on you. I have no such constraints, and if I wait, the cards may turn.”

“Fair enough. Then I propose we make a side-bet. One that will be invalidated if you don’t call.” I smiled. “Win or lose, I’ll give you a key piece of information that will make your current situation far easier to manage. If you don’t find that information useful, then you may consider this agreement invalidated.”

Interest sparked in his eyes. “That is a lot of power to leave in my hands.”

“Let’s just call it a demonstration of trust.”

The Steward didn’t seem to like that framing, but it wasn’t an offer he could realistically ignore. A completely unscrupulous person could simply absorb the information, deem it unworthy, and call the game off on a technicality. With the terms I’d set, a more scrupulous person could still evaluate the cards they were holding after the flop and back out if they had nothing. And a person in-between, with a spotter, held almost no risk at all.

He held a stack in his hand, flipping a chip from the bottom to top mindlessly. “The longer we sit across from each other, the more I am inclined to believe you are the devil my angel suspects you to be.”

Damn patrons.

I leaned back, feigning disinterest. “Maybe. Purely geographically, you’re surrounded by devils. How many of them offer unconditional aid?”

As he reshuffled the cards and dealt, he didn’t respond. But the doubt in his eyes spoke for him. If I did this right, when the time came, he’d make the bet.

It was already over.