Eli’s grin faltered a fraction, and he picked up a pair of oblong coins from his own stack. “You’re showing a knight,” he said, pointing at the face-up card by Josef’s foot. “That’s five points at least. Maybe you’re confused, but in Daggerback, it’s the lowest hand that wins.” He paused, twirling the coins between his long fingers, seemingly oblivious to the danger of taunting a man whose daily dress included over fifty pounds of edged weaponry. “You can take the bet back, if you want,” he said, his voice positively dripping with generosity. “I won’t mind.”
“No.” Josef crouched behind his cards. “You’re not getting me with that again.”
“Have it your way,” Eli said, tossing his coins into the pot. “Let’s see who was right.”
Josef threw his hand down, adding a bearded man with a staff and an old geezer with a crown to his gallant knight in the grass. “Bachelor party: wizard, king, knight. That’s ten points,” he said, grinning.
Eli smirked and deftly flipped his cards like a fan. “Wizard, king, and my lovely lady.” He scooped up the queen card he’d laid face-up in the grass after the first round of bets, and his smirk became intolerable. “Nine points.”
Josef glowered murderously as Eli rubbed his hands together and reached out to gather his winnings.
“Grand sweep,” Nico said quietly, and the two men froze. “Hunter, weaver, shepherdess.” She named each card as she laid it in the grass. “Three points.”
Eli sighed and shoved the pile of gold toward Nico. Now it was Josef’s turn to grin. “Too bad, Eli,” he said, leaning back against one of the mossy trees that ringed their tiny clearing. “Next time, you should worry less about bluffing me and more about not losing your shirt.”
“I don’t mind losing to Nico,” Eli said, tossing her the last of the coins. “She’s a much better winner than you are.”
Josef grunted and nodded over his shoulder in the direction of the castle, where the spires were barely visible through the thick trees. “Speaking of winning, have those idiots gotten back to us? We’ve been sitting here for almost a week, and if I have to spend another day playing Daggerback with you lot, the name might start to sound like a good suggestion.”
“Actually, the flag went up fifteen minutes ago,” Eli said casually. “I just wanted to see if I could win the rest of your gold before telling you.”
Josef jumped to his feet. Sure enough, a large flag dangled from the top of the second tower, its white folds lying limp against the slate shingles, twitching in the breeze.
Eli winked at Josef’s murderous glare and walked whistling into the hut.
The king was lying on the dirt floor, looking miserable as always. Eli had left him under the watchful flicker of the fire, which, in exchange for Eli keeping Nico outside for most of the day, was willing to make sure their royal prisoner didn’t escape. Eli skirted the edge of the hearth and poked the king’s shoulder with the toe of his boot.
“Almost done, your royalness.”
The king sat up stiffly, and Eli handed him a tiny pot of ink and a pen nib attached to a stick, which he produced from somewhere in his pockets. “All you have to do now is write exactly what I say, and we’ll take you home.”
The king looked defiant for a half second and then he nodded glumly and began to copy Eli’s demands word for word.
Josef was gone when Eli emerged ten minutes later, the king’s letter rolled in a tight tube and ready to go. Nico, however, was where he had left her, arranging her newly acquired gold in shining patterns across the scrubby grass.
“Don’t worry,” she said without looking up. “He’s just gone to scout the meeting place.”
“Why?” Eli said, laughing. “We haven’t even told them where it is yet.”
Nico shrugged. “He said you would say that, and he said to tell you that you can’t make assumptions about anything.” She paused thoughtfully. “He also said to tell you that if he does find any traps he’s going to make sure you stand on them.”
“Marvelous.” Eli sighed. Why did swordsmen have to be so competitive about everything? “The good king was kind enough to write another note for us,” he said, twirling the roll of paper in his hands. “I’m setting the trade-off for this evening, an hour before sunset. That should give them plenty of time to prepare, and us plenty of leeway should things go off course.”
Nico turned back to her coins. “Do you expect things to go off course?”
Eli shrugged. “Does anything we do ever go as planned?”