"Everyone wants to bet on winners. The smart money bets on the desperate."
***
Thomlin Ashworth squirmed in his seat. The chair groaned under him as he shifted, his ink-stained fingers giving away exactly how he'd spent his life. Ledgers and letters. Not swords. His eyes bounced between the professor and the rest of us like he needed permission to breathe.
"Then why are you here, Professor?"
The question sat there. Heavy. Dangerous.
Isolde stopped walking. Her boots scraped against stone, loud in the sudden quiet. Something flickered in those amber eyes. A spark of whoever she'd been before the fall. Before whatever betrayal had landed her here with the rest of us garbage. Her shoulders shifted. Her jaw tightened. For half a second, the tired drunk routine vanished and something terrifying looked out at us instead.
"Because I have a gambling problem."
