For a moment, Moore stared her down, and the enormity of his words weighed on her. Her life? Surely he was joking. Seven had never been particularly afraid of Moore, but his eyes were wild, his face red, and for a brief, wild moment, she almost thought he might strike her if provoked further.

  “Maybe we don’t get you through this trial in one piece,” he said. “Maybe you do some time in the royal prisons. Maybe you leave Veilhome. But you’ll be alive, Seven. That’s the important part.”

  Several seconds passed, and the fine room was silent except for the rumbling of thunder in the distance. Seven’s gut sunk. Another night in the rain. Another night in that leaky—No, she thought, her gut sinking further. Not another night there. Another night in the streets. Even that was a low point for Seven; she’d always managed to keep a roof over her head with the meager allowance from her family. To go without was, well, she wasn’t sure how much further she could sink. Her family would take her in, of course—they always had—but it was hardly worth the ensuing series of lectures she’d receive. Better to sleep in the rain than deal with that.

  “We don’t even know that Rook had anything to do with your little…incident,” Moore said, waving his hand. “It’s just as likely that your condition caused the dice to behave strangely and triggered the anti-cheat mechanism that the gaming commission had in place.”

  “He had to have something to do with it,” Seven said, though even as the words left her mouth she knew they were unfair. Her hatred for Rook wasn’t anchored in any kind of evidence, so much as the look of triumph he’d thrown her way that night.

  He’d been a bitter rival before the final match—one who’d been stymied on multiple occasions by Seven’s gameplay. Perhaps her own cursed hands could have triggered the dice, yes, but Rook hardly looked clean. And, even if her own disability had ruined her life, Rook had certainly put the nail in the coffin with the current scandal.

  Moore turned back to his desk with a creak and a low groan—likely his bones aching again—and tapped the page, obviously having won the argument in his mind. “His newest operation is in the Southeast,” he said, pointing. “Lucky Mining Corporation. LMC. I sent someone out there to look over their credentials, but they have one of the best safety records anywhere, and they have no blemishes that might help you in your trial. They even loan dice to people with…” He trailed off, and his eyes drifted to Seven’s gloved hand. “…less than fortunate pasts,” he finished. “Many in your situation can’t legally own dice, but LMC will loan them out to employees.” He shrugged. “That’s one way of feeling that spark in your hands again, I suppose.”

  Seven was hardly convinced. Rent a dice? That was practically insulting. She’d own one herself—with or without silly laws or curses preventing her from doing so. If they’d really wanted to keep her away from them, they should have made the burn activate whenever she touched one. And even then, she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t just endure the searing pain just to hold one in her hands again. Every dice was another chance. Another opportunity to play the odds. Surely one would work for her someday. Still, she grudgingly had to admit that Albon’s anti-theft measures had been impressive. She rubbed her sore hand, wincing.

  “They’re mining a special type of dice ore, from what I can gather,” Moore went on, digging through his desk. “Something that might change the dice crafting business entirely—a type of shard closer to the Source, supposedly.” He shut another drawer, clearly rummaging for something, and Seven sat up, intrigued. “They’ve trademarked it all and have a huge legal team behind it, though—I could barely get any information on it at all. But they did send my people a sample.”

  He emerged with a tiny box, and Seven trailed over to it, peering inside. She slipped on one of her gloves, but Moore shook his head and pushed the box at her. “Try it, lass. You might as well.”

  “I wasn’t going to drain your sample dry,” she muttered, though she’d certainly wondered if it was possible. Would a dice shard react to her touch too? With shaking fingers, she plucked the tiny shard from the box and turned it in her hands.

  While she’d never held a shard before, it was clear that this one was different; colors twisted and warped inside of it, sparkling with a fire she’d never seen in whole dice before. She stared at it, marveling, then held her breath.

  The light didn’t fade from the dice. In fact, it stayed there, pulsing faintly, long enough for Moore to swear quietly nearby. For several seconds, Seven just stood there, afraid that if she moved, if she blinked, if she did anything, the dice’s beautiful inner fire would fade.

  But slowly, steadily, that light faded out, then winked out entirely, and she let out a disappointed breath of air before handing the shard back to Morris.

  “So much for that,” she said, and flopped back onto the couch. Moore shrugged, tucking the box away.

  “It was certainly worth a try.”

  “I’m running out of things to try.” When Moore said nothing, Seven sat in silence for a moment, listening to the storm blow in outside. “They wouldn’t really exile me, would they?” She asked suddenly, her voice gone small and quiet. Moore’s pen froze on the page, and he looked up at her sadly—again, that pity in his gaze. Was she really in such a state to be pitied? Outside, thunder rumbled faintly. “It’s my family,” she added. “This is just for their public image. Surely they’ll settle on something smaller. A…a fee, or…or public service. Or they’ll consider the time I’ve spent outside of the palace as having served my sentence.”

  Moore avoided her eyes, and that told her everything she needed to know. Her family was considering the worst. And, from what Moore had said, she had little defense against it.

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  “I’m not certain,” Moore said quietly. “But Seven, whatever happens…I…” When he looked up at her again, his eyes were too bright in the waning evening light. She swore she saw tears there. “I’ve done everything I can, and…it was an honor to serve you, your highness.”

