"You appear lost, my dear Feiçois," Anyetta called to him from across the card table. "You have never played Blackwater? I find that hard to believe."

Heat rose from beneath the skin of Surus' face. Her voice seemed eerily nonchalant given their history.

His eyes tilted down towards the card spread out beneath her hands, Surus shook his head and he attempted to smile; his facial muscles, however, could not relax.

"No. Never have I made sport of it," he answered.

"One moment, Levert," she asked pardon of the dealer with an outstretched hand. The dealer gave her the cards.

"There are two sets of cards in Noreau Null. Levert shuffles his own deck only once until his deck is depleted. He shuffles the players' cards every turn.

"Forty-eight cards divided into two suits, black and gold. For each suit, there are twelve pairs of cards, from lowest rank card to the highest"

She flipped a card for Surus to see, "Elven Slave," and she continued to flip a succession of cards, "Disemboweled Albatross, Lady of the Clouds, Blood-drenched Goblet, Midday Star, Primrose Lady, Stricken Tower, the Great Divorce, -" hardly a matter of harmless sentiment, Surus thought as gazed at the image of the bridegroom in a top hat with his hand held out empty.

Izdun killed millions in his quest for monotheistic supremacy.

He listened as Anyetta continued, "Pestilence, Death's Jest, Oblivion Awaits, and the Vagabond Jezde is a law unto himself.

"If you have only one in your hand, all of your other cards are null. if you have both, then you have in your possession the highest-ranked pair.

"There are no gold nor black-suited vagabonds and there are none in the dealer's cards. It is the only card you can build a three or four-in-accord without an assist from the dealer's cards."

Anyetta flipped four cards, a gold Pestilence a black Death's Jest, a gold Death's Jest, and a gold Blood-drenched Goblet. She tapped the two Death's Jest cards and pushed them aside.

"Gold and black cancel one another out. Hence the null in Noreau Null. Your Pestilence is your card of highest value."

She flipped two more cards.

"Say, these are Levert's. After the first round of betting, he flips two cards. A black-suited Stricken Tower, and a black Midday Star. They do nothing for your hand.

"You'll enter the second round of betting with no matching pair. You can either fold or bluff. Or, perhaps, it best them all. Often in Blackwater, no one has even a diddling's squirt", she said with cheek raised in a growled flourish, "so, did you get all of that, Feiçois?"

"I have the gist of it," he claimed with mocked surety. His thumbs pressed into his brass jacket buttons.

"Can you repeat the ranking back to me," she asked with a smile perked between her cheeks.

"As a matter of strategy, I shall remain aloof on that score. Perhaps I do. Perhaps, you are correct."

"We shall see. Call the girl over to exchange for some chips," Anyetta challenged.

Surus obliged her and as he held out a roll of fifty ducats for Pucè to collect.

The Jezde damsel leaned into him and in ventriloquized thieves' cant asked, "are you certain you are up to the game, sieur Feiçois? Those two across the table are a pair of riverboat grifters."

"I have a feeling even the loss of my coin may be instructive this eve, my moiselle" Surus answered.

He peered across Pucè's shoulder. The man to Anyetta's left had not even caught Surus notice.

Anyetta's companion leaned towards the gentleman to his own left and he mimicked that man's body language with hunched shoulders, crooked twitching pinky finger and a bored hound dog expression that added years to his face. He appeared much older than Anyetta.

In the same cant, while he appeared to be flirting with the hostess, Sulus asked, "so, that's her husband?"

Pucè laughed before answering as if Surus had said something terribly naïve.

"They are married. Just not to one another."

Surus glanced back at Anyetta with a smile of his own.

"I thank you for the lesson, Moiselle Anyetta Maris-Galee. I should note, you appear to have done well for yourself."

"Mrs. Veering, now. I'm getting another night in these clothes."

She smoothed the satin embroidery that draped her arms. "Made for a soirée in Nevespora, but a tad too lavish for even a ball in Gareen."

"Too lavish, you say. I wouldn't know," Francois answered. "I haven't been back to Gareen in twenty-one years. The streets may be paved in gold for all I know."

Surus glanced at the man at her side. He expected the man to show some curiosity towards someone who spoke to his companion. The grifter merely studied the table giving away no sign of interest in Surus.

The man wore an old troubadour's leather cap with many folds and brass bands attached.

Anyetta pushed her cards in to fold and handed over the two chip buyout.

"What was it your father said after he marched you to a riverboat not so luxurious as this one that time he bought you passage to Nevespora?"

"That was a long time ago," Surus answered.

He wondered what motivated her prodding tone. Merely to keep him unsettled and off-balance while he played? Or a well-understated vengeance she was exacting?

For that matter, how did she know about the dilapidated state of the vessel unless she was at the docs hidden amongst the small crowd that had gathered when his father unceremoniously forced him out of town.

"Never is a long time," she teased.

"My old man can hardly protest now. I may even visit the old homestead."

"You do that, dear," she giggled. Her voice now smooth and ageless.

As the man to Anna's left raked in the chips, Surus decided to goad as well.

