Page 19 of King of Death

I jolted at the sound of Gillie’s voice, realising I’d drained my glass again and was staring at it. Looking up, I saw him tip back his tankard to finish off the last of his ale before he lowered it with a sated sigh.

“Appreciate you joining me, lad.” He grinned at me, standing up from the table and giving the server a nod.

“Wait.” I shot up out of my seat, my chair scraping back across the stone floor. Heat crept into my cheeks, so I looked down quickly and fiddled with my glass. “I… One more drink?”

I didn’t want to be on my own. I didn’t want to go back to our bedroom without Ash and sit there in silence.

Gillie had gone still, and his silver eyes were too piercing as he stared at me across the table. I cleared my throat and forced myself to lift my chin, fixing a bored expression onto my face as if I didn’t care one way or another.

“Alright, lad.” He smiled at me and sat back down. “Sounds nice.”

The server rushed forward to pour me more wine and refill Gillie’s tankard. My head had begun to swim from standing up so suddenly, so I thumped unsteadily back into my seat and reached for my glass.

“I’m sure they won’t be long.” Gillie was still watching me from across the table. “It doesn’t take all that long to cross over.”

“I know,” I mumbled, blinking hard when the single wine glass in front of me momentarily became two.

“They’ll probably be back tomorrow,” he said cheerfully. “But we’ll both be bored tonight without our seelie men. I could teach you a card game so we pass the time?”

I nodded, sloppily gesturing the server over. “Yes, let’s do that.”

Gillie watched the fae pour more sparkling wine into my glass before hesitantly saying, “You’ll need to keep your wits about you if you want to win, though.”

“I’ll manage.” I lifted my head to blink blearily at the server, squinting my eyes to try and see her better. “Can you bring us some cards?”

“Of course,” she said quickly, backing away from the table and vanishing out of the room.

“Lonan,” Gillie began hesitantly once we were alone. “You really should slow down.”

“I’m not a child.” My voice sounded slurred, but I tried my best to shoot him an imperious look, even as his familiar face grew blurry and distorted.

“I know you’re not,” he said steadily. “And you know I love a drink. Or two. But you’re going to feel like dirt in the morning if you keep this up.”

“Not like I have any pressing appointments,” I muttered as the server reappeared with a small rectangular wooden box, which she set in front of Gillie before gathering the last of our plates from the table.

He sighed, opening the lid and pulling out a pack of cards. “An easy game tonight, I think, seeing as we’ve both… had a few. I’ll come and join you down that end.”

He stood and made his way to the empty seat beside me, the one I usually occupied when Ash was at the head of the table. Setting the deck face down on the table, he split it in half.

“Ever played cards, lad?”

“No.”

I’d watched my brothers gamble when I was young, before I’d started spending most of my time trying to avoid them. It had always gotten heated and vicious, nasty bets being made and taunts and jabs thrown across the table.

After the time when I was six and they’d made a bet over who would get to throw me into the half-frozen lake near the palace, I’d stopped going to watch them play.

“We’ll play a simple matching game.” Gillie smiled at me and nodded at the half deck he’d set in front of me. “We’ll take turns placing a card face up in the middle, and when there’s a match, try and snatch the pile up before I can. The one who ends up with the whole deck wins.”

That sounded simple enough, though it still took me a moment or two to process his words. I nodded, which made my head swim again, and carefully scooped up the cards in front of me.

“Why don’t we make it interesting?” Gillie asked, his voice carefully light as he neatly stacked his own cards in front of him. “Play for truths.”

I stiffened, narrowing my bleary eyes at him. “You’re trying to trick me.”

“No, lad,” Gillie said calmly. “No deep, dark secrets or awful truths. Just simple ones. I’d like to get to know you better, and you’re not an easy man to know.”

I pursed my numb lips, gazing down at the cards in my hand. I was definitely feeling the wine, but I was confident I would still be quicker than Gillie. I was quicker than most people.

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