Grin spent the next hour explaining the intricacies of the card game to Beatrice. While the haughty spirit maintained a facade of nonchalant boredom, her eyes betrayed a sharp, burgeoning curiosity toward this foreign pastime. With the intellect of a Great Spirit, she grasped the core mechanics in a heartbeat.
"Grin, according to your logic, does this not require a third participant, I suppose?" Beatrice asked, fanning her cards.
"Don't worry about that. I brought a dog along," Grin replied casually.
With a flick of his wrist, Grin summoned the magic mirror and tossed it onto the corner of the table. The mirror looked thoroughly disheveled, coated in a layer of library dust with the word DOG still crudely engraved across its surface.
"Hehe, Master… I knew you couldn't bear to keep me locked away," the mirror chirped, its reflection flickering. "Can I remove this mark now?"
Grin's eyes narrowed into slits. "You're dreaming. If you touch it, I'll carve one twice as large next time."
"Understood, understood! I'll keep it. Master, your calligraphy is truly elegant—sophisticated beyond words…"
"Enough flattery," Grin muttered, sliding a stack of cards toward the mirror. "Are you in for a round of Fight the Demon?"
The mirror's surface glowed with sudden, unruly energy. Two magical, translucent arms sprouted from its sides, skillfully shuffling and slicing the deck with a flourish of practiced techniques.
"Hahaha! You absolute fool! To show off such limited skills before an expert is laughable!" the mirror crowed. "Have I never told you the legend of the God of Gamblers from the Snow Country? I once turned twenty copper coins into twenty-five million in a single night at the Royal Casino!"
The mirror leaned forward, its tone turning conspiratorial. "So, what's the stake? We can't play for nothing. Even as brothers, we must settle accounts clearly."
Grin suppressed the urge to smash the mirror and tapped the table. "Who's gambling for money? You don't have a cent to your name. We're playing for stickers. Whoever loses gets a strip of paper stuck to their face."
The mirror gave a disdainful look. "How boring. Half a day of effort for zero coins and a face full of drool?"
Grin let out a sharp, dangerous laugh as he amended the rules. "I see. Since you're just a mirror and stickers won't stay on, let's do this: if you lose, I'll carve the words directly into your frame."
The mirror shrank back, its arms trembling. "No, Master! That's too cruel! I wouldn't dare play under those conditions!"
"Are you sure?" Grin asked, his voice a low, blatant seduction. "If you win ten games in a row, I'll let you remove the DOG character."
Knowing how much the vain idiot valued its reputation, Grin watched the mirror hesitate. Finally, it gritted its metaphorical teeth and floated back to the table. "Fine! But you can't lie to me, Master!"
The game began, yet a stalemate quickly formed.
"I'm not calling the Demon," Grin muttered, looking at his hand.
"Hmph. Betty will not take anything that Grin has discarded, I suppose," Beatrice added primly.
"Tch. As if I'd want it," the mirror echoed.
Grin stared at them, dumbfounded. He had reshuffled and dealt several times, but no one was willing to take the risk of being the primary target.
"This is going nowhere," Grin remarked, dealing a fresh hand. "Let's rebrand. Who wants to be the Greatest Demon in the world?"
Upon hearing the title, the magic mirror slammed its hands on the table and lunged for the three face-down cards in the center. "The Greatest Demon must be me! Open them!"
"Hahaha! Three sixes! The devil's numbers!" the mirror laughed as it flipped the cards. "The Great Demon Wolgarth strikes with a pair of nines, and the heavens tremble!"
Beatrice glanced at the mirror with pure disdain; the lunatic couldn't help but add fancy adjectives to every move. To curb its arrogance, she drew two cards featuring Roswaal's clown-like face and threw them onto the pile.
"Betty has two Roswaals," she stated. "Why is Roswaal so powerful in this game? It is entirely unreasonable. It should have been designed to look like Mother, I suppose."
The games continued, and the mirror's bravado quickly turned to panic. "Oh no! I lost again! This shouldn't be possible!"
Grin and Beatrice were nearly bursting with laughter. The mirror was so focused on spreading its cards out that it failed to realize every single one was reflected clearly on its own glass surface. It was playing with its hand face-up to the entire room.
"I know! You've done something!" the mirror shouted, reaching for the deck. "I need to check the license! Something is wrong!"
It examined the cards one by one, desperate for a sign of cheating. Grin urged it to hurry, his own face—and Beatrice's—already fluttering with a few strips of paper from the rare rounds they had lost. Finding nothing unusual, the mirror slumped dejectedly. "There's nothing wrong with the cards…"
"So, Betty won after all," Beatrice said, a hint of genuine joy touching her face. "Come closer, Grin."
Grin leaned in. Beatrice tore a long strip of paper from an old notebook, moistened it slightly, and pressed it onto Grin's forehead.
"This game is quite fun, but Betty cannot understand why we must use saliva," she mused. "Can we not use tea, I suppose?"
"That's how the rules work," Grin replied with a straight face. "Otherwise, it isn't a punishment."
Beatrice's face darkened as she saw through him. "It is indeed a punishment for Betty, but you don't seem to mind it at all."
"Ahem. You must be imagining things, Betty," Grin said, maintaining his blank expression.
Eventually, the game came to an end. "Alright, Wolgaroth, you owe me exactly two thousand, one hundred and thirty-one words," Grin announced, rummaging through his pockets for a nail. "Time to start carving."
"What?! You're planning to write a novel on my face?" the mirror shrieked. "I'm not playing anymore!"
It transformed into a beam of light and vanished back into Grin's body. Grin laughed, satisfied with the evening's progress.
"Hmph. You only enjoy bullying those who are dim-witted," Beatrice remarked, pouring herself a cup of tea.
The library had fallen into the quiet of early night. It was the first time in four centuries that Beatrice had stayed awake and engaged this late. Grin arranged the cards and placed them on her small desk, rubbing his sore wrists.
"Alright, Betty. Let's call it a day," he said, preparing to leave.
"...Wait a moment."
A flicker of melancholy passed through Beatrice's eyes. She turned her face away, her voice regaining its cold edge to hide a sudden softness. "You are still quite far from a healthy bedtime. If you find you cannot fall asleep… Betty grants you permission to tell a silly story here to pass the time."
She paused, then added quietly, "For the sake of the gift you gave me, I suppose."