Page 58 of A Heart of Bluestone

Serena and Dray watch me.

Those gazes keep me pinned in place.

“Strip poker,” Landon suggests, earning a few snickers from Mildred, but the joke dies too quickly when he flips another card—then his face contorts with a hiss.

Oliver scrunches his nose. “I’m not trying to see that.”

He shuts it down, fast.

Relief unribbons in my chest, a ball I didn’t realise had formed, and I loosen a slight breath.

Dray draws in my stare. He lifts his hand that grips the bottle neck and gestures to the linen armchair.Sit, he tells me with that one move. And it’s an agreement to Serena’s terms.

Play one round, I won’t be harmed.

But I will be if I make a run for it.

Dray says, “Truth or dare.”

I eye him closely. My boots are planted firm. “One round.”

“Two,” Serena counters.

“You said one.”

“I did say that. One round, one drink. Like old times.”

“We didn’t drink in old times,” I grumble and slip around the arm of the cushioned chair.

Slowly, I sink into it, my gaze swerving from Snake to Snake.

Dray moves around to sit on the couch, Oliver’s socked feet just some inches away from him. He hands over the cigars to my brother who sets them on the edge of the scratched coffee table.

Serena sets out crystal tumblers, little bigger than shot glasses. She places them in a circle on the blackwood coffee table, then takes the vodka bottle from Oliver.

Uneasiness has him, firm in its grip.

His mouth moves nervously, lips sucked in and rubbing over each other, a frown furrowing his brow. He stares at the coffee table, the scratches that smear the chipped wood surface.

“We all know the rules,” Asta starts, and cuts a glance at me. “If you lie, or don’t complete the dare, you will be poisoned with the sick draught.”

I bite down on the inside of my cheek.

I haven’t had a sick draught myself, but I have seen it.

First time was third year, and the coffees at the faculty table in the mess hall were contaminated. I have never seen a viler procession of vomit before in my life, just pure black tar projecting over tables. It didn’t stop for the better part of an hour, and I swear some teachers passed out from the convulsions.

Master Welham had black-stained teeth for a week.

I shudder at the memory.

Mildred finally pulls away from the couch and abandons the card game. She won. I know she won, because Landon hands over a rose-gold watch before he wanders, sulking, to the spot between Oliver on the couch and Serena on the armchair.

Landon drops onto the corner of the rug with a hard grunt, a scowl creasing his face.

I eye the watch that Mildred tugs onto her own wrist, and my mouth pinches as I guess the prestigious timepiece to be noneother than a Patek Philippe. That’s a serious bet to place on some small, casual card game.

I doubt even Oliver would place such a massive bet on a small game. It’s not that he doesn’t have the money to spare, because he does, but rather that it’s too wasteful.

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