Chapter 50: Careful Calculations
The air was too still.
Not the quiet of tension or fear—but a waiting stillness, thick and soundless, like breath held by the Tower itself. The audience had thinned to silhouettes and whispers, their focus razor-honed. Every soul knew what came next.
The next hand fell.
Cards slid like polished bones across the table, and this time, I didn’t even look at mine. I just stared at him with quiet eyes.
At Vincent—unshaken, unlaughing, and untouched. A statue of tailored violence and silent calculation. He flipped his cards with habitual grace, placing them without pause. Then I laid down mine. Quietly. Smoothly. Almost apologetically.
Three eights.
He blinked. A twitch.
And for the first time since the game began, something faltered. Not visibly. Not fully. But I saw it. A momentary crack in the armor. The weightless drift of his breath as the blade hissed down.
Schlick.
Vincent’s second finger hit the obsidian.
No reaction. Not even a wince. Not a single, sorry sound.