"Splendid win, Mr. Veering," he complimented.

After a pause where the man finally acknowledged him with studious eyes, the old troubadour threw Surus a reptilian smile, but he did not correct the misnomer. He was at least a decade older than Anyetta.

He leaned back, and sized up the thief with a chuckle as puffs of smoke raised from his pipe.

Surus tapped the table with a two-chip ante. On the following hand, he was dealt into the game.

He peered at his cards. Gold Disemboweled Albatross. Gold Stricken Tower. The curious Blood-drenched Goblet with a pair of horse heads for holders in Black. Elven Slave in black.

The last card was an image from the days of the cruel elder gods. The elf depicted possessed a ridgeline on his brow, sharp canines, and long jaws.

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He appeared as feral as a wildlands cave-dweller.

It was an elf as he supposedly appeared before a ruthless genealogical culling transformed the mer into their current divergent forms of Haute, Sylvan, Jezde and Gray.

It was a weak hand, and Surus did not know what the dealer had played out of his deck on the nine previous turns since the last shuffle. He thought of folding, but the current bid when it came around to him was only fifteen chips.

His fifty ducats converted into two hundred chips made of polished ebony. Surus checked his bid on his turn as he pushed fifteen chips in.

Anyetta pressed her companion's shoulder and spoke amusedly in his ear, but she made certain loud enough for Surus to hear.

"Tereth," she began, "tonight is going to be fun, after all. I'm certain he has nothing. Look at the way he works his tongue at that dry little scab at the center of his upper lip."

"Ba," the man she called Tereth answered. "It'll take all night to bleed him dry. Look at the pitch of his brow as he studies his cards. So methodical and cautious. He has tells inside of tells."

Tereth winced his eyes as if he strained to see. He pointed a thin wooden stem of his pipe at Surus, and he asked her, "was he one of your lovers? Before you settled on Veering?"

"That cad?"

"Yes, that cad."

"Why, of course, my darling."

The dealer flipped over a gold Pestilence, and a gold Oblivion Awaits. Surus' hand was nearly worthless. Anyetta's companion slid in twenty chips for his bid.

The two gentlemen to his left followed through as well, but did not raise their own bids. When Surus, the last player on the table folded, Tareth grinned to his lover.

"Please do take the time to thank Mr. Feiçois for doing me the favor of breaking you in as I recall you were well-schooled that evening I met you going on twenty years ago now. It certainly wasn't Veering's doing, so is it safe to assume it was this cad's?"

The two gentlemen playing with them raised their heads to this remark. One gasped and he took a sip of blushbort before hissing an old Nincian insult, "obisbeszéltogu", 'you speak the abysmal tongue.'

"You are correct in as par the usual certain limited sense that you are ever accurate in your assessments" Anyetta scolded, "but I've warned you before about speaking ill of my dear Manny. Though lovers we may be, you and I, Salugarr, we are not saiwala gematas, so don't you assume for yourself such intimacy."

"A thousand pardons I beg of you, Lady Veering. Your soul has indeed been well mated with that of the indubitable Manifel Veering."

Sulus watched her reaction. She threw a side swiping glance but went immediately back to her cards.

Except for the flush along her neck in reaction to Tereth's biting sarcasm she was undeterred in keeping composed.

As for the man, Tereth was a common name in both the Nin and Midvries so Sulus did not catch on right away, but in studying the manners and intimidating presence and matching it with the reputation, Sulus started to feel like he should know this man. It hit him then when Anyetta had said the name, 'Salugarr.'

Put nearly thirty years on Barathiel Salugarr, leather up his olive skin, dust-up his Nincian bronze hair, put jowls on his round face, deep crow's feet crested under the advocate's eyes, and you would have him sitting here at this table.

He had only met Barathiel on a few social occasions. More importantly, this was Tereth Salugarr, father to Leresai's dearly departed lover, Brietess, whom Sulus had known quite well.

When their hands were shown, Tareth won the round with a three-in-accord in gold suited Pestilence. Rapping the image of Pestilence, the goddess enwrapped in the spiraling tail of her green dragon lover, with the back of his knuckles, he boasted, "fell to the Plaguemonger, boys."

As he collected his winnings. He turned his attention back to Anyetta with a squeeze of her elbow.

"What of him? Surely you don't mind if I know the details of that triste?"

With her chin raised, "you see those tiny hands of his-," she gestured with her brows towards Surus, "-ever so delicate, and delicately gathering his cards. Now, do you really imagine them 'breaking' me 'in', as you so eloquently put it?"

Surus cupped his cards, both studying them and hiding his eyes for a moment's respite so as not to be distracted. Lady of the Clouds suited gold. Pestilence suited black, Midday Star suited black. A matching Lady of Clouds to finish it off. Not a bad hand.

Surus was determined to ignore their antics as well as the racing curiosity that predominated his thoughts; a curiosity that wondered why the royal Ninci scion was playing at being a riverboat hustler. He had the wealth to gamble as he pleased, but whoever starts out with wealth and then actually gets good enough at the game to hustle?

