The Half-Class by Kayvion Lewis
Chapter Seven
Isat beside Donnie, sliding my seat a little further away from that blonde-haired bastard one seat over. Cass took the fourth and final seat next to me, putting a much-needed barrier between me and his friend.
Cass opened his mouth, but a roar of laughter and slapping tabletops behind us drowned him out. All I heard was the name at the end of his sentence.
“…Jasper.” He nodded to the blonde friend.
I forced a smile, letting my gaze linger on the ale splotches on his shoulders. “I hope you’ve been having a good night, Jasper.”
Jasper tapped his knuckles furiously against the tabletop, grinding his jaw. “Something like that.”
“Who’s going to shuffle?” Donnie asked. A passing behind him tripped over a chair leg and fell into him. But Donnie only pushed the man back up and gave a pat in the right direction.
“On it.” Cass slid the cards from the box and split the deck. “What’s your game of choice, Evie?”
“Anything I can win.”
Aman across the room let out a victorious roar, only matched by the storm of coins clattering to the ground as he dragged them towards him.
“Does that expand or limit your options?” Donnie asked with a warm smile.
“If you’re questioning my competence in these sorts of games, I’m afraid you’ll just have to gauge it for yourself.”
“Don’t let him intimidate you,” Cass said. “Donnie tries to make up for his lack of skill with mental warfare.”
“Does it work?” I asked.
“It does on Cass.” Donnie snorted a laugh. “Not so much on Jasper.”
“But what does work on an opponent who keeps aces quite literally up his sleeve?” Cass’s whisper was quite audible, even over the jumble of voices around us. Jasper’s deep blue eyes dug into me. Had they ever left?
“Fond of cheating, are we?” I matched Jasper’s stare. “Careful, I’ve seen men get throttled for less around here.”
Jasper leaned into the table. “What about unsavory girls? I’ve never known a lady who games. Not a real lady, anyway.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Then what are you doing here?”
“Ha!” Donnie threw his head back in chuckles and slammed his hand on the table.
“Why don’t we let the game decide who are the ladies and who are not?” Cass bridged the cards and dealt me five off the top. “No offence, of course.”
“None taken. Not from you.”
He dealt Donnie and Jasper their first hands, and our game began. High Hill—highest hand wins each round. It was simple and one of my favorite games.
“Five silver pieces,” Donnie tossed his coins into the center of the table. The metallic clatter harmonized the rest of the room. I could already tell he had a horrible hand. Five pieces was a lot of money to wager. A foolish amount to risk if his hand was only average, but a great amount to bet if he had a stellar hand. But the odds of him drawing a wonderful hand on the first round were practically nothing. Therefore, his cards had to be awful, and he was trying to scare the rest of us into folding. I glanced at my own. They weren’t perfect, but they had to be better than his.
I flicked the corner of my cards with my thumb. Jasper grumbled. Cass slumped in his chair.
“Fold,” Cass said, placing his cards face down.
Jasper’s gaze darted from Donnie to the coins. Was he having so much trouble reading his own friend?
“I...fold.” He threw his cards down.
“Two folds, one wager. What is a girl to do?” I shook my head. “When in doubt...” I pulled the required coins from my little pouch and placed them in a neat stack in the center of the scratched wood table. “Put it all on the line.”
“Idiotic,” Jasper mumbled. Was he talking about me or himself?
“Donnie?” Cass raised an eyebrow. Poor Donnie. His neutral face melted into pure disappointment as he flipped his cards over. The highest card he had was a six of clubs. An awful hand.
“An admirable attempt.” I fanned out my cards. As I suspected, mine were superior to his. “I guess lady luck is with me tonight.”
“I’m just getting warmed up.” Donnie laced and popped his fingers.
“While you do that, I’ll keep these warm for you.” I took eight of the coins from the collection in the center and left two in the pool. “Because I’m generous.”
Donnie gathered the cards to reshuffle them, but I swiped Cass’s before he could. He had three of a kind—the ace of diamonds, hearts, and spades. It wasn’t the best hand but it was better than mine, and definitely better than Donnie’s.
“You should have more faith in your hand.” I handed his cards over to Donnie.
