The laugh still hung around the table when Iris set her empty glass on the brass rail. Ward-ink hissed faintly where her fingers brushed it, a warning the dealer pretended not to hear.
Four men sat hunched over the tiles, eyes quick, hands quicker. The one with the loud suit—the smirk still curling his mouth from "escort night"—didn't bother lowering his gaze. The others chuckled like courtiers circling a joke.
Iris crooked her smile, all patience and knives. "Buy-in," she said.
The dealer's mask twitched, just for a beat, but she reached for the rack all the same.
The sharp man in the loud suit leaned back, smirk curling. "Table minimum's more than your dress."
"Sweet of you to know the price of both," Iris said. She thumbed her slate, and a stack of credits folded into AR above her palm—bright, sharp, impossible to laugh away. She tossed them onto the felt. They landed like pearls, cast before swine.
The dealer swept them in. "Seat is open."
Tiles slid into her hand, cold as coins, clicking like teeth.
The first hand she threw away. He laughed too loudly, raking in chips.
The second she claimed clean, tiles down before his grin had finished.
The third she bled slow, discards wrong, stack thinning. The table relaxed.
The fourth she struck, pung sharp, and his laughter cut in half.
The crowd pressed closer. Smoke thickened, charms hissed. A bracelet snapped on a spectator's wrist, beads scattering to the floor. Overhead, the AR odds spat symbols, then died.
One man folded, muttering devils. Another left for baccarat without a word.
It narrowed to two.
The loud man's smirk had gone brittle. Sweat clung at his temple. He slapped tiles too hard, scattering them.
Iris leaned back, violet ember painting her cheek. "Still think I'm garnish?"
The dealer kept her eyes down, not wanting to see the answer.
It was Iris and him now, one on one.
The tiles were restless things, clicking in his hands too loud. His grin had curdled. Sweat beaded under the powder on his cheek.
Iris leaned forward, let smoke curl sideways so it wouldn't sting the dealer. Her aura made the brass rail tick like a cooling engine.
They played.
He won a hand on luck, slammed tiles hard enough to startle the onlookers into nervous laughter. She let him have it, smile narrow, as if she had planned the loss. The next, she dismantled him clean, each draw sliding into place like a blade finding its sheath.
The crowd leaned closer. Someone muttered about dragons. Someone else spat three times against the floor. The AR above them tried to calculate odds and instead filled with broken hexagrams.
Her hand moved without hurry. He rushed, each discard sharp with fear.
"You're charmed," one of the watchers whispered, too near the rail. His charm bracelet smoked where it touched brass. He pulled his hand back fast, eyes wide.
Iris placed her last tile down soft. Mah-jong. The dealer flinched as if struck. Chips moved her way.
The man's laugh had died into silence. His stack shrank, his knuckles white around the draw.
Another hand. Another loss.
By the third, he was raw, discards sloppy, eyes bloodshot. He reached for a drink that wasn't there. His wife was nowhere near the table. He played like a man cornered, no thought of exit.
Iris's smile sharpened. "Careful," she said. "You're leaking."
He snapped his next tile down so hard it cracked against the felt. The dealer's mask broke; her eyes flicked to Iris, pleading, then away.
Iris drew, slow. The tile was heavy, ink black and gleaming. She laid it with a casual hand. The crowd gasped.
Mah-jong again.
The table erupted—cheers, curses, the clatter of charms shaken in disbelief. Smoke thickened, violet sparks crawling the rail.
The loud man sagged back, stack nearly gone, face drawn. The smirk was ashes now.
"Last round," Iris said, voice soft.
The dealer hesitated, looked at the chips, then at him, then at her. She dealt.
The man fumbled, sweat dripping onto the tiles. His hand shook. He tried to sneer, lips trembling.
Iris drew, placed, discarded, each move steady as tide. Her aura pressed down, bending the air. The AR feeds above them showed nothing but static now.
He slapped his last tile in desperation. "Pung!"
The crowd groaned, the relief too thin.
Iris didn't rush. She set her final tile down with care, fingers lingering. "Mah-jong," she said.
The dealer froze. Then she nodded. Chips raked across.
The man's stack was gone. He sat hollow, breath ragged, shirt damp at the chest.
Iris tapped ash into the brass, violet ember still steady at her lip. She looked at him the way storms look at roofs. "Escort night's over."
Silence clung after the last tiles. The dealer's hands hovered an inch above the felt, as if the air itself was charged.
The man slumped back, breath noisy, collar dark with sweat. No one laughed for him now. The crowd shifted instead—quiet coughs, murmurs of omen, charms rubbed raw between fingers.
A pit boss appeared without sound. Broad suit, hair slicked, ward-thread glimmering faint across the lapel. He didn't look at Iris first; he looked at the empty space where the man's chips had been, then at the static fogging the AR screen above the pit. Only then did his gaze touch her.
Then he smiled in a new way—higher on one side, gums eager. A man ready to burn down his kitchen to make a point. He reached into his breast pocket. Not for chips; his stack was theater at this point. He pulled a holo-slate, sleek enough to look smug, and flicked it into life over the felt. The table's ward-light flickered as it swallowed a new layer of AR.
"Madam," he said, voice sanded smooth. "Fortuna Arcana thanks you for your play."
It wasn't thanks. It was inquiry.
Iris tipped the last of her smoke sideways, violet ember painting her cheek. "I was lucky."
The crowd didn't believe it. Neither did the pit boss. Luck didn't break bracelets. Luck didn't blind AR. However, her opponent was not ready to give up.
"Pit," he said without taking his eyes off Iris. His voice had acquired that dead-flat the very wealthy use when summoning the world to their table. "Get my secretary on."
Pit boss lowered his head."Of course, Mr. Leung."
The secretary stepped forward from the shadows, slate already awake in her hands. She moved behind Leung's chair with the precision of someone long used to cleaning up his nights.
"Sir?"
"Title packet," Leung said. "Penthouse. Central. Transfer in escrow."
The secretary blanched so fast Iris saw the color leave her skin. "Sir—Mr. Leung—at this hour? For what purpose?"
Leung didn't blink. "Wager."
Silence. The kind that comes before sirens.
The pit boss's smile didn't move, but every charm at his belt woke. The dealer's palm hovered over the wall like she was ready to lay last rites on it.
"Sir," the secretary tried again, voice pitched low, "that asset... we agreed never to— It's... your father's—"
"Mine now," Leung said. "Do as I say."
Her eyes darted, fear there but not for herself. Iris's fingers tightened around a tile until its paint cooled her blood.
"Per the house rules," the pit boss said, tone smoothed by long practice, "such a wager can only be permitted with the express acceptance of your table opponent." His gaze slid to Iris, gentle in a way that warned. "Miss, the casino does not encourage—"
"No," Iris said.
The room jolted like a flock of birds taking wing.
Leung's smile showed too much gum. "Pretty," he said. "Afraid?"
"I don't take houses off drunk men," she answered. "The gods pay bad interest on that sort of thing."
"I'm sober."
"No you are not," she said.
The secretary clutched her slate like a shield. "Mr. Leung, it would be irregular. The Land Registry requires—witness clauses, consents, liens—there's a helipad with separate licensing—"
"Do it," Leung snapped. His eyes swung full to Iris for the first time all night. "Take the bet, girl. Don't make me ask twice."
Her grin showed nothing soft. She tapped her tile once on the rail, hard enough the brass spat a spark.
"And if I do, what's in it for me?"