That was suspicious.

It was Sulus' turn to start the bidding. He put ten chips in the pot. Anyetta raised another ten more. No one folded.

Tereth turned to his companion, placed his lips up against her ear and asked, "Let me ensure I get the gist of what you are telling me, lovely Anyetta. Are you saying he merely diddled you?"

To this question a gentleman to Tereth's right coughed in disapproval. Tareth Salugarr continued unabashed.

"However, you count him amongst your lovers? That must have been quite the fingering he gave you."

He looked appraisingly at Surus' hands.

"Oh it was. How could you doubt it," she answered. "Again, I say, look to the exquisitely formed and masterfully sloped instruments he has for fingers. Such supple and fluid movement as he merely holds those cards. If you were a woman, you would dream for such a man to come through the window one late evening and fondle your pussy."

"Dear gods," The gambler nearest the Ninci scion protested.

"'Fraid, alas, my kitty has never been declawed," she answered him in a mockingly sheepish tone.

Tareth Salugarr gazed at Surus; appraising him this time with his eyes drawn scornfully low.

"Is that what happened," Tareth asked. His tone hardened.

"Let's get back to the game," Anyetta insisted. "Before we become entirely insufferable to the other players."

Even Levert, the dealer, who likely had seen much bilge worthy behavior in his many years of shuffling cards, had stopped to listen as Anyetta reminisce on the memory of her visitation.

He shook his head bemused then threw down two cards from the top of the deck. One of which, a black Midday Star canceled out Surus' own card. The second card was a gold Elven Slave. At least he retained a pair of the Lady of Clouds, Surus considered.

His bid should match his previous one. No, double it as a show of confidence. He stacked twenty chips on to the queue. No one offered to raise the bid and all but Anyetta folded.

She showed her hand. Three-in-accord in gold suited Elven Slave. He folded his own hand.

With a content smile, her head tilted happily on her neck, Anyetta collected her chips. Salugarr cleared his throat.

"You never explained," he started. "Is that what happened? Feiçois came through your window one evening to commit a sexual transgression?"

There was enough venom in Tereth's voice to put Surus on notice. He rolled his elbow counterclockwise twice to ready a spring-loaded pen knife that hid in his sleeve.

Anyetta turned her left eye on her lover, arched her right brow towards Surus to let them both know who was in control, she, not him, nor her lover.

"Oh, Tareth," she said. "Are you going to veer this pleasant evening off into the spite of melodrama?"

"You are evading my question. So, I assume the description you give of him being a cad is from your own personal experience," Tareth answered her.

His knuckles scraped the table with a double rap. All of the other men were rapt in attention as Tereth's antics grew louder. Other players from other tables began to take note.

Pucè, however, casually strolled from table to table refilling glasses. When she finally reached Surus, her mouth lifted against a stiff cheek in an awkward smile, she shook her head and winked.

As she leaned over, she whispered, "they are still playing you, you do know that, correct?"

"It couldn't be more obvious if they wrote it down on a placard and set it down behind them."

"Just in case the old sod is drunk enough to invest his good sense elsewhere, look to my hip."

A stiletto strapped in a leather sheath hung from her belt.

"Thank you, moiselle Pucè, but I won't be needing it. A literal trick I have up my sleeve."

She put the decanter out of his reach with a playful, "no more drink for you, sieur Feiçois."

It was then, Anyetta let out a loud chortle over all other noise in the den.

"He needs to be taught a lesson or three," Tereth muttered as he glowered at Sulus.

"Tereth, righteous indignation is unbecoming of you. You make of yourself a white knight standing up to defend the honor of a befallen lady, please remember, knighthood was banned from our world for a reason.

"It is a woman's prerogative, not a man's, as the Empress herself would tell you, to decide whether or not she was transgressed during the course of a dalliance. Perhaps, she was just pleasantly surprised when someone she had been flirting with for months finally showed some bravado and ingenuity."

"So, my opinion matters not, then?"

After a moment of silence where Anyetta's eyes told him how little it mattered to her, he said, "no, I have not even a claim of marriage to that first-rate derriere of yours, so why would it?"

He took a deep hefted breath from his pipe, and laughed as he watched Surus' reaction to his change in mood.

"Well, tell me this," Tareth asked, "at least, did you enjoy it?"

For a split instance she stole a longing glance at Surus. She made certain he saw it.

"It awoke something inside of me. I would never have sought you out, nor Manny, nor would I ever have come to know of my own kindred brood, if not for the Night Visitor."

Surus heard the name, 'Night Visitor,' whispered at the other tables. His own cohort of players appeared anxious to proceed onward with the game.

He thought to stand up and excuse himself and let them have their peace, but the two other gentlemen and Levert merely waited patiently for him to ante up. They must have played with the two on many occasions before and been keenly aware of their antics.

Regardless, the grift was still an effective one, no matter how boldly obvious it's execution. Over the next hour, as Surus puzzled over the phrase, 'my own kindred brood', he was stripped of two rolls of silver ducats.