I've always thought silence gets a bad reputation. People speak of it as though it's a single, well-mannered concept—calm, reflective, tasteful—but really it comes in varieties, and you can usually tell which one you're dealing with by how the room reacts.
This, very clearly, was not the pleasant kind you find in libraries or monasteries, the sort that hums softly and minds its own business. This was the other kind. The heavy kind. The sort that drops over a room the moment someone says something so profoundly stupid even the air molecules need a moment to process the implications.
The ragged men scattered throughout the room shifted uncomfortably on their cushions, exchanging glances that ranged from bewildered to openly alarmed, until several of them began to stir, their voices rising in confused protest. "Boss, you're not serious, are you?" one of them called out.
"You don't even have that much!" another added.
A third man—braver, or perhaps more foolish than his companions—actually stood up from his cushion, dislodging the beastfolk woman who'd been mechanically servicing him. "This is madness, Byron! You can't wager what you don't have!"
"Shut up!" he roared, his age doing nothing to soften the impact, the sound cracking across the room with enough force to make several men flinch in response.
The remaining protests evaporated instantly, swallowed whole, as he slashed his gnarled hand through the air in dismissal, purple robes billowing around him with all the drama of a man who'd waited his entire life to be obeyed on cue. "You. Yes, you—the one with the scar. Go fetch an overseer. Now."
The scarred man scrambled to obey, executing a maneuver that was less dignified exit and more one-man stampede, all flailing limbs and stubbed toes. He vanished, leaving behind only the echo of his panic and the distinct smell of singed pride.
A brief pause followed. Then footsteps. Unrushed. Deliberate. The kind that didn't hurry because they'd never needed to, each step arriving with quiet confidence.
They drew closer, unaccompanied by announcement yet impossible to ignore, until the overseer entered like a verdict delivered in a courtroom no one had realized was in session—quiet, inevitable, and instantly commanding every eye in the room despite making no obvious effort to do so.
Dark robes sheathed him from throat to floor, the fabric so obscenely fine it seemed less woven and more condensed from shadow, never creasing, never catching. It was the kind of garment that whispered two things, and rather loudly at that.
First, that its tailor was a genius who demanded payment in first-born children, and second, that it was almost certainly charmed to keep the cloth perpetually pristine. Possibly both.
His face was a masterpiece of contempt, chiseled from some marble specifically quarried for expressing profound disappointment. Every line, every sharp angle, seemed to have been set in a permanent state of weary disdain, as if the universe had once presented him with an invoice and he'd found the grand total to be laughably, insultingly inadequate.
The air around him seemed to bend slightly, a subtle distortion that made my enhanced senses prickle with warning. He was powerful—I recognized that much immediately, the way you recognize a predator even when it's standing perfectly still.
Magic radiated from him in waves I could almost see, taste, feel pressing against my skin like atmospheric pressure before a storm. His hands were gloved in white leather so fine it looked painted on, and when he spoke his voice was cold, clean, and sharp enough to cut through fate itself.
"I am informed there is a wager requiring official oversight," he stated, "I preside over any stakes above ten thousand crowns, as per casino regulations. Before we proceed, I must explain the relevant rules."
He paused, letting his gaze sweep across the room with judicial precision. "First, violence between participants during official high-stakes games is strictly prohibited and will result in immediate forfeiture, permanent banishment, and potential prosecution depending on severity. Second, attempts to physically interfere with the game, including but not limited to touching cards not in your possession, manipulating the table, or assaulting officials, will be treated as cheating and carry identical penalties. Third, all wagers must be confirmed verbally by both parties and witnessed by myself before cards are dealt. Confirmed?"
"Confirmed," Byron said immediately, his voice tight with barely contained excitement.
I nodded along, repeating the word with what I hoped passed for nervous eagerness rather than the cold, satisfied certainty currently pooling in my chest. "Confirmed."
The overseer turned back to Byron, producing a small leather journal from within his robes with the smooth efficiency of someone who'd done this thousands of times before.
"According to casino records, your current liquid assets total approximately eighty thousand crowns across various accounts and holdings. This falls short of your proposed wager by twenty thousand crowns." He said this without judgment, simply stating facts, which somehow made it more damning than any accusation could've been.
Byron's jaw clenched, frustration bleeding through his aged features. "Pull from Oberen's emergency fund," he said flatly. "I'm authorized to access it for business purposes, and this qualifies."
The overseer's brow rose a fraction of an inch—the equivalent of shocked speechlessness from a man this controlled. "Would that be wise? The emergency fund exists for operational crises, security breaches, situations requiring immediate capital deployment. Using it for personal gambling ventures—"
"Do it anyway," Byron interrupted, his voice sharp with impatience. "I'll repay it within the week once I acquire the ruby. Oberen will understand."
The overseer nodded slowly, making a notation in his journal with movements so precise they bordered on mechanical. "Very well. However, regulations limit emergency fund withdrawals to fifteen thousand crowns at a time without Oberen's direct approval. Even with that addition, you remain five thousand short of your proposed wager."
Byron's frustration visibly grew, his ancient features twisting with calculation as his mind swirled through options. His fingers drummed against the table, creating a staccato rhythm that spoke of anxiety poorly concealed.
The room watched in fascinated silence, each person leaning forward slightly, drawn by the spectacle of watching someone gamble themselves into a corner with escalating desperation.
"Do you have any registered items of value?" the overseer asked, his voice a monotone of administrative ice. He might as well have been asking about the weather for all the genuine curiosity it held. "Artifacts, properties, contracts—anything appraised and recorded in casino ledgers that could cover the deficit?"
Byron's face lit up with sudden inspiration, the expression almost childlike in its naked relief. He dug deep into his purple robes, his gnarled fingers searching through interior pockets with increasing urgency until finally, triumphantly, he produced a chip, laying it out on the table before him with ceremonial precision.
