The villa's great room had been transformed. The long dining table had been pushed against the wall, replaced by a low circular table surrounded by mismatched chairs dragged in from every corner of the house. Lanterns hung from the ceiling beams, casting warm pools of light across the worn wood.
The cards were spread across the table, their bright colors garish in the lantern light, their edges worn from too many rounds of the desperate war.
Cecilia had found the deck in a drawer in the villa's study, tucked between a worn copy of some novel and a stack of maps that smelled of salt and age.
She had held it up, triumphant, discovering exactly how they would spend their evening, and the men had groaned, and she had ignored them, and now—
Now, Eliam was winning.