“Maybe I’m just not as risky as you.” The lantern sitting at the edge of our table cast a dancing orange light over his face. For a moment, he looked like a subject from one of Luke’s paintings. I almost wanted to touch him to make sure he was real and not a work of oil and canvas come to life.
I didn’t want to think about Luke right now.
“Can’t always play it safe Cass, you’ll never win. Besides, what’s the fun in that?”
“Is that how you do things in Morra? All in, all the time?”
“In some ways. As you can probably tell, we love to live in extremes here. It’s all or nothing, no middle ground.”
“The best things are.” Jasper was glaring at me again, tapping his fingers over the tabletop.
Cass shot a glance at him, and he dropped his gaze. Having it off me for a moment did let me breathe a little easier. Not that I couldn’t handle his disdain.
“Tell me about Ryland,” I said while Donnie dealt our new hands. “You three must be from the capital, right? What is it like in Aurell?”
Cass’s green eyes flickered in the lantern light. “It’s less colorful than here.”
“Yes, a lot less,” Jasper said. Cass shot yet another glare his friend’s way, and for whatever reason, Jasper looked keen to remain quiet after that one.
“It’s a bit more formal,” Donnie said. Perhaps it was the comment that drew my eye to it, but he and Cass and even Jasper a bit sat with a straighter, taller posture than the other patrons around. Then again, most of the others were slumped over with drink, so that could have been part of it.
“It’s very structured,” Donnie continued. “At least in our circles.” He paused. “Not mention people are a bit more…devoted to the old religion there.”
For the sake of saving my good mood, I ignored that last part.
“And what sort of circles do you occupy?” I asked.
“The most tedious kinds,” Cass sighed, examining his new hand.
Cass said he wasn’t an officer. He was just traveling with the rest. Could he have been one of the hordes of workers the king was bringing in from Aurell? I’d overheard a few patrons complaining that His Majesty was bringing in an entire troop of his own servants from Ryland with him instead of filling our former king’s castle with ready and willing workers from here in Bexbury. Cass wasn’t dark-class—his skin was perhaps the snowiest I’d ever seen—so he likely wasn’t a menial servant, but maybe he was a scholar’s apprentice or something of the sort. At that conclusion, my curiosity doubled about Donnie, whose umber brown skin told me he sure as hell wasn’t a scholar’s apprentice but whose clothing was far finer than a typical dark-classes. Who exactly was I spending my night with?
“Did you all come here to work for the king?” My stomach clenched.
Jasper opened his mouth to answer, but Cass kicked him under the table.
“Something like that,” Donnie said.
Fine. If they didn’t want to tell me, that was their business. I probably didn’t want to know anyway.
“I’ll wager five.” Cass stacked the coins in the center of the table.
I shouldn’t have been so confident after my first hand. All my succeeding ones were absolute rubbish. I must have jinxed myself because not only were all of the best combinations missing from my hand, but every single ace seemed to find its way into Jasper’s. Was Cass’s comment about Jasper keeping aces up his sleeve more truthful than I thought?
Five more rounds passed, and I was down to a lone two coins. Cass and Donnie seemed to be having just as much trouble as I was, the latter of whom was so frazzled by his consistent losses that he decided he needed a break. He abandoned the table to stretch his legs and perhaps devise a new strategy of mental manipulation.
Jasper slid a silver piece from the ever-growing pool he’d left gloating in the center into his hand while Cass reshuffled our deck.
“Don’t worry, Evie.” It was the first time Jasper had said my name that evening. It sounded disgusting coming from his lips. “Game or no game, I promise I’ll give you a chance to earn some coins back.”
I clenched my fist over the table, splinters scratched my skin. I was sure he wasn’t an officer now—how much trouble would I be in if I rammed my fist into his face?
“Just shut up, Jasper,” Cass said. “Why don’t you go take a walk with Donnie.” Cass paused and glared at his friend, though at the moment, they seemed like anything but. I expected Jasper to say something, anything, back at Cass, but he held his tongue.
“Don’t touch my coins.” Jasper rose then strode away from the table. My hand, no, my entire body relaxed.
“I’m sorry about him.” Cass let out a breath. “He’s entertaining some days but most—"
“He’s an ass?”
“Pretty much.”