  Seven blinked, trying to clear away the tears threatening at the edge of her own vision. “Thank you, Moore,” she said, her voice breaking. “And…I’m sorry. For me. For…” She trailed off, then gestured in her general direction. “…this.”

  Moore shook his head, leaning forward to press his wiry elbows into his knees. It was a position he’d taken thousands of times before, when teaching her strategy, or reviewing her passable mathematics work. He only really took the position when he was interested in what she was doing—when he saw potential in her.

  He hadn’t taken that position in some time.

  But when he spoke, his words were serious and measured, as if he’d thought long and hard about them before letting them leave his mouth. “No matter what happens,” he said, “remember that it doesn’t define you, Seven. This framing, this failure, your condition, this life you’ve decided to live…none of it matters.” He paused, then met her eyes and added, “You’re more than your mistakes, Seven.”

  “I am a mistake,” she snapped, turning away. “A spare. You heard father say it. Six other siblings before me. I’ll never see the throne. I’ll never do anything that matters that my brothers and sisters haven’t already done six times over, and I can’t even use dice. Seven is a cursed number.”

  “I can think of more things you could do than gamble away your life,” Moore said gently. “And I think you know, deep down, that you have more to offer than this. Dice don’t define a man or woman. And, whether you like it or not, being born into House Veil comes with the expectation of leadership.”

  “There’s no point in leading when you’re last,” she said, her words clipped and short. It was just like Moore to bring this up again on what was probably their last night together. An old, tired refrain that Seven had only heard hundreds of times before. Nothing had changed. Nothing ever would change. The only difference was, she could be a loser outside the palace instead of inside it.

  Her mother would probably like that.

  Moore sighed, some of the color gone out of his cheeks, and momentarily, Seven felt bad about her words. But what could she offer Moore besides the truth? She had plenty of bad qualities, but lying wasn’t one of them. Moore got to his feet, then looked at her, then the brewing storm outside, and shrugged.

  “You might as well stay here,” he said. “I have more rooms than I know what to do with, and the crown guard is hardly going to bother asking me about your whereabouts.” He winked at her. “They know I won’t tell them.”

  Seven felt a smile tug at her lips, and some of the weight fell from her shoulders. The velvet chaise beneath her fingers suddenly felt luxurious and almost real. A fire crackled in the hearth as darkness fell, and for a second, she almost forgot her status as the royal dud. Almost forgot she was on trial for one of the highest crimes in the land, free only because of her rotten family blood. She almost forgot, sitting there, that her own family had sold her down the river to maintain the good graces of the kingdom.

  And yet, her heart darkened again as she watched Moore pace towards the doorway to the rest of his home. If the court chose exile tomorrow, she’d never see him again. He’d grow old and frail long before she had a chance to earn her way back into Veilhome.

  “Do me a favor and check the box by the hearth at some point tonight,” Moore said, his hand on the door. “It was sent here for you by someone in the family.”

  “Who?” Seven asked, curious. Moore shrugged.

  “As usual, they didn’t bother labeling the luck-forsaken package. Chance take me, they never bother identifying themselves. But maybe one of your brothers has a soft spot for you—the same one sending the funds, perhaps?”

  Seven’s mood darkened further at that. “They stopped sending those this week,” she said, confused. “Why would they bother sending something else?”

  Moore shrugged again. “Who’s to say? I’m hardly one to get further involved in your family matters than I already am—messy situation, that. Suffice it to say, it’s addressed to you, and it would be remiss of me not to make sure you got it.” He paused at the door, then turned to study her, raising an eyebrow at her. “Please try to stay indoors tonight, girl. Away from the gambling halls, away from the Chance halls. If I had to guess, I’d say you ran out of luck long ago.”

  Seven snorted as the door clicked shut behind him, then eyed the package by the hearth—a delicately wrapped silver box with a blue bow to boot. She eyed it suspiciously. It was wrapped a little too nicely.

  Still, it was an unknown. And, though she was exhausted and ready to curl up on the couch with a book, Seven crept over the fine carpet on bare feet to pick up the box.

  What was one more gamble?

  She crouched by the fireplace, her legs aching, and pulled off the delicate bow before taking the box in her hands. She shook it, and it rattled faintly in her hands. Well, might as well find out what’s in it, she thought.

  She pulled the lid off the box…

  …and dropped it like it was a hot coal from the hearth.

  Her heart leapt into her chest as she stumbled backwards, away from the box—and from what it held. Her harsh breathing filled the room, and she swore her palm was burning again.

  “That’s impossible,” she whispered, watching the box like it might coil up and strike her. Because, against all odds, the dice from the night everything had fallen apart winked at her from inside. She recognized its contours, its unique color, cast by the Chance tournament for that night, and that night alone.

  And she recognized the feel of it. The same, slimy feeling of something off.

  Seven forced herself to crawl towards the box—to check it. She had to be sure. Had to be positive that this wasn’t some trick of the eye.

  But no, that was the dice, winking in the firelight. And a carefully penned note below, easily legible in the harsh glare of the fire.

  I’m looking forward to our game, it said.

  With fear now pricking her fingers, Seven forced herself to snatch at the dice. She waited for the telltale burn—for the pain that had started everything all those years ago—but nothing happened. Instead, it twinkled innocently in her hands for several moments, then simply cracked and vanished, leaving Seven alone and shaking in Moore’s guest room.

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