by Laura Powell
“You’ve got the wrong person. I’m sorry I can’t help.”
Cat met her eyes. Their expression was as cool and steady as her own.
“Everything all right here, sweetheart?”
A distinguished-looking man with graying hair and an easy smile had just arrived. “I’m fine, thanks, Daddy.” Flora twisted a strand of honey-blond hair around her finger. “Let’s go.”
“That’s what she’s always like,” said Toby gloomily, as soon as they were alone. “All polite and polished and impossible.”
Although Cat didn’t want to admit it, Flora had impressed her. There was steel behind the sweetness. Even without Toby’s introduction, Cat felt that she would have recognized her as someone who had also walked the Arcanum’s streets, and that an implicit acknowledgment of this had passed between them. “It’s not over. If she won’t talk to us here, she can’t keep playing dumb among the wands and cups and whatsits. You said you first saw her in Temple House, right?”
“Yes. She’s nearly always there for the Lotteries.”
“Then we’ll try that next. But—wait—how will we know when one’s happening?”
“Aha … sooner than you’d think. Look at your palm.”
“It’s normal. There’s nothing there.”
“Look at it. Focus.”
Cat stared at where the sign of the wheel had been imprinted on her flesh. She found that by concentrating she could bring it up through her own will: a gray circle, faint as smudged ink. But this time, the four spokes had been replaced with a small black X.
“Fortune’s the tenth triumph in the deck. Clever, huh?” Toby’s expression was as smug as if he’d put the mark on her hand himself. “You’ll get into the habit of checking for it, after a while. And it’s much easier than signing up for a mailing list.”
There was just no escape, Cat thought, rubbing her right palm resentfully. Even when she couldn’t see or feel it, the knowledge that the mark and coin of the Arcanum was always there, lurking, set her on edge.
“Lotteries are fairly frequent,” Toby was saying, “but even so, another one coming so soon after—”
“Let me get this straight. There’s another party tonight and you reckon Flora will be there?”
“Most likely.”
“Then why the hell didn’t you say so before? Why are we wasting time skulking in churchyards?”
But Toby looked troubled. “The thing is … Flora … well, she’s even harder to approach when she’s involved in the Game. She’s not even polite there.…”
“Look. You were the one who was so desperate to recruit some buddies to the cause. Are you backing out on me?”
Toby flushed. “I never said anything about backing out.”
“In that case, I’ll see you outside Temple House tonight. When does it open?”
“Er, usually about eight.”
“Fine. I’ll see you then.”
This time it was Toby who was late. His parents had been delayed leaving for a book reading, and he was in full fret about being back in time for their return.
Cat had scant sympathy. She herself was feeling guilty about going out again since Bel, who had Sundays off, had proposed a girls’ night in and had even arranged to borrow Greg’s DVD player. And yet when Cat said she was off to the cinema with a girl from school, she got the sense that Bel was relieved. The emotions of last night were too raw for either of them to feel entirely comfortable around the other.
Not that she shared any of this with Toby. She wasn’t planning to report her encounter with Ahab and Odile, either. It was her own business—if he wanted to help her, well and good. That didn’t make them allies.
But as soon as she and Toby turned in to Mercury Square, all other preoccupations were forgotten. It was like Friday all over again. Warm light spilled onto the pavement; the hum of talk and laughter drifted down the street. She could even hear the piano, which this time was playing a sprightly jazz number.
The same withered doorkeeper was on duty at the entrance, but gave no sign of either recognition or challenge as they passed through the curtain and into the hall beyond. The place was as grand as Cat had remembered, if not as crowded, and the echoing buzz of party noise was just as disorienting. She tried to shake the cloudiness from her head, and said with more energy than she felt, “All right then, Flora. Here we come.”
They started with the room to the right of the stairs, where Cat had watched the poker game on her previous visit. This time it was empty. She went straight to the windows and opened the shutters to reveal that the scene outside had changed from a bitter December night to a purplish midsummer’s dusk. The trees in the garden were in full leaf; tiny white lights twinkled in their branches and along the railings. It appeared the majority of the guests were outside strolling in the street, or idling beneath the trees.
