Rustline didn't celebrate.
It recalculated.
Cole felt it in the minutes after the lieutenant fell—not as noise, not as panic, but as a tightening. Like the town had drawn a breath and decided to hold it. Tables didn't vanish, but they stopped calling. Cards stayed in pockets. Deals waited half a second longer than they should've.
That half second mattered.
Dusty kept close, shoulder brushing Cole's leg every few steps. The dog's ears kept flicking, catching things Cole couldn't hear. Not sounds. Shifts.
They crossed a street that had been loud an hour earlier.
Now it whispered.
Cole stopped.
So did Dusty.
Ahead, a table sat untouched in the open, a hand frozen mid-deal. Cards half-spread. Chips resting where fingers had left them.
No one sat.
No one stood nearby.
The air around it felt… stalled.
Cole stepped closer.
The cards didn't move.
Not even in the wind.
Text flickered—weak, like it didn't want to be seen.
HOUSE OF RECKONING // TEMPORARY LOCKREASON: PRIORITY INTERFERENCESTATUS: UNRESOLVED
Cole frowned.
Priority meant Royal business.
Interference meant someone had stepped where they weren't supposed to.
Dusty growled low.
Not at the table.
At the street beyond it.
Cole followed his gaze.
People stood there now, scattered, confused. A man shook a pair of dice in his palm like he'd forgotten why. A woman stared at her cards and whispered numbers that didn't line up anymore.
A Dealer jogged past, face tight, coat unbuttoned like he'd left something unfinished.
Cole caught his sleeve.
"What's going on," Cole asked.
The Dealer didn't pull away.
That alone told Cole enough.
"Tables are freezing," the man said. "Hands mid-count. Wagers not settling."
"That doesn't happen," Cole said.
The Dealer swallowed.
"It does when someone big moves without permission."
The House pulsed, irritated.
SYSTEM VISIBILITY DEGRADEDFORECAST ACCURACY: REDUCED
Cole released the Dealer and stepped back.
The street felt heavier now.
Not pressure.
Expectation.
"Who," Cole asked.
The Dealer shook his head.
"Doesn't say," he said. "That's the problem."
He hurried off.
Dusty pressed closer.
Cole knelt and rested a hand on the dog's chest, feeling the steady beat there. Real. Unfazed.
"Easy," he murmured.
The House spoke again, fragmented.
MULTIPLE TABLES AFFECTEDCAUSE: EXTERNAL PRIORITYSOURCE: MASKED
Masked.
Cole straightened.
"King," he said quietly.
The word felt right and wrong at the same time.
Rustline shuddered.
Not an earthquake.
A ledger correction.
Tables unlocked in bursts—one here, three there—then froze again. Bets resolved late. Costs applied crooked. People stumbled when outcomes didn't line up with expectations.
Someone screamed when a win turned hollow in their hands.
The Queen stood at the edge of the square, half-hidden by shadow. She wasn't intervening. She was watching the math break.
Cole met her eyes across the distance.
She didn't nod.
She didn't smile.
She just lifted two fingers, slight as a breath.
See?
The House flickered harder now.
PRIORITY WAGER INCOMINGSCOPE: REGIONALPARTICIPANTS: PENDING
Cole felt the pull then.
Not a direction.
A designation.
He was being selected.
Dusty stiffened.
The dog's ears pinned back as the air around them tightened, not compressing space but narrowing possibility.
Cole's vision tunneled for a heartbeat.
The Ace of Spades pressed heavy and cold against his ribs, like it wanted to be counted again.
He breathed through it.
Slow.
Measured.
The House finished writing.
PRIORITY WAGER INCOMINGTARGET: COLE MARROWSECONDARY VARIABLES: UNDER REVIEW
Secondary.
Cole looked down at Dusty.
The dog looked back, eyes clear, tail low, trusting without knowing why.
"Not him," Cole said.
The House did not respond.
Around them, Rustline held still, like a town waiting to see which way a fist would swing.
The Queen turned away first.
That mattered.
Cole stood in the middle of a street full of paused outcomes and felt something old and large shift its attention fully onto him.
The shadow had moved.
Not closer.
Aligned.
And somewhere beyond Rustline, far enough to think himself untouchable, the King finished stacking a deck that no longer behaved the way it used to.