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The room narrowed to just the table It had been a while since Quentin had seen his co slu to happen He bore down He could feel Lionel probing, trying to shove cards around within the unplayed deck, and he shoved back They blew all four aces in as s For kicks Quentin split his concentration and used a simple spell to twitch the sex amulet out of Lionel’s pocket and onto the floor But if that distracted Lionel he didn’t show it
Probability fields began to fluctuate crazily around them—invisible, but you could see secondary effects from them in the form of minor but very unlikely chance occurrences Their hair and clothes stirred in iht land on its edge and balance there, or spin in place on one corner A le flake of snow sifted down out of it The onlookers backed away a few steps Quentin beat a jack of hearts with the king, then lost the next trick with the exact same cards reversed He played a deuce—and Lionel swore under his breath when he realized he was so the extra card with the rules of poker on it
Reality was softening and ame On the second-to-last trick Lionel played the queen of spades, and Quentin frowned—did her face look the slightest bit like Julia’s? Either way there was no such thing as a one-eyed queen, let alone one with a bird on her shoulder He spent his last king against it, or he thought he did: when he laid it down it had becoain there was no such card, especially not one hite hair like his own
Even Lionel looked surprised So the cards—it was like there was so with both of them With his next and last card it became clear that Lionel had lost all control over his hand because he turned over a queen of no known suit, a Queen of Glass Her face was translucent cellophane, sapphire-blue It was Alice, to the life
“What the shit,” Lionel said, shaking his head
What the shit was right Quentin clung to his nerve The sight of Alice’s face shook hiut, but it also stiffened his resolve It re to panic In fact he was going to take advantage of this—Alice was going to help hiic isof clubs out of his boot with nuray suit the king wore, and the branch that was sprouting in front of his face
It was over Game and match Quentin sat back and took a deep, shaky breath
“Good,” the bird said simply “Next”
Lionel didn’t look happy, but he didn’t say anything either, just crouched down and collected his aot up and went to stand against the ith others, his knees weak, his heart still racing, revving past the red line
He was happy to get out of the gaht he’d see his long-lost ex-girlfriend appear on a face card What just happened? Maybe someone here knewto throw hiame But who? Who would bother? Nobody cared if he won or lost, not anyht noas Quentin
Maybe he was doing it hi up fro his spellwork Or was it Alice herself, wherever she hatever she atching hi a little fun? Well, let her have it He was focused on the present, that hat ether The past had no jurisdiction here Not even Alice
The red-faced guy won his ga out of the ordinary So did the Indian guy The wo her lip as she laid down a blatantly impossible five deuces in a row, followed by a joker, then a Go Directly to Jail! card froot a bye for soot a bye too Pixie passed faster than any of theetting tired
When it was all over Lionel handed the woman who’d lost a brick of hundred-dollar bills for her trouble He handed another one to the red-faced man
“Thank you for your time,” the bird said
“Me?” The man stared down at the money in his hand “But I passed!”
“Yes,” Lionel said “But you got here late And you seem like kind of an asshole”
The ot even redder than it already was
“Go ahead,” Lionel said He spread his arms “Make a move”
The ry or so crazy that he couldn’t read the odds
“Fuck you!” he said
That was his move He slammed the door behind him
Quentin dropped into the arh it was da out He hoped the testing was over with, he wouldn’t have trusted hi him there were only five left: Quentin, Pluuy, and the kid
This all seeo It wasn’t too late, he could still walk away He hadn’t seen any deal-breakers yet, but he hadn’t seen a lot to inspire confidence either This could be his way back in, or it could be the road to sos that went nowhere and left hiht, back into the cold and the wet
But he didn’t It was ti to make this work It wasn’t like he had a lot of better offers
“You think this is going to be enough?” Quentin asked the bird “Just five of us?”
“Six, with Lionel And yes In fact I would say that it is exactly right”
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” Pixie said “What’s the target?”
The bird didn’t keep them in suspense
“The object we are looking for is a suitcase Brown leather, average size, rammed RCJ The make is Louis Vuitton”
It actually had a pretty credible French accent
“Fancy,” she said “What’s in it?”
“I do not know”
“You don’t know?” It was the first tie boy had spoken “Why the hell do you want it then?”
“In order to find out”
“Huh What do the initials stand for?”
“Rupert John Chatwin,” the bird said crisply