Cat turned to Toby wonderingly. “Can we get out there?”
“Course. I’ll show you.” They went back into the hall and past the golden curtain. The front door was ajar, revealing a glimpse of the wintry London square they had come from. Toby turned to the doorkeeper. “Hi there. Do you think you could please let us out? Into the other side?”
The doorkeeper stared at them impassively but didn’t say anything. Instead, he drew a blank card from the stack to his left. When he passed his right palm over the face of the card, it left an illustration in its wake: three figures dancing and drinking in a bower of fruit and flowers. “Three of Cups, Reign of Abundance. It’s the party card,” said Toby with a grin. And this time, the door opened onto a view of leafy trees and a purple-dappled sky.
Toby had said that there was often a degree of overlap between the two sides of Temple House, but this time Cat could see only a flicker of the other square and the other night: the beam of a car’s headlights, the bare branches of a shrub, a pedestrian struggling with a broken umbrella.…
None of it seemed real.
It might have been the world’s most exclusive club, but their fellow guests were more varied than Cat remembered from her previous visit. Just inside the gate to the garden a Goth girl with multiple piercings was in animated conversation with an older gentleman in a morning suit. A group of young men with close-cropped hair and baggy trousers were sprawled on the steps of one of the houses, swigging from bottles and watching the scene with bright quick eyes. Two glamour-model types, one in a sequined cocktail dress, one in denim hot pants, pouted by the railings.
Players in the Game, yes, but ordinary people, too, Cat reminded herself. Real men and women with real lives in the real world. Like Anthony Linebeg, the IT consultant who lived alone … or her parents, she thought, with a twist of her gut. Not for the first time, she wondered what ambitions and desires had led these people here, and what strange trials by ordeal awaited them.
Then her eye was caught by a waiter, proffering his tray of drinks to a girl nearby. The girl accepted a glass, and twirled a strand of blond hair round her finger.
“Look—over there,” Cat hissed, clutching Toby’s arm. “That’s her!”
But it took another few moments of scrutiny for her to be sure. Flora looked older, for one thing, perhaps because she had put her hair up and was wearing makeup and a flimsy camisole. Nothing surprising about this, it was a party after all, but there was something a bit disheveled about her appearance that was very different from the artfully Bohemian look rich girls sometimes went for. Her eyes were outlined in smudgy black, and she had a flush of red high on her cheeks.
When she caught sight of Toby and Cat, she downed her drink in a quick, angry jerk. “Oh. It’s you.”
“I’m glad we’ve found you,” said Cat quietly.
“Stalked me, you mean.” Flora shot a black look at Toby. She helped herself to another drink and raised it as if in toast. “Today is an anniversary, after all.” A private joke, presumably, for the smile she now turned on Cat was a parody of social charm. “But dear me, I’m forgetting my manners. I gather you’re a new r
ecruit to our delightful little club. Isn’t it all too, too, utterly mah-vellous?” She flung out her arm to encompass the party, slopping the liquid in her glass as she did so.
“Not particularly,” said Cat.
“Hmm,” Flora looked at her in a speculative if fuzzy manner. “A skeptic. Oh well, you’ll soon get used to it. Regnabo, regno, regnavi, sum sine regno, as the saying goes.” Then she gave a sneering sort of shrug and walked away.
Cat was about to go after Flora and try again, when a bell began to chime, and she saw people stop what they were doing and look around expectantly. The chime was high and very sweet, and a sense of excitement rippled through the air. Flora, too, was standing still and looking up, her mouth slightly open.
The doorkeeper had come out at the top of the steps to Temple House, and raised both his arms to address the scene. “Ladies and gentlemen, princes and vagabonds, players all,” he began, his old cracked voice carrying with surprising force, “I bid you welcome and announce that the Lottery is about to begin.”
