She sits taller. “I’m Isabelle of Deluce. Daughter of the late King Henri of Deluce.”
Binks makes some sort of weird gasping, snorting sound. “The bastard girl. Ah, of course. I remember you.” And then, more quietly, as though studying her intently: “Of course. Struck blind as a child. Yes. Yes.”
She feels a tiny whoosh of breeze and a flicker of light and shadow, as if he’s waving his hand in front of her face. She knows that gesture—he’s testing whether she really can’t see him.
“Stop that,” Gilbert says, and Binks sits back again in his seat. “Can you or can you not help us?”
“Help you how?”
“By telling us what faerie might have the strength and motivation to have—”
“So they kept it a secret from you, did they?” Binks says. “Interesting. Perhaps they thought it best. Perhaps they didn’t take it seriously. To be honest, none of us did.”
“Take what seriously? What do you know?” Isbe demands.
“That Violette,” Binks says, seemingly to himself. “I wouldn’t believe she could do it. There’s something else at work here too, I’d wager. I’d wager quite a bit that there’s more to it. What a scandal. What a scandal.”
“Please,” Gil insists. “Tell us what you know. Is there a faerie called Violette we should speak to? Would she know more about the source of the sickness and how to end it?”
“Oh, I doubt that,” Binks spits out. “If you could even secure her attention, which I also doubt. Hmmm. Are you sure I can’t interest you two in a little game? I could make it worth your while, of course. . . .”
“Worth our while how?” Gil’s voice has turned deeply suspicious.
But Isbe senses an opportunity. “We will play one of your games, on the condition that if we win, you will tell us the entire story of Violette and the sleeping sickness—every single word of it. Everything you know.”
“And if you lose, I get a tithe of luck from you. Or better yet,” Binks says, “from you.” He clearly means Gil. “The girl doesn’t quite strike one as lucky, now does she?” he asks with a laugh.
“No,” Isbe says firmly. She can’t let Gil risk his luck for her. “I’ll be the one to play.”
“Absolutely not,” Gil interjects. “The game is between you and me, not Isabelle.”
“Gil,” Isbe hisses. She feels a wave of nausea. Gil’s never been that good with cards. Isbe may not be able to see them, but when she and Aurora partnered against visiting nobles in the past, her incredible memory meant they almost always won.
“Very well, then.” Binks is tapping his desk again. One-two-three-four-then-the-thumb. One-two-three-four-then-the-thumb. One-two-three-four-then-the-thumb. Switch hands. “Fox and geese? Or . . . knucklebox? Hmm. No. Heart of harts. One of my favorite games,” he says, pulling a stack of cards from his desk and shuffling them.
Not heart of harts, Isbe thinks. She’s somewhat familiar with the game: a hellishly complex one that depends on reading the opponent’s facial cues, counting, knowledge of actual hunting strategy, risk management, and sheer random luck of the draw.
Binks deals the cards, and Isbe tries not to hold her breath as he and Gil play round after round, the lord’s servant continuously entering to refill Binks’s goblet of ale. The cards make a satisfying smack as they hit the table—must be a thick, valuable set. Gil is a conservative player, much to Isbe’s relief—in no round does he bid on a stock card, while Binks throws in plenty of coins each round in the hope of increasing the value of his hand.
Throughout the game, Binks continues his rhythmic tapping. The sound becomes mesmerizing as Isbe begins to lose track of the game, so she’s startled when the tapping seems to skip a beat at one point . . . the second right thumb tap, if she’s not mistaken. Isbe wonders if it’s just that Binks has become distracted, or if perhaps it’s a sign that he has a weak hand. Could it be his tell? She would nudge Gil or try to send him some signal to pay close attention, but there’s no way to communicate with him without Binks noticing.
Finally, in the seventh round, Binks reveals a set of four queens atop the ten of hearts. He has slain the hart.
“I’ve won!” he declares, not even bothering to clean up the table as he stands to collect the debt. “Let’s shake on it, good man,” he says to Gilbert.
Isbe’s heart sinks. She can tell from the weight of Gil’s silence that there’s no doubting the play. Binks has indeed succeeded in collecting all four queens, despite the fact that they constituted a full third of the cards in play: an extremely unlikely occurrence. Then again, Binks’s tribute is luck; he has an unfair advantage when it comes to elements of chance.
Gil stands and takes Binks’s hand, then gasps and steps backward, knocking into his chair.
“What is it? Are you all right?” Isbe asks, standing too.
“It’s fine, I just . . . it stung.”
“May not be faerie magic powerful enough to put a palace to sleep, but it does the trick when it comes to collecting,” Binks says, his voice snide, all the joy from winning now morphed into a thin, twisted pride. “Better luck next time!” he adds. “My servant will see you out.”
Binks creaks back down to reshuffle his deck with a smug ruffle-snap, ruffle-snap, ruffle-snap.
They can’t be sent away. Not this easily.
“It’s all right,” Gil whispers as they follow the servant out into the hall. “We’ll find out who this faerie Violette is. Somehow we’ll get our answers.”
“It isn’t fair.” Despair, frustration, and rage are shuffling through Isbe’s mind just like that stupid deck of cards, making her feel shaky, like she might just grab the next bec de faucon she can find and smash all the fancy chandeliers she hears clinking overhead. She’d like to take a saber to Binks’s face, which she imagines must be puffy as an overcooked pastry and crumbly to the touch. “He’s disgusting. A single ring from one of his stupid fat fingers would pay for all the food Roul eats in a year.”
“It’s the system we live in, Isbe. Binks wears ten matching rings and gambles away his lot, while people like us must dress like this,” he says, tugging at her sleeve, obviously hoping to cheer her up.
But something he said has snagged in her mind. “Ten matching rings?”
“Rubies, all of them.”
Isbe freezes. One-two-three-four-FIVE-one-two-three-four-FIVE. Except sometime in the fifth round when he momentarily lost his rhythm. . . .
Or had he?
“Miss, miss!” the servant barks as Isbe turns around, desperately trying to feel her winding way back to Binks’s office. For a moment she bursts into the wrong room and stands there in silence before realizing her mistake. She backs out and heads farther down the hall, Gil joining her. He grabs her elbow.
“What are you doing?”
“Please,” she pants. “I need to see Binks.”
Gil wordlessly steers her to the right door.