Amelia Merlin and the Game for Okamila

Part 23: A Game of Cards

Isaac liked working for the Crow but right now it was a bit much. The fat man kept yelling at him, because he was stressed that the Girl Queen was actually doing well, which no one saw coming, and Kenrick was up his ass about the whole slave revolt thing. So he spent a lot of time in the basement with Seven. They played cards or tried to catch some of the glass mice that were everywhere these days. Sometimes they just sat in Isaac's room and counted how many times someone swore outside his door. One night he brought a bottle of wine back with him and they got piss drunk and went down to the kitchens to try to make a cake and promptly got yelled at by the cook.

But mostly they played cards. Davyd watched sometimes but Isaac tried to get the kid to socialize with things his own age. So mostly it was Seven and Isaac and a deck of cards.

"Let's play something else." Seven sighed, throwing her losing hand of cards down on the floor. "I hate cards."

"You mean you hate losing." Isaac corrected.

"Let's do something else." she ignored him and fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

"Like what?"

"Tell me something about you." Seven grinned. "I want to know all your secrets."

Isaac laughed. "I don't have secrets."

"You are the assistant to the biggest crime boss in Okamila and you're telling me you don't have secrets? Come on! What skeletons do you have in that closet of yours?" she giggled and poked at him.

"I'm an open book." he shrugged. "I mean it."

"Fine," Seven sighed, "You're boring."

"Alright! What about you? Tell me your secrets." he laughed again, it made her smile when he laughed so he tried to do it as much as possible without being weird.

"Well there's this ol' thing." she rubbed the iron collar around her neck. "So you know I have magic."

"Yeah." Isaac himself had nothing against magic but it was highly forbidden across the country and he didn't want to get involved with something like that. But he couldn't help himself as he asked:"Can you show me?"

"Magic?"

"Yeah."

Seven looked warily at him, "You're not going to tell anyone, right?"

"Of course."

"Okay." she held out her hand and he watched a small blue flame start to grow until it became the size of an apple before it sputtered and died. "I can't really do much." Seven admitted. "I don't know what I'm doing and I can only do powerful things when I'm scared and I can never practice."

"What does it feel like?"

"To be magic?"

"Yeah."

"Sometimes it's the best thing in the world and I feel so incredibly special, like I can take care of myself and I'm going to be okay. And other times it feels like a curse, like having a bomb inside you that could go off at any second and you have no control over it. And you know that it could hurt everyone close to you." Seven didn't stop looking at Isaac while she talked and he couldn't tear his eyes away from hers.

Without thinking he leaned in slowly, his eyes fell to her lips which were  parted ever so slightly, he could feel her breath on his face and his eyes started to close-

"Isaac!" a rapping on the door snapped him out of his trance. Seven backed away from him and he stood up faster than he ever knew was possible.

"Coming!" he shouted and strode towards the door. Isaac looked back at her, "There's a banana in the top drawer for you. You should eat it." then he left.

The Crow's office was stuffy and gross and smelled like tobacco, sweat, and booze. He waltzed in to see the greasy lump of a man shuffling through papers and swearing to himself.

"You." he said threateningly and Isaac put his hands up in surrender.

"Whatever it was, I didn't do it."

"Of course not, you lazy asshole."

"Thanks dad. I've always wanted to hear you say that." Isaac said sarcastically and burst into laughter at the Crow's face. "It's a joke."

"Just like you."

"What do you want?" he chuckled. "You sure are grumpy today."

"I'm fixing this slave problem."

"I'll bet you are."

"No thanks to you."

"Hey!" He protested. "I got you all the information you needed!"

"Any moron could do that."

"But I'm not just any moron, I'm you're moron." Isaac teased.

"Don't remind me." The Crow snarled in his wheezy voice. "You know if anyone talked to me the way you do, I would literally kill them."

"Good thing you love me so much."

"Shut that ugly mouth of yours." he pointed a knife at Isaac. "I needed to tell you something. I've forgotten what it was."

"Just like you forgot to take a bath for the last eight years?" Isaac mumbled and thanked the gods the Crow didn't hear that one.

"Oh right," he furrowed his eyebrows. "You need to stop hanging out with that slave girl everyone sees you with. It's bad form."

"Why?" Isaac retorted.

"Because, she's a slave, and she's magical. Which means you can't be near her."

"That's bullshit. She's my friend. And she isn't evil."

"I don't give a damn what you think of her. Stop being seen with her all the time or I'm selling her to a brothel. Got it kid?"

"Fine." Isaac snapped. "I'll leave her alone."