Emmet nearly dropped his drink.

  “You’re joking.”

  “Afraid not,” she repeated, smiling. “I want to be your right-hand man—or woman, as it were. I’ll go into the mines as an unknown, and we’ll find a way to bring LMC down from the inside. Maybe you couldn’t do it alone, but between the both of us, we should be able to figure something out.”

  Emmet set his mug down, shaking his head, and began waving his hands erratically as he spoke. “You don’t get it,” he said, his eyes now wild with panic. “Nothing is going to protect you down there—not me, not any sort of safety rules they set, nothing. The mines are dangerous, and you’re…you’re…”

  “A princess?” Seven asked, raising an eyebrow at him. Emmet seemed flustered at the idea.

  “Yes,” he replied. “When was the last time you did any kind of physical labor in your life?”

  “I’m good enough with a fencing foil,” she said, folding her arms. “I can ride. I can shoot.”

  “Can you mine?”

  She waved at him dismissively. “I’m sure I’ll figure out a way. Look, I’ve got no other options. I’m exiled, I’m nearly penniless, and I’ve got no help from the crown. You, believe it or not, are my last connection to anyone back in Veilhome.”

  “But why?” Emmet asked, suddenly looking tired. “Why would you bother? You don’t care about the people in those mines, surely. You just got here. What’s in it for you? I’m telling you the truth about LMC—they’ll blow you to pieces and leave your corpse outside the city walls. It’s no place for someone without conviction. You’ve got to want something bad enough to give up everything else.”

  Seven went still at his words. She knew how ridiculous it sounded. And indeed, it was a big gamble—one so insane that it sent chills across her skin. Her royal status wouldn’t help her in the mines, and it wouldn’t help her navigate the dizzying array of contracts that LMC seemed to operate on—especially if even Moore and Moore’s best protégé hadn’t been able to figure them out. Moore was one of the most brilliant men Seven had ever met, and if he’d hired Emmet, then Emmet couldn’t be far behind.

  She flexed her gloved hand and thought of that night two years ago. The night everything had changed. Perhaps before that night, Seven had been unable to take big risks—Beggar’s Chance, after all, had been a way of trying to climb a hierarchy she’d been forced out of while maintaining some semblance of social status. But that had gone completely awry for her, and now she was in this backwater mining town, trying to convince Emmet to help her get a job with her worst enemy’s mining operation.

  But sitting there, the wind buffeting Emmet’s apartment, she realized that she did want something bad enough to risk it all. And it wasn’t just revenge—though seeing Rook’s empire crumble would certainly be satisfying. No, it was something else.

  “Do you have a dice you’re not using?” she asked suddenly. Emmet blinked as if waking from a dream.

  “Why?”

  “Do you have one, or not?”

  “I do, but—”

  “Make sure it’s not one you’ll miss and bring it here.”

  Emmet looked at her like she’d gone mad, but he stood to rummage through a drawer on the table next to his sofa, then emerged with a green dice so dull it might as well have been completely dark. And yet Seven still sensed a sort of power pulsing from it. She took it from him with her gloved hand, then set it down on the table in front of her and stripped her glove, revealing the mottled flesh of her palm.

  Emmet swore faintly under his breath before sinking down a little too fast into the couch cushions across from her. He shook his head, obviously staring. “I heard the rumors, but…Luck take me, you’re way too good to be, well.” He cut off his sentence, obviously struggling for words. “I didn’t think you were actually a…”

  “A cheat?” Seven finished, smiling sadly. “No, not a cheat. Framed. By the man who owns these mines.”

  Emmet let out a low whistle. “That’s why you want to help so badly,” he said, rubbing his faint stubble. “Moore sent me away from the capital so fast that I only heard the rumors. He said it was just some sort of tournament drama. But that doesn’t explain the dice.”

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  “That’s the other half of it,” she replied quietly, staring at it. Her hands shook slightly. To reveal her secret to Emmet was a foolish bet, perhaps—maybe even an unnecessary one. But she’d seen that look in his eyes on Moore’s face before. The kind of look that ensured she’d go nowhere. Perhaps Emmet had just met her, but she was still crown property to him. Someone he’d be in deep trouble for if she wandered into danger without warning. She had to show him that she was truly an outcast—that she’d never have the power or influence that came so easily to every other member of House Veil. So, she picked up the dice.

  It hummed faintly in her hands, then went dark, as it always did. She handed it to Emmet. “Roll it,” she insisted. He did so, looking at her like she was crazy, then tilted his head at it as nothing happened.

