Chapter 493

KAEL

“Nina,” Elite said, without pause.

Jordan looked at Elite.

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“Analytically.” Elite said. “Taking into account the full week’s play. Nina makes better decisions under pressure and Jordan makes better decisions in steady conditions. The week has had more pressure moments than steady conditions.”

“The botanic situation,” Jordan said.

“Among other things,” Ivory said.

“The botanic-” I started.

“The vine,” Aria said, and I could hear Silver’s amusement reflected in her voice. “The companion planting. It remembered him.”

Jordan pointed at Aria. “That information was supposed to stay in the garden.”

“It didn’t,” Aria said.

“Jordan’s warmth recognition incident,” I said, because I’d been told about this by Ivory and then by a pack member who’d heard about it from Margo and then by the pack member’s colleague who’d been near the garden when it happened, “is now in the botanical documentation.”

“In its own section,” Jordan said, with the specific tone of someone who’d lost a negotiation about where the information would live.

“With his name on it,” Nina said, and she was smiling, the real version, the one that came out when the professional composure had been put down somewhere safe.

“Subsection,” Jordan said. “I specifically negotiated for a subsection.”

“Ivory wrote a full section,” Nina said. “The subsection classification was not approved.”

Jordan set down his cards.

He looked at the ceiling.

He looked at me.

“This week,” he said. “Has been good, actually.”

“Yes,” I said.

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“We should do this more often,” he said. “The break. The not-crisis version of being here.”

“We have Monday,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “Back to it Monday.”

“But today,” I said.

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“Today there are still 12 hours until dinner,” Nina said, picking up her cards again. “Sit down, Kael. You owe me money from the last training yard bet. Cards are how I’m collecting.”

“I don’t have any currency to play with,” I said.

“Jordan ate all the wrapped sweets from the kitchen on day four,” Nina said. “We’re playing for secrets.”

I looked at Jordan.

“Whose secrets,” I said.

“Pack secrets,” Jordan said. “Each secret has an assigned value. The smaller secrets are worth one point. The medium ones are worth three. The significant ones are worth five.”

“You’re playing poker for significant pack secrets,” I said.

“We’re out of wrapped sweets,” Jordan said.

“What secrets have already changed hands,” I said.

“The story of the third curse year eastern door incident,” Jordan said. “That went to Nina on day three. The complete version, including the part you’ve never told anyone.”

“That story is not going anywhere,” I said.

“It went to Nina,” Jordan said. “Which is arguably where it should be.”

“The story about the third patrol rotation in year two,” Nina said. “That one went to Jordan.”

“The one with the temporary fence and the goat,” Jordan said.

“We don’t have goats,” I said.

“The rogue goat,” Jordan said. “From the western territory incident.”

I pressed my lips together. The rogue goat incident was not something I’d thought about in two years and was now, apparently, in Jordan’s card-game collection of secrets.

They dealt me in on the next hand.

Njna did it with the efficiency of someone who’d been running this operation for five days and had incorporated new players before – she produced a third set of cards from somewhere in the desk drawer and dealt with the practiced ease of someone who’d done this enough times in the past week that the

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motion had become automatic.

I sat in the chair that Jordan slid toward me with his foot, in the specific way of someone who wasn’t going to stand up to push a chair but also wasn’t going to be unhelpful about it.

Aria sat on the windowsill. Not at the table – positioned sideways, one leg over the edge, looking at the whole arrangement with the expression she had when she was watching something she found entertaining and was deciding how to participate in it.

“You’re not playing,” I said to her.

“I’m observing,” she said.

“Observing is watching,” I said.

“Observing is strategic assessment,” she said. “There’s a difference.”

“Is this what you’re all doing,” I said, looking at the table. “This is the break. This specific activity.”

“The break,” Ivory said, “contains multitudes.”

I looked at Ivory.

I’d been sitting with her every day for a week – meals, garden visits, the occasional hallway interaction. I’d seen her this morning. I’d seen her at breakfast. I had looked at Ivory approximately thirty times in the past seven days and had, apparently, failed to register something significant about her appearance.

She was wearing a hat. A cap, specifically – the kind with a brim, worn backwards, which reversed the brim’s function in a way that made it both aesthetically unusual and practically useless. The cap was dark and slightly worn at the edges and absolutely was not something I’d ever seen in her wardrobe in twelve years of knowing her.

She also had paint on her face.

Not injury, not something botanical, not the clinic-adjacent markings that occasionally appeared on her hands when she was working with compounds. Deliberate paint. Applied in the specific manner of someone who’d considered the application.

It made her look, I thought, searching for the right framing like someone who operated outside of legal commerce. The specific aesthetic of a person who dealt in things that weren’t discussed in polite company.

Jordan had a mustache.

Not his mustache. A mustache that had been applied to his face through means I wasn’t going to think about too carefully, positioned with the approximate accuracy of someone who’d done it without a mirror. He was stroking it. With his index finger and thumb. In the specific contemplative way of someone who’d decided that stroking a fake mustache was part of the mental atmosphere he was cultivating for optimal poker performance.

“Jordan,” I said.

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“Yes,” he said, still stroking the mustache.

“What,” I said, “has happened to you.”

“I’m in character,” he said.

“In character for what,” I said.

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“Poker,” he said. “You play poker, you play as a poker player. The aesthetic informs the performance.”

“The aesthetic,” I said.

“It’s more fun,” Nina said, arranging her cards with the practiced efficiency of someone who’d been doing this for five days and had developed a system. “When you dress for it.”