2 years later.

  Seven put her boots up on the table, looked at her cards, and leaned back, grinning. Everyone around her groaned.

  “Oh come off it, Seven. You’ve had every winning hand tonight.”

  “She’s bluffing—she has to be. There’s just no way—”

  “Of course there’s a way. She’s always lucky.”

  “Not lucky forever,” Vork said quietly, his eyes scanning her. Seven felt her smile slip at the heavyset man’s scrutiny. “How long’s she got left? A week before her trial?”

  “It’ll be fine,” she said quickly, checking her cards again. “They wouldn’t let me run around if they were going to convict me.”

  “That’s not what I heard through the grapevine,” Vork said, leaning forward. The other players subtly turned towards him, avoiding Seven’s gaze entirely. “I heard they’re considering it all—up to and including exile.”

  Seven felt the blood drain from her face, but forced a laugh from between her lips, popping her chair back on the ground to slam her hands into the table. “They wouldn’t dare. Everyone knows that dice was rotten.”

  “The dice or the player?” Vork asked, lighting a cigar. Seven ignored him, watching her remaining opponent from across the table. Vork had nothing better to do than get under her skin—besides that, his disdain for her was no secret. Luck above, the entire city’s disdain for her wasn’t exactly hidden. Even the players at the table with her now—people she’d loosely consider friends—avoided her eyes. They’d celebrate if she were gone, she knew. More chips in their pockets, in any case.

  “Are you calling or raising?” she demanded, her gloved hand tapping the table. “I’ve got at least three more games to play.” Lan twisted his mouth sideways, staring at his cards, then Seven. Lan, at least, might not celebrate if she was gone—she was practically the lanky boy’s only friend—but he might not mind it, either. Lan was constantly bouncing from one project to another. Mostly at Seven’s behest, of course, but he had plenty of his own projects to fill his time. One of those was abandoned on the table in front of him, a tangle of metal and springs.

  “I’m thinkin’!” he insisted. Seven sighed, then leaned back again. Better that he took a while to think. Better that he burned more of her time. She could feel the dice tucked away in her pocket, practically burning there with its presence. It was, quite frankly, illegal, but Seven would be damned if she was going to go to trial without a dice in her hands. What if they did exile her? Wouldn’t it be better to have something to fight back with? Even if it wouldn’t last long in her hands.

  They wouldn’t dare do it, she told herself, though the words felt hollow. Her trial had been ongoing for two years, but the most damning evidence had already been presented; the crooked dice was legitimate, and Seven was, for lack of a better word, screwed. The only reason she was allowed free at all was because of her status as royalty. But she’d long ago left the palace, and the only thing keeping a roof over her head were these meager gambling matches with nobodies like Vork.

  She could win, yes, but she couldn’t go anywhere with those wins. The meager funds she received were barely enough to live on alone, and even though she won more than she lost, there were still plenty of nights where she went without.

  Most importantly, her pathetic life did little to help her with her actual goal: finding Rook and clearing her name. She could hardly launch a proper investigation with a few chips a week, and now, with the trial looming over her head, she might lose even the little bit of freedom she’d carved out over the years.

  She shook herself from her thoughts as Lan tossed a few more chips on the table, and the twins and Vork all whistled in tandem. “Raise,” he said. Seven played with her stack of chips, pretending to think. There was little real reason to do so—she had pocket Aces—but any time she could burn was good. Behind Lan, the festival was still in full swing, tables of dice laid out in the streets by vendors hoping to make a few chips. Would they notice a missing dice? And, if they did, would they bother calling the authorities?

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  She shrugged, then tossed a few more chips onto the pile, matching Lan’s bet. Lan swore under his breath. “You really have them, don’t you?” When she didn’t answer, he finally shoved the rest of his chips into the pile, looking resigned. “I should get some sort of kickback from charity for all the money I toss your way,” he said.

  Trying not to grin, Seven matched his bet, and they flipped the last card. Three Queens. Seven set her two Aces down with care and grace, watching Lan’s face turn red. He tossed two Kings at her along with his pile, furious.

  “That’s the second time tonight, Seven,” he snapped. “The odds of that are insane.”