  “But it had several charges left,” he said, shaking his head. “What did you do to it?”

  “That,” Seven said, “is the other half of it. I’m not just exiled, Emmet—I’m cursed. And if you let me help you, I can dismantle LMC from the inside out.”

  Emmet’s eyes darted from dice to Seven, back and forth for several minutes until he mastered himself. Finally, he wordlessly gathered another dice from his junk pile—this one a shining clear one easily several orders of magnitude fresher than the first one. Seven hesitated as he plopped it on the table in front of her and folded his arms, jerking his head at it.

  “Are you sure?” She asked, trying to read his face for tells. “You’re not getting it back.”

  “Oh I’m sure,” he insisted. “I’ve been trying to get rid of this one forever, but it turns out that cracking them—”

  “Blows them up,” Seven finished. Emmet blinked at her, surprised.

  “How did you know?”

  “From experience, unfortunately.” She sighed. “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Emmet’s eyes were strangely hungry as he watched her, and that made Seven a little nervous. She wasn’t used to being a circus act with her powers, and in fact, those same powers had been discouraged and shamed around her family. They weren’t something to play with, or to show off with. In fact, most of Seven’s worst days as a child had involved her powers meeting dice where they shouldn’t have.

  Well, if he’s asking, then I might as well… Seven reached for the dice, feeling strange. It was impossible not to feel the tiny spark of hope she always did when reaching for it. There was always a chance, however small, that this one would work for her. And if it didn’t fade at her touch, then maybe she could roll it after all.

  She plucked it from the table and watched as the light—and her hope—faded from view. Emmet let out a strange little sigh of relief as the glow faded. “Sticky fingers,” he explained. “Any roll makes your fingers literally sticky. You can imagine how my day went after I found it.”

  “That was a good one,” Seven snapped, suddenly annoyed.

  “Trust me, you can do better.”

  She perked up at that. “Does that mean you’re letting me join?”

  Emmet watched her carefully, as if weighing something in his mind, then let out a little laugh. “I don’t think I can let you do anything,” he said. “Princess or not, you’re in exile and free to do what you want. But I would have to report back to Moore.”

  “Who would find a way to be out here by the next night,” Seven grumbled. “With a ticket halfway across the kingdom.”

  “But,” Emmet cut in, “I do have need of a partner. It’s just, well…” He trailed off, then laughed again, shaking his head. “It’s just absurd. Here I am thinking I may never see Veilhome again, and the seventh heir to House Veil plops down on my doorstep and demands a job with the mining company I’m enslaved to—to say nothing of whatever…” He gestured at the dull dice. “…this is.” Then his face went stern again. “I should tell you no. Send you back to Moore. Keep you safe.”

  “Life is filled with ‘shoulds’ that are bad ideas,” Seven argued. “Whether you help or not, I’ll be down to that employment office before you can get a messenger out to Moore—on my honor as House Veil.”

  Emmet snorted at that. “Somehow I think that means less to you than it would to your siblings.” Then he ran a hand through his hair. “Well, while it is the worst idea you’ve likely had in your life, I do need someone else on the inside. And someone with your…talents could serve us well. But if you’re going to do this, I want to help you.”

  Seven couldn’t help but feel at least a little bit suspicious. “I don’t have any real ties back home,” she warned. “Nor do I have any money.”

  “No,” he agreed, “but you do have something more important—guts. Princess or not, you’ve got a chip on your shoulder, and you’ll need that in the mines. And if you want to see LMC burn, we’re more than compatible.”

  Seven couldn’t quite believe her luck. “So you’ll help me?”

  “More than that,” he said. “I’ll tell you everything I know.”

  It was tempting, watching him, to sink into her old patterns of paranoia. To expect rejection, to expect some sort of ulterior motive from Emmet. For much of her life, Seven had been the outsider, the stray, the outcast. Here, as Emmet offered a hand to her, she barely knew what to do with it. He was offering a partnership? With her of all people? Even back in Veilhome, no one had wanted to do much more than gamble with her. She was obviously cursed—even if Veilhome’s residents couldn’t see it, that didn’t mean they didn’t know it was there.

  And yet Emmet wasn’t just willing to overlook her imperfections, but to use them in his plan against LMC. To look at her curse as an asset, rather than a liability.

  Not a very lawyer-like way of looking at things, she thought, smiling. Then she took his hand.

  “It’s a deal,” she said.

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