With some excitement and no one around to witness it, Felix couldn't resist raising his fist into the air, grinning. It had been some time since he had allowed himself to express anything openly.
As soon as he finished reading the projection through his eyes, he felt the materialization and found a deck and a small device resting in his hands.
Setting the device on the counter, his fingers traced the raised patterns of the embossed brass case, coated in a black so matte it seemed to swallow the light. The bold words 'every bet costs' were etched across the front.
The metal was cool and slick enough that it gave him the impression the entire appeal came from how mesmerizing it felt to hold.
He flicked open the case, revealing a deck of perfectly identical black cards.
Their edges were lined in faded gold, and when Felix slid one free with his thumb, the back of the card bore a single design: an eye set in the center of a roulette wheel, surrounded by thin radial lines that resembled both spokes and lashes.
In each corner sat a symbol — a coin, an hourglass, a crown split down the middle, and a dagger. "Stylish," Felix muttered.
He turned it over and found the front blank. He glanced toward the door, then the windows, making sure no one had wandered in. Satisfied, he placed the device back onto the counter and held the card between two fingers.
He closed his eyes and pictured a simple action. He'd pick up the value counter within the next ten minutes. There was no danger in it and no complication. It served as a clean first test. As the card in his hand began to grow colder, Felix opened his eyes.
Dark red letters started to bleed through the blank surface, rising slow and clean from beneath the paper as if the ink had always been trapped inside. He watched until the message finished forming.
IT SLIPS FROM YOUR HAND.
Felix stared at it strangely. ". . That's it?" He looked at the small device sitting harmlessly on the counter. Then, with deliberate care, he reached for it.
Picking it up with a firm grip, he flipped the switch on the side and winced as a burst of strange static crackled from within. Without holding it tightly, he likely would have dropped it. He snickered after that realization.
Small enough to fit in one hand, the device had the shape of a thick pocket meter and was heavier than it looked. It was all dark metal with a glass screen set into the center. Beneath the glass rested a single thin needle at zero, while faint markings curved along the inside like an old gauge. A small switch lined the side, and near the top was a circular lens no wider than a coin.
Felix turned it over once more, studying it, then angled the lens toward the front window. The needle twitched. A demon passing outside came into view through the glass, dragging his feet with both hands in his pockets.
The device crackled softly before the screen flickered. The zero shifted slowly into a range between four and seven.
Felix adjusted slightly, tracking another figure farther down the street. The reading jumped, then corrected itself. Eighteen to thirty-one.
". . Hm."
He leaned against the counter and kept scanning. Some readings stayed low. Some spiked and dropped depending on how people moved.
A pair of demons walking together caused the needle to jitter wildly until he separated them in the lens. One woman covered in jewelry only read around twelve. Another man dressed like a beggar made the needle climb into the forties before disappearing around a corner.
Felix's grin returned. His natural sense of greed and worth had always come to him through impressions and instinct. It was like a tug in the back of his mind. Useful, but imprecise. What he had now was cleaner. Something measurable. Something he could compare against feeling until he better understood the limits of his meta-awareness.
He pointed the lens at the register out of curiosity. The needle slammed upward hard enough to tap the glass. The screen flashed a broken line of symbols before going blank. Felix barked a short laugh and switched it off. "Alright. Noted."
With the device still in one hand, he gathered the deck with the other and headed toward the back room. Past loose shelving and stacked junk, he opened the narrow storage closet tucked beside the wall.
Inside were cleaning supplies, cracked boxes, and the old torn bag he had hidden days ago. Felix crouched and pushed aside a rag bundle, revealing the pair of supernaturally rigged dice beneath it.
He placed the deck beside them, then set the value counter on top for a moment before reconsidering and wrapping it in cloth first.
A problem with every item he'd received from the gacha was becoming more obvious by the day. He had no secure place to keep any of it. That created problems.
If Barnaby found them, questions would follow. If a customer stole them, that was worse. Luckily, it seemed Barnaby had no knowledge of this room. But that only created another question. How?
Felix straightened slowly so as not to hit his head, his eyes moving across the cramped closet again. Dust had settled thick in the upper corners. The hinge on the inside of the door held a deeper rust line than the outer one, meaning it had gone long stretches without being opened.
Yet Barnaby owned the shop. Or, at the very least, handled the responsibilities and carried himself like someone who did.
Felix had watched the old Imp count inventory from memory, notice when items had shifted shelves, and complain over losses as small as a missing cloth.
He knew which drawers stuck, which floorboards creaked, which jars had been tampered with, and how much dust had gathered on places customers never looked. That wasn't the behavior of someone inattentive. It was the behavior of someone motivated enough to notice details that others ignored.
In short, Barnaby noticed everything that affected the front.
So either he had somehow overlooked an entire storage space tucked in the back or he hadn't overlooked it at all.
Felix's gaze narrowed. There were smaller things too. Barnaby never lingered near this side of the building unless he had to. When cleaning was assigned, the back room was always mentioned vaguely, then redirected into something else before specifics came up.
Once, when Felix had asked where a missing crate should go, Barnaby answered too quickly and named a shelf without turning to check. That meant one of two things.
The room held no value, and Barnaby simply didn't care enough to use it. Or it had held value once, and Barnaby had reasons to leave it buried. Felix looked at the warped wall panels, the uneven boards beneath his feet, and the cracks hidden behind stacked junk.
It was unlikely an old shop like this had survived in Hell without exceptions. Exceptions such as compartments, debts, favors, and things better left unseen.
Barnaby was hiding something about the store. Felix just didn't know whether it was shame, danger, or debt.