  “Improbable doesn’t mean impossible,” she replied, sweeping the lot of chips into her bag.

  Vork blew out a puff of air from his cigar, watching her with dark eyes. “Told ya,” he said. “Rotten princess, rotten dice, rotten luck.”

  Seven froze, her hand on her bag. “Are you implying that I’m cheating, Vork?”

  He held up his hands in mock defense. “Oh, of course not, your highness. It’s just that, well, how does a girl on trial for cheating come up with good luck so often? No one gets lucky all the time, but if they add a little bit of extra help into their hands, they sure can, huh?”

  “I didn’t get any help,” she snapped, springing to her feet. She gestured at the twins sitting on either side of her. “They saw my hand the whole time. I’ve never been a cheat. I told you I was framed.”

  “Ah, well, I’m just a simple man observing what he sees,” he said. “You’re not exactly the picture of good virtue now, are you?”

  Seven felt her face go red at that, especially given the contents of her pocket. But still, she had to do what she had to do to survive. There was no prim and proper princess protocol to follow anymore. No etiquette. Just cold, hard, survival.

  Vork laughed, a cloud of smoke going up around him. Even Lan avoided her eyes. “See what I mean, boys? We’re better off not playing her.”

  “You win plenty off of me,” she said, her voice low and dangerous. “I went without a meal last week because of you. It’s not like you never take the entire table.”

  Vork pointed at her with his cigar. “That one was a personal choice, my dear. Never go all in with your rent or dinner money.”

  Well, that much was fair, but Seven couldn’t help it. There was an itch she felt at every table. A sort of compulsion to go bigger. To prove that she wasn’t the failure everyone thought she was. There had to be a way to escape the stain on her name.

  “I—”

  The words died in her mouth as she spotted the crown guard at the front of the tavern. Several of them squeezed through the door, chatting with an elderly man she recognized from her days at the palace—Albon, a well-known dice craftsman. She’d swiped a dice from him?

  “Shit,” she swore, then made herself freeze. Think, she reminded herself. If you run now, they’ll know you did it.

  “Speaking of good virtue,” Vork said, giving her a little smile, “did we get up to anything exciting today?”

  “I was at this table the whole time,” Seven insisted. “You saw me.”

  “Hmm.” He made a little grunt that implied he didn’t believe her. Still, she was mostly telling the truth. The only time she’d left the table was for a supposed bathroom break—during which time she’d swiped the dice from the elderly man’s stand. The man minding his stand had been facing away, but if she’d spotted Albon himself, she wouldn’t have touched his stand. Luck above, I am so screwed, she thought.

  “I want them all searched,” Albon snapped, tiny and wizened and pink with anger. “This is exactly why I didn’t want my apprentice setting up a shop down here. Everyone knows this part of the city is crawling with thieves and cheats.” His eyes met Seven’s, and widened. “Including the queen cheat of them all.”

  “Sir,” one crown guard said, turning to Albon. “I’m afraid we can’t search them all without a warrant—only ask them questions.” His eyes met Seven’s first, of course. Of course they did. “Can these men vouch for your presence here for the last few hours?”

  She nodded a little too fast. “Of course.” Around the table, Vork, Lan, and the twins reluctantly nodded. She gave the guard a nervous smile. “See?”

  Albon looked unconvinced. He strode across the room, somehow smaller than even Seven, and stopped in front of her, peering into her eyes. “Dear, you’ve almost eliminated all of your tells, but do you know which one you forgot?”

  Seven’s mouth went dry, and Albon took her scarred left hand delicately, feeling the fine leather on her glove. Then he smiled, something going cold in his gaze. Seven’s hand seared with pain, and she gasped, snatching her hand away from his. Another burn lit up her thigh, the smell of burning fabric cloying the room, and Seven yelped as the dice she’d thieved earlier tumbled out of a hole in her pocket, white-hot and so bright she had to shield her eyes.

  There was a moment of silence where they all stared at the dice, open-mouthed. Albon muttered something about anti-theft mechanisms, then stooped to pick up the dice. Seven took one look at him, another at the guards, and another at the stunned faces of her friends.

  She recovered before anyone else, then vaulted over the table, running for her life.

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