Chapter 494

KAEL

“What are you dressed as,” I said.

“A poker player,” she said.

“You look like yourself.” I said. “Slightly more casual, but-”

“It’s the hat,” Ivory said. “The hat changes everything.”

“Whose hat is that,” I said.

“Margo’s,” Ivory said.

“Why does Margo have a hat like that,” I said.

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“Margo has a surprising number of things, Ivory said. “She’s been collecting practical items for years. It’s a very extensive inventory.”

“The paint,” I said.

“Jordan,” Ivory said.

“Don’t blame Jordan,” Jordan said. “I provided the resource. The application choices were entirely yours.”

“You said face paint made people feel more committed to the bit,” Ivory said.

“I said that in the abstract,” Jordan said. “I didn’t expect the specific implementation.”

“The implementation is bold,” Ivory said, with the serene satisfaction of someone who’d made a creative decision and was standing by it.

“You look like a villain from something,” I said.

“I look like someone who knows what I have and isn’t going to show it to you,” she said. “Which is the fundamental aesthetic of poker.”

“You’re winning,” I said.

“I’m ahead,” she said. “As established.”

I looked at my cards. I looked at the arrangement of sweet-wrapper chips. I looked at Jordan’s fake mustache, which he was still stroking with the contemplative energy of someone who’d fully committed to the bit.

“Kael. Aria said. from the windowsill.

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“Yes,” I said.

“Is this alright,” she said. “This is what’s happening. This is where we are.”

“Apparently,” I said.

“You’re alright with it,” she said.

“I’m sitting down to play,” I said. “That’s the position I’m taking.”

Silver, through the bond’s warmer temperature of the past week, communicated something in the non- verbal register of an amused wolf. I’d been feeling the channel more clearly since the garden – the specific warmth of Silver’s presence filtering through the bond from Aria’s side, the wolf becoming more legible to me in the way of something that was slowly resolving from indistinct to present.

I arranged my cards.

We played three hands.

I won the third one, which produced the specific grumbling from Jordan that I associated with him being genuinely competitive about things he framed as casual. The grumbling was accompanied by the mustache-stroking, which had apparently become his tell — he stroked the fake mustache when he was recalibrating after a loss.

“The bunker,” I said, during the dealing of the fourth hand.

The dealing continued.

Nobody looked up.

Jordan was placing cards. Nina was stacking chips. Ivory was arranging her hand with the focused attention of someone who had good cards and was managing not to show it.

“I wanted to ask,” I said, “about the modifications.”

The dealing finished.

Everyone examined their cards.

A cricket sound materialized from somewhere. Not a real cricket – the specific internal quality of a room full of people who’d collectively decided not to engage with something and were producing the conversational equivalent of complete ambient silence.

I looked at the window.

A tumbleweed went by.

I was fairly certain Shadowmere didn’t have tumbleweeds. I filed this as something to investigate later.

“Guys,” I said.

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Chapter 494

Cards were examined. Chips were counted. Jordan stroked the mustache. Ivory tilted the hat.

“I asked you a question,” I said.

“What bunker?” Jordan said.

Nina put her face in her hand.

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Not the both-hands version she used for real distress. The single-hand version she used when something had gone about thirty percent worse than she’d calibrated for.

“I said act stupid,” she said, in the specific tone of someone addressing a collaborator who’d missed the brief. “Not that stupid.”

“It’s a reasonable opening position,” Jordan said.

“The opening position,” Nina said, “should not be questioning the existence of a facility that you personally helped install.”

“Allegedly,” Jordan said.

“Jordan,” Nina said.

“The bunker,” Ivory said, setting down her cards with the composure of someone pivoting to a different conversation without abandoning her hand’s assessment, “hasn’t been relevant to anything recently. Why are you bringing it up?”

“Aria can’t access the bunker.” I said.

The three of them looked at me.

Then they looked at each other.

Then they looked at me again.

The expression they were all wearing was the same expression, which was an impressive feat of synchronized reaction for three people who’d developed it independently in the approximately two seconds since I’d said the sentence.

It was the expression of people receiving information they’d already known for some time and were experiencing as if for the first time.

“WHAT.” Jordan said.

“Aria,” Nina said, with the same energy. “Can’t access-”

“The bunker. Ivory said. “Aria specifically, because of the-”

“Power signature,” I said. “The defensive enhancements. The moon-adjacent response protocol that Ivory

built into the system.”

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“That’s,” Jordan said.

“Interesting,” Nina said.

“Deeply concerning,” Ivory said. “I had no idea.”

“None of us did,” Jordan said. “This is completely new information.”

“We are very surprised,” Nina said. “By this.”

“This is all your fault,” Jordan said, to me.

I looked at him.

“My fault,” I said.

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“Your fault,” Jordan confirmed, with the serious nod of someone delivering a conclusion they’d arrived at through genuine analysis.

“How,” I said, “is it my fault.”

“You were cursed.” Nina said.

“Yes,” I said. “I was cursed. I didn’t choose to be cursed.”

“Exactly,” Nina said. “You were cursed. And because you were cursed, we had to build the bunker. And because we built the bunker, we had to build the enhanced defensive systems. And because of the enhanced defensive systems-”

“Aria can’t access the bunker,” Jordan said. “Which is your fault for getting cursed.”

“I got cursed,” I said, “saving children from being sacrificed.”

“A choice you made,” Jordan said.

“It wasn’t really-” I started.

“You could have made a different choice,” Jordan said.

“What different choice,” I said. “The choice to not save the children?”

“We’re not saying that’s the right choice,” Jordan said. “We’re saying it was a choice, and the consequences of that choice are the bunker, and the bunker’s consequences are what they are.”

“I can’t believe you,” I said. “Wow. Okay.” I looked at Ivory. “Ivory”