Seven went alone that night.

  She didn’t dare involve Emmet—not with how much attention she’d already drawn to him by posting up at his home. Or her home, really, given who was funding it. Still, she couldn’t help but feel guilty about it as she crept through LMC’s streets, keeping her hood drawn around her face and dodging the mostly inebriated crowd that wove between taverns, gambling houses, and racetracks.

  Emmet was functionally an indentured servant, yes, but he’d done well for himself at LMC—or seemed to, anyway. What if she’d made his life worse just by being associated with her? It was, unfortunately, not a new concept. How many times had she damaged Moore’s life with her antics? Or Juno’s? Or any of her siblings, really? It was hard to feel sorry for them, but Emmet was a victim of circumstance. A man who’d only come here to do a job—and for her mentor, no less. She couldn’t help but feel responsible for him, and she’d already failed in the most important way: in keeping him away from her.

  Still, there was little she could do about it now. She dodged another group of rowdy miners, her feet slowing near the flashing lights of the slime racing tracks. Luck above, she thought, staring at the nonsense. I have got to try that sometime. She shook her head, her fingers itching to play, and plunged through the mess and towards LMC headquarters.

  The crowd thinned as she approached the bright colors of the main building, now a faded rainbow hue in the twilight. It was impossible to blend in; her clothes were at best utilitarian, and fine dyes were reserved for queens. Certainly not fallen princesses with a gambling addiction. Still, years of royal upbringing had taught her one thing—walk with purpose, and few would question you.

  That theory seemed to hold up as she worked her way around the building, not slinking, but walking like she owned the place. It wasn’t exactly that she didn’t belong there—certainly plenty of miners milled about, attending corporate meetings and the like—but she wasn’t looking for the main entrance at all, but for those used by employees like Cheryl.

  She’d passed by the entrance several times during her time with LMC, and at night, it was always abandoned. Probably so they can all go gamble, she thought idly, walking up to it with her hands in her pockets. She couldn’t blame them there; say what you would about LMC, but they certainly had an excellent spread of games in Luckville. Perhaps, had her mood been better, she would have acknowledged that it was a way of trapping their employees even further under the boot, but today, all she wanted was to be done with this mess so she could enjoy the gambling halls. She’d barely gotten to enter them since taking the job at LMC.

  Seven pushed on the double doors, which gave way to the very public display of LMC’s greatest accomplishments. An employee entrance, it was far from being utilitarian. Stuffed with trophies, the walls lined with glimmering hauls from the mines and shining, long-faded photos of star employees, many of whom were already deceased, the display would have rivaled some of the finest halls in the palace. Seven couldn't help but stare at the gilded walls, the gleaming placards. Who was funding this anyway?

  She trekked down the hallway, her boots clicking on the fine marble. She couldn’t help but stare at the gargantuan dice, housed beneath the glass cases in the trophy room, their inner light like a fire burning bright within. What would it be like to hold one of those? To roll it? And then, a bitter, hateful part of her wondered the opposite: what would it be like to drain one of them dry? To suck the very life out of Rook’s dice, robbed from the very miners who had found the shards in the first place. She forced herself to move on, but made a mental note to come back later. She was, after all, not against the idea of burning the place down around her—especially if she couldn’t find a way to clear her name.

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  There wasn't a soul in sight, and the door at the end loomed, the faint glow of coded dice twinkling at the edges. Five more steps. Four. She could make it. She could—

  Seven passed beneath the final archway and froze, the blood draining from her face. She couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Rook sat there in a frame, watching over the entrance to the staff headquarters. Not Jom Rook, but his obviously distant cousin, his face handsome in the lit frame. Rook smiled down at her from the fine painting above, looking smug. As smug as the day he'd watched her carted off for fraud. As smug as the day she'd lost her trial.

  This is too big of a gamble, even for me, she thought, her heart pounding in her ears. Of course, Rook would have a presence in the mines he owned. The only question was, how much of one? If he were to recognize her, LMC would be the least of her problems. How often did he visit the mines? How often did he check in on his employees? Was he here now, perhaps?

  No, she thought, shaking her head a little too fast. If he’s anything like the other royal families, he’d barely check in on his people at all. It was a reality she’d seen far too often with her own father’s business holdings. Anyone on a spoke of the Wheel didn’t have time to check in with every business proposition they held a stake in. And even if Rook were deeply involved in LMC’s operation, there were dozens of campuses throughout the mountains. This was only one such campus, and it was so far out that it was practically in the wastelands.

  But it is the main one, she thought, still panicked. Still, she could do nothing but move forward. If Rook caught her, it wouldn’t end her plans anyway—just delay them. She’d explore every mine and every mountainside if it meant finding the proper evidence that would lead him to justice.

  Finally Seven shook herself from the stupor, still staring at the image. Rook was annoyingly good-looking. Almost as bad as Emmet, really. But at least Emmet had the personality to match his good looks—one that, so far, at least, had seemed to be honorable and true and good. Everything that Rook wasn’t. "Luck take me," she muttered bitterly under her breath. "Why do they all have to be handsome?"

  "Law of the universe,” Pocket's muffled voice rang out from inside her shirt. Seven nearly jumped out of her skin.

  "Pocket," she snapped, peering inside her shirt pocket to find the slime snuggled somewhere at the bottom, looking engorged on something. Pancake flour from Emmet’s counter, perhaps. "Can you not do that?"

  "Answering questions is kind of like my thing,” he said, glowing gold. “See? Just did it now."

  "Just stay quiet," she pleaded, walking beneath Rook's painting to swipe her card. “I don’t need to worry about you blowing my cover while we’re down here.” Seven swiped her card, praying that it was still good. It was possible that LMC changed the card codes, or swapped out the cards entirely. Especially possible given that they’d abandoned the literal keys to the kingdom down there in the mines.

  The dice within blinked green once, twice, and the door clicked open. Pocket grumbled faintly from her shirt, and she patted him gently as she shrugged through the doorway, eager to be out of the exposed hallway. "We'll be in and out of here before you..." She trailed off, her footsteps halfway into the next hallway, then froze again.

  Because Luca was standing right there.

  "...know it," she finished.

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