Cass tried to bridge the cards, more than a couple escaping his grasp each time. He shuffled like an old lady.
“Why do you spend your time with him?” I stole the deck from Cass. He reached to take them back, but I slapped him away and began my own shuffling, feeling satisfied to hear the suction of air as I bridged the cards up.
“He keeps me grounded. Connected to the real world.” Cass leaned back and craned his neck around, watching the room behind him like he was a curious little boy absorbing the feeling of the night—the laughter, the yells, the smell of yeast from the beer.
He sighed and sat back up. “He takes me to places like this.”
“You can’t go out by yourself? Pardon my assumption, but you look full-grown to me.”
“Thank you for noticing. But even so, I wouldn’t have come here by myself. If left to my own devices, I might spend every hour of every day locked away in the library.”
“The one your father tried to ban you from?”
He chuckled. “The very same.”
“Then what about Donnie?” I asked, bridging again. “He seems like the type to lust for an exciting night in a place like this.”
A smirk tipped his lips like he knew something I didn’t. “Not exactly like this, but perhaps. He’s too spontaneous, though. He’ll run from place to place without stopping to think about anyone else, even his old friend Cass.”
I nodded. How many times had Kat abandoned me to meet friends or to visit a new dress shop? Most of the time, when she left me, it was because she knew I wouldn’t be welcome wherever she wanted to go, But that didn’t make me feel any better.
“Sometimes I feel like I get left behind too, but for different reasons,” I said.
Cass’s smile faded. We sat in silence until I noted Jasper and Donnie descending the distant cellar stairs, Jasper with a disgusting grin on his face. It sparked a stellar urge in me.
“Now, Cass.” I leaned closer to him. “Tell me, are you the type of person to betray one friend for the benefit of another?”
He turned so that our knees touched. “I should think not.”
Jasper and Donnie were at the bottom of the staircase now, begging to squeeze through the room back to us. “Are you sure?”
Cass smiled. “No.”
“Then don’t say a thing.” I pulled the deck under the table between Cass and me. He watched me as I picked all the high-value spades out of the deck and moved them to the top. “Do you remember all the way back in volume two, when Taliver hinged his best mate’s life on a card game with the Magician of Mischief but won by stacking the deck with all spades?”
“How could I forget? And they say you can’t learn anything from fantasy.”
Just as Donnie and Jasper reached us, I moved the deck back over the table and shuffled one last time, making sure the top five cards remained where they were.
“Evie and I have been talking,” Cass said. Jasper and Donnie took their seats. “This game is getting tedious. Let’s end it. One last hand, winner takes all.”
Donnie scooted in his chair. “Sounds good to me. It’s not like I have much else to lose anyway.”
“Jasper?”
“All in?” He huffed and tapped his knuckles against the tabletop. “I’d be a fool to risk all my coins in one hand.”
“You’re the one who left them in the pool,” I said.
“Only because they were too plentiful for my pockets.”
“Are you sure,” Cass asked. He reached into his pocket and retrieved four gold coins. They sang as he dropped them over the mound of silver in the center of the table. I had to blink to make sure I didn’t imagine the color. One gold coin was equal to fifty of its silver counterparts. He had these all along?
Cass shrugged. “You can’t always play it safe.”
Jasper’s gaze swelled on the glimmering coins, filling with more hunger than the eyes of most men who stumbled into the barn. What was Cass doing? Surely, he knew he was about to lose those coins. That was a lot of money to throw away.
“I’m in,” Jasper said.
I dealt the deck from the top down. The whole table had already seen me shuffle. It was left to chance now—more or less.
Cass laid his hand down first. It wasn’t great— one pair of fives and some other cards, but no aces.
I had a straight, a five all the way to a nine. What a time for my luck to finally improve.
“You’re up, Jasper,” Cass said. “I hope you can beat Evie.” I cleared my throat to keep from grinning.
Jasper’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled widely. , bringing his hand up from his lap. “I hope she hasn’t wagered all her night’s earning in this little game.”
A fire swelled in my chest, but the overwhelming anticipation overshadowed it.
“Four of a kind.” Jasper slapped his cards on the table. “And that’s the end of that.”