Applause broke out, along with murmurs and coos of anticipation, and everyone began moving toward the house. Flora was among the first to the door.
“Come on,” said Toby.
“I don’t want to see it,” Cat replied.
“Why not? Nobody does anything while a Lottery’s taking place. All play is suspended; it’s the rules. And anyway, it’s exciting.”
“So were those old Roman shows with gladiators.” Now that she knew what was at stake, the idea of watching some knight sweat as the wheel spun made her feel queasy. “You go keep an eye on Flora. I’ll wait by the stairs and we can corner her as she comes out.”
Toby didn’t need telling twice, bounding up the steps of Temple House to catch up with the other spectators. Cat moved more slowly. She came to a halt on the second floor and watched as the big black-and-gold doors swung behind the last arrivals.
No sound escaped from the room once the doors were shut. Cat decided to visit the picture gallery again to take another look at the Triumph of Fortune and the images set within the wheel’s rim. They appeared to be of the various triumphs in the Greater Arcana, and she wanted to compare them to the Tarot cards she’d seen. But she grew uncomfortable under the painted gaze of the other pictures, and moved across the hall into the book-lined study after only a little while.
Two other people were playing truant from the Lottery there, talking intently by the fireplace. A game of chess lay abandoned on a table beside a still-warm coffeepot. Cat helped herself to a cup and went to look at the shelves, on the off chance she’d find some kind of Game rule book or guide. A slim volume entitled The Queen of Spades looked promising, but it was just a boring novel about Russian gamblers. The next row along had a collection of poems called The Waste Land propped next to a Latin text, De Consolatione Philosophiae. Cat yawned, and began to flick through a first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Browsing the shelves had brought her nearer to the room’s other occupants. Then she caught a snatch of their conversation, and moved closer still.
“Of course my forfeit’s unfair,” the woman was complaining. “It was an easy mistake to make.”
The muscular young man standing next to her laughed. “You tried to bribe another knight to swap her cards with you! Personally, I think you got off lightly. Only three moves to serve as a knave, and then you can resume your round.”
“I can’t afford to be at the beck and call of the courts,” the woman said crossly. She was small and chic, and looked even smaller next to her companion’s bulk. “I do have a life outside the Game, you know. And Odile hasn’t even told me my duties yet! I’ve been summoned to see her after the Lottery, worse luck.… Serving time at these wretched parties is all very well, but running round the Arcanum doing the GM’s dirty work is another matter.”
Cat couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “Can’t you say no?” she interrupted. “Refuse to do it?”
The couple looked around; the young man amused, the woman irritable.
“And spend the rest of my life paying the price?” the woman scoffed. “No thanks.”
“Rebel knaves don’t last long outside the Game,” the young man said, seeing Cat’s confused expression. “Not with all the bad luck they carry with them. It’s as if the Arcanum condemns them to a permanent losing streak.” He reached out to shake her hand. “Knight of Swords. My friend here is—for the moment—a Knave of Cups.”
“I’m a chancer.”
The knave smiled unpleasantly. “Then you’d better watch your step. There’s no Fool like a forfeited one.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Work it out for yourself.” The knave tossed her hair, and headed out of the room. “I haven’t got time for spoon-feeding.”
Game players were a bad-tempered bunch, thought Cat, who was still smarting from her encounter with Flora.
But the knight took pity on her. “Chancers can only enter the Arcanum on the condition they don’t do anything to help or obstruct the other players,” he explained. “Intervene in the Game for a second time, you’ll end up a knave yourself—for as many rounds as the Game Masters choose.”
With her back to the fire’s sleepy flicker, Cat felt herself go cold. It occurred to her that Alastor had mentioned something about this in their first encounter. But it hadn’t meant anything to her at the time.
“The kings and queens don’t miss much,” the knight continued. “They’ve got their own methods of surveillance. But the knaves are their eyes and ears.” He lowered his voice. “A knave that catches a chancer interfering gets set free from his or her forfeit. So I’d keep out of their way, if I were you.”
