Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood

It’s the first time I’ve finished before him— the first time I get to watch him play. It’s his turn to move, and he sits back in the chair, neck slightly bent, arms on his chest. Then he moves his rook, large hands incongruously graceful, and presses the clock.

I have yet to study his games. Defne chooses what plays I analyze, and I’ve found none of Nolan’s in my list. Still, it’s impossible to know anything about chess without having some theoretical notions about him as a player: he is famously cunning, aggressive, versatile. Active. Always doing something risky to raise the pressure. His strategies might seem impulsive, spontaneous, but they are long- sighted and convoluted, nearly impossible to thwart. He relentlessly exploits every advantage, position, distraction. I remember reading about a quality of chess players called nettlesomeness: the ability to not just play well but also trick others into playing poorly. Nolan, by all accounts, has it in heaps. And when the adversary has blundered their way into the middle game, he sinks his teeth into them and draws blood.

The Kingkiller, indeed.

I watch him at work as he advances, surrounds the center, moves his knight and bishop in tandem, takes everything on his path, and . . .

I feel breathless. Light-headed. Confused. That’s how beautiful his moves are. Cruel and unstoppable. I won against him once, but I also know I might not win again—he’s that good. And there’s more: I’m a practical player, always focused on finishing off my opponent as quickly as possible rather than on the art and elegance of the game. But Nolan’s play is stunning. In five thousand years archaeologists will cry at its grace. Though if we don’t stop carbon emissions, the world will just be a pile of ashes, so maybe we should put it in a time capsule. Send it into space on an alien probe. Share with the rest of the universe—

“You okay?” Tanu asks.

“I— yes.” I hadn’t noticed her. Even though she’s right beside me.

“You looked . . . entranced.”

“No. I was just . . .”

“Yeah, Nolan’s play will do that. Nolan, in general.” She laughs softly. “I used to be so in love with him, I’d thought I’d die if we didn’t get married and have four chubby kids named after opening gambits no one uses anymore.” My eyes widen. “Oh, don’t worry. I was, like, twelve? And he couldn’t have cared less about that stuff.” She shrugs. “I thought he was incapable of caring at all before . . . well. On paper, he should have tons of game, but in reality he has very little.” She smiles reassuringly. I want to ask her why she assumes that I’d worry, or what before means, but Nolan buries his fangs into the Polish king and Tanu is too busy cheering.

I’m in a good mood until the last match of the day— Serbia. Because some chess divinity hates me, their second board is someone I remember from Koch’s crew back at Philly Open— Dordevic, the name tag informs me, and I suddenly recall what he asked me that night.

What did you do before the game? I need that kind of luck.

“Greenleaf,” he says, his sneer a clear sign of Koch affiliation.

I vow to myself to destroy him. And I’m true to my word for the first forty minutes or so, easily blocking his attacks and gaining control of the center. Until he takes a page from Koch’s Little Bitch Manual, and accuses me of making an illegal move.

“It’s not,” I tell him.

“If you previously moved the rook— ”

“But I didn’t.”

“Arbiter!”

I roll my eyes but let him flag the closest official— a blond woman who nods and walks over to us.

I recognize her immediately. My stomach flips, then freezes into a block of concrete that should drag me through the floor. Instead, snippets of a four- year- old conversation swarm my head.

Who was she?

No one.

But you were—

No one, Mal.

“Yes?” she asks Dordevic, and there’s a pounding roar in my ears. I know everything about her— name, age, even her address. Or at least, a few years ago’s. It’s possible that she moved. That she doesn’t work at the bank anymore, that she doesn’t exercise at Pure Barre, that—

“It’s not illegal,” she tells Dordevic, who starts gesticulating his disagreement. My entire body is shaking, and I can’t tune in.

“Are you okay?” a voice asks in my ear. Nolan. He just finished his game. “Mal?”

I thrust a trembling hand out to Dordevic. “Draw?” I offer. It’s the first time.

His expression shifts from confused, to distrustful, to relieved when he accepts. We both know that if we’d continued, I’d have won, but— I can’t. Not now.

“Not such a good talent, after all?” He sniggers. I’m already running to the bathroom when I hear Nolan calling him a shithead.

I wash my face, shuddering. I remind myself that it’s fine, because nothing happened. It was years ago. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. Nothing—

“What’s wrong?” Nolan asks the second I step out of the bathroom. He’s been waiting for me, and I nearly face- plant into his chest.

“I . . . Sorry about the draw.”

“I don’t care. Who was that arbiter?”

Shit. He noticed. “No one. I just . . .” I step around him, but one hand closes around my upper arm.