Cass looked at me, then back down to Jasper’s impossible hand. He’d managed to secure four aces into his set of cards, with the ace of spades resting proudly on top.
Donnie broke into hysterical laughter. The corners of his eyes pinched together, and his dreads bounced atop his head. “You’re lucky. But not as lucky as my Jasper.” He laughed so hard that a tear slid down his cheek. Donnie jumped up and dropped his cards over the pile of coins. A royal flush, topped with the ace of spades.
Jasper’s face reddened.
“Isn’t that odd, Cass?” I tapped my chin. “It appears there were two aces of spades in that deck.”
“Very odd,” he said. “I suppose it was a faulty deck. Too bad. Nothing we can do about it now.”
Jasper jerked up from the table. His chair scraping against the floor was almost overcome by the clattering of coins over the table as Donnie raked his winnings into a pile. He glared down at me like he wanted to slit my throat.
“You stacked that deck.”
“How could I?” I asked. “Cass was watching me the entire time. You can’t call me a cheat without calling him one, too. Are you calling us both cheats?”
Cass crossed his arms, stony-faced. “Are you?”
From what I’d seen so far, Cass had some sort of hold over Jasper. Whatever it was, I was making my last bet of the night in trusting that Jasper wouldn’t slander Cass.
Jasper licked his teeth. “I guess not.”
“I never thought I’d find myself literally wishing for deeper pockets,” Donnie said, entirely oblivious to the outburst taking place on the other side of the table.
“Do you need some help?” Cass asked. “Because my pockets are quite empty.”
Jasper gave up on all of us and stormed back towards the cellar stairs. I wondered where he would go now with no money to spend.
“Here, Donnie.” I tossed him my flaccid coin pouch. “You need it more than I do.”
Cass and I helped Donnie collect his winnings, mostly sliding half the coins into my former pouch, smiling between each other all the while. Donnie saved the final four gold pieces for last, sliding three of them into a pocket inside his coat.
“I can’t think of a higher note to end my night on,” Donnie said. He jingled like bells with the slightest movement. “We should get going before Jasper takes off without us.”
“He wouldn’t dare,” Cass assured him.
“When has Jasper been anything but daring?” Donnie turned his attention to me. “I’m glad we got a chance to meet, Miss Evie.”
“Likewise.”
Donnie strolled past us, bumping other tables and still clattering with the weight of his wins.
“Can’t wait for the next time!” He turned back. Something flipped out of his fingers, and I caught it in my hands. A gold piece.
I opened my mouth to protest, but Donnie was already twisting his way back towards the staircase and leaving Cass and me by the table, only a few steps away from the groups flanking us and smothered by the noise of the night but still relatively alone.
“Trust me, he doesn’t need the gold,” Cass said.
I smiled softly and tucked the coin into my boot. I guess Cass didn’t need his coins either. At least, he didn’t seem to want them.
“You could have dealt yourself the spades,” he said. “I wouldn’t have minded.”
“And deprive dear Donnie of such a glorious triumph? I don’t think so.”
Cass ran a hand through his deep black hair. “So, you’re going to go back to reading now?”
“Most likely. I can’t think of anything else I’ll do tonight.” Surely Albo was out of my nook by now too.
His shoulders relaxed. Confusion took me for a moment before I realized what he was really asking. Was I going back to work? But was it relief I saw in him or disappointment that he couldn’t request my company? My heart sank. It was probably the latter.
“You should be off.” I stepped past him. “Wouldn’t want to keep your friends waiting.”
“Wait—” I bit my lip and turned back to him. He took a careful step towards me. “If I came back tomorrow night, perhaps we could talk about Taliver some more?”
His soft eyes were focused on mine.
Just talk about Taliver, or was this something else? For the first time all night, I couldn’t tell if I was being propositioned or not.
“I have plans tomorrow night,” I said.
That part wasn’t a lie. Jace had called a small meeting with her inner circle, and I couldn’t miss it.
“And the next night?” He looked like he was holding his breath.
I stared up into his gentle green eyes. His request sounded innocent enough. My new friend Cass hadn’t asked me for anything thus far, and some part of me did long to see him again. What was the harm in saying yes?
“The next night...” I took a small breath. “I’m all yours.”