Sudden clatter and chatter from outside made both of them start. The Lottery was over. “OK. Thanks for the tip,” Cat said, moving toward the door. “What are you playing for, by the way?” It seemed only polite to ask.
“Triumph of Strength.”
“You don’t exactly look like you need it.”
“Ah, but I’ve got the Olympics to train for.” The athlete grinned. “Not to mention a world record to defend.”
Cat reached the hallway just as Toby arrived. His face lightened when he saw her, and he pointed to where Flora’s blond head could be seen at the top of the packed staircase. Progress downstairs was slow, and their quarry remained only a few feet in front. But there was a sudden rush as people reached the ground floor and began to disperse into the reception rooms or out to the square, and they remained stuck in the line as Flora slipped through the crowd and ducked around the corner under the stairs. Cat pushed ahead, dragging Toby in her wake. “Hurry up,” she said impatiently. “We can’t lose her now.”
Flora had gone through a little white-painted door that Cat hadn’t noticed before. The corridor behind had a shabby, neglected sort of air and led to the back of the house and a wide paved courtyard surrounded by high walls. Incongruously, there was what appeared to be an old-fashioned slot machine in the middle of the yard. But no Flora.
“I can’t believe it! I could’ve sworn she came this way.”
Toby looked nervous. “She did. Um, I think she’s gone into the Arcanum.”
“But we’re already—”
“I mean that she’s left Temple House to enter play.” He indicated the door at the end of the courtyard. “I don’t know where this exit leads. But if Flora just wanted to go home, she’d have left by the front.”
Both felt the wheel mark on their palms begin to tingle. A lilac glow lingered over the roof behind them, and Cat could still hear the piano somewhere deep inside. Past the high walls of the courtyard, however, was the sludgy orange of London’s night sky, where the lights of an airplane were winking toward Heathrow.
The tops of the walls were lined with a thicket of iron barbs, and the door was solid steel. It was also locked. This was no ordinary threshold.
They went back to inspect the slot machine, an antique model made of dark wood. A Wheel of Fortune ha
d been painted onto the pearly glass panel above the reels. There were three reels, each printed with a strip of assorted symbols: laughing faces, frowning faces, and wheels.
Close up, they saw that the rim of the wheel on the glass panel was marked with Roman numerals up to twenty-one plus a zero. In the four divisions created by its spokes, the signs of the courts were painted: a pentacle, a sword, a cup and a wand. There were two bronze pointers, like the hands of a clock. The smaller one was aligned along a spoke and didn’t appear to be pointing to anything, but the other was positioned on XVIII.
“Eighteen! That’s the Moon: the eighteenth triumph in the Greater Arcana,” Toby exclaimed. “Because, look, if you wanted to choose a card in the Lesser Arcana, you’d use the little arrow hand to point to its court sign. Pentacles or Swords or whatever.” He tapped the painted wheel. “I think it’s showing us the card we’ll find on the other side of that door. Maybe this is Temple House’s route into all the moves in the Arcanum.”
Odile had said that the Game Masters liked to wander around the Arcanum in their spare time. Searching for their long-lost Eternity, presumably. This contraption might allow them to visit cards that didn’t belong to their particular courts. And now Cat, too, could get into whichever card she liked. She immediately reached to turn the smaller hand to the picture of a cup and the longer one to VI.
But the bronze arrows wouldn’t budge.
“Hell.” She kicked the machine’s base in frustration.
Toby shook his head. “It’s probably only the Game Masters who can select the cards. I just can’t work out how Flora got the door open.…”
Cat sighed. “It has to be connected to the slot machine. The obvious explanation is that we need the pictures on the three reels to line up. That’s how these contraptions work, right? First you feed in your coin. Then you pull the lever to rotate the reels. If all the pictures match when they’ve stopped spinning, you’ve hit the jackpot—or in our case, the door opens.”
“And we go visit the Moon!” Toby’s eyes widened.
“Didn’t you say the Moon triumph had to do with art and creativity and stuff? That can’t be too bad.”