It was black as midnight, larger than standard gaming chips, its surface carved with intricate patterns that seemed to writhe when viewed peripherally.
A person chip.
And I already knew who it was tied to before Byron said a word, could read the answer in the sudden tension that flooded Jazmin's body where she sat in my lap.
I looked up at her face with careful attention, catching the moment her mask fractured—just a crack, visible only to someone who knew exactly where to look.
Her eyes widened a fraction, pupils contracting to pinpoints as her breathing stuttered and caught in her throat. Her fingers went rigid against my neck, nails pressing into my skin hard enough to leave crescent marks.
Byron placed a few other chips alongside the first, each representing his other beastfolk slaves. "These registered contracts should more than cover the remaining amount," he said confidently.
The overseer examined each chip with professional detachment, cross-referencing them against his journal before nodding once. "Confirmed. Total wager now equals one hundred thousand crowns." He slowly stepped back from the table. "Everything is now in place. You may begin."
Byron dealt the cards with hands that shook slightly despite his earlier confidence, the tremor barely visible but unmistakable to my enhanced perception. The deck flowed between his gnarled fingers with practiced ease, muscle memory overriding anxiety, and I accepted my hand with the appropriate level of nervous anticipation painted across my features.
I didn't even blink as the game unfolded before me like a story I'd already read, the narrative beats so predictable they might as well have been printed in tomorrow's newspaper.
We drew cards, discarded pairs, the familiar rhythm of Old Maid playing out with mathematical precision—so tediously predictable I could have timed my breaths to it.
The room, however, was enraptured, a chorus of held breath and widened eyes. With each turn the dreaded Joker failed to land in his hand, I could see Byron's confidence knitting itself back together, stitch by shaky stitch.
As the game progressed, Jazmin's signals became almost surgical in their precision—a flick of her tail when it mattered. A blink that lingered too long. A breath that caught ever so slightly in her throat when the Joker neared Byron's reaching hand, the sound barely audible but unmistakable once you knew to listen for it.
She played her part with flawless grace, feeding him exactly what he needed to hear, each subtle cue disguised as innocent reaction, and he was drinking it in like salvation.
The closer we got to the finale, the more sweat soaked Byron's face, droplets rolling down his ancient folds and disappearing into the creases of his skin.
His fingers shook violently with each turn, trembling so badly I briefly worried he'd drop the cards entirely, yet his faith in his "system" stood firm, unshaken, armored in the glorious certainty of a man who'd never been caught. His mastery was absolute. His cheating, a work of flawless, invisible art.
Because how could I possibly see it? I was the fool, wasn't I? The beggar who'd cried over spilled chips, who'd trembled and folded when the stakes got too high, who'd licked his boots for the privilege of continuing to lose.
At last the final draw arrived, the endgame materializing with the inevitability of sunrise. Three cards remained total—two in my hand, one in Byron's.
It was time for me to make my play.
Very quietly, so subtle that only someone paying incredibly close attention would notice, I began rubbing slow circles on Jazmin's thigh—the same spot where I'd discovered her bruises hours earlier.
Soft waves of my arousal spell flowed out from my body, carefully calibrated, not overwhelming, but gentle. Not enough to cloud judgment or force compliance, but just enough to calm her nerves, to soothe her anxiety, to remind her that there were options besides the ones she'd been taught to accept.
When I glanced up at her face, I saw her frozen completely, her entire body gone rigid with sudden tension.
She was trembling—not from arousal or fear exactly, though both were present in the cocktail of emotions currently flooding her system, but from something deeper, more fundamental, more existentially terrifying.
Her mind was racing, I could see it in her eyes—thoughts colliding, scenarios playing out, consequences being calculated at lightning speed.
Because she understood. Somewhere between the boot-licking performance and this final hand, she'd figured out what I was doing, recognized that I knew about the signals, comprehended that I'd been playing Byron as thoroughly as he thought he'd been playing me.
And now she sat at the absolute center of a decision that would determine not just the outcome of this game, but the entire trajectory of her future.
She'd been owned by Byron, used by Byron, beaten by Byron. Forced to signal for him, to help him cheat, to participate in the systematic destruction of desperate people who came to his table hoping for salvation. She'd done it because she had no choice, because resistance meant pain, because her contract made her property and property doesn't get to have opinions about its use.
But now? Now Byron had bet everything, including her. Had put her ownership on the table like she was nothing more than another chip to be wagered. Had demonstrated with perfect clarity that she wasn't a person to him—wasn't even a valued possession, just a resource to be leveraged when convenient and discarded when necessary.
All she had to do was give him the wrong signal. One incorrect flick of her tail. One mistimed breath. One false tell that would send Byron's hand toward the Joker instead of away from it, and the entire house of cards would come collapsing in an instant.
But making that choice meant betraying Byron, meant risking his wrath if something went wrong, meant gambling her entire existence on the word of someone she'd known for less than twelve hours.
It meant trusting me—a stranger who'd manipulated her, stolen her body's traits, and was currently using her as an unwitting accomplice in an elaborate con. Not exactly the strongest foundation for life-altering decisions.
I could practically read the weather patterns of her thoughts written across her posture. Her mind was in open revolt. Survival begged for obedience, to keep signaling correctly, to not rock the boat and stay safe. Hope whispered that maybe, just maybe, this was her chance. Fear screamed that this was another trap, that nothing ever changed for people like her. Pride demanded she take the risk, because what was existence worth if it meant being property forever?
Jazmin's trembling grew unbearable then, her breath coming in shallow gasps as she stared at Byron's reaching hand hovering over my two remaining cards. She knew which one it was. Knew what it would take to change her fate.
All she had to do now was decide.