Under the old stone bridge, Mireille reads deaths for spare coppers, and her cards never lie. Tonight the river fog smells like iron. When she deals her own hand, the Drowned Queen stares up at her, the card that means your hour is near. Then the painted woman lifts her chin and steps right off the card. Wet hair, cold eyes, a real woman now. 'You dealt me,' she says. 'So sit. We play until dawn. Win, and you live.'

Mireille doesn't sit. She grabs her coin box and runs up the bank toward the city lights. Behind her the Queen laughs, low and wet. The fog thickens and swallows the bridge. When Mireille looks back, the river is rising, climbing the stones far too fast.

Mireille reaches the top of the bank, lungs burning. The city gate is right there. But the rising river isn't water anymore. It's playing cards, thousands of them, swirling up to block her path. The Drowned Queen's voice purrs, 'You can't fold on me.'

Mireille tears off her late mother's silver ring and throws it into the storm of cards. The metal cuts through like a knife, and the cards fall dead to the ground. She sprints through the gap into the waking city, free, the fog dying behind her at last.