Chapter 73
The First Hand
The moment our feet crossed the chalk line, the world folded like a deck of cards being shuffled.
One blink: pine forest and moonlight.
Next blink: an endless starlit plain under a sky that had too many moons and not enough rules.
In the center stood a single round table carved from the trunk of the World Tree (roots still growing through the legs, leaves whispering secrets in languages that died before humans had names).
Four chairs were already occupied.
Coyote (still in his zoot suit) lounged sideways in one, boots on the table, dealing cards that flickered between paper and living flame.
Across from him sat a woman made of storm clouds and galaxies, eyes like colliding nebulae (Raven, older than stories, trickster of the North).
To her left: an enormous serpent whose scales were every color that ever hurt to look at (Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered One, wearing a smile that tasted like sunrise).
To the right: a figure wrapped head to toe in black gauze, face hidden, only starlight leaking from the seams (Death, or something close enough to make the distinction meaningless).
Four empty chairs waited.
Coyote looked up, grin sharp as broken glass.
"Took y'all long enough," he drawled. "Sit. We're playing for the Veil."
Remy's hand tightened on Celeste's.
Lucian's wings twitched.
My bond with Thorne flared hot and steady.
We sat.
The table grew two extra chairs without moving (one for Elowen, one that stayed empty, like it was waiting for someone who hadn't decided to show).
Coyote flicked his wrist.
Nine cards landed face-down in front of each of us.
The backs were black, shot through with living constellations.
"Game's called Truth or Burn," Coyote said, lighting a cigarette off the edge of a star. "House rules:
- One card per turn.
- You flip it, you live it.
- Lie, and the card burns you from the inside out.
- Fold, and you forfeit your piece of the Veil.
- Win the pot, and you get to rewrite one rule of reality.
Lose the pot… well, let's just say the house always collects."
He leaned forward, eyes glowing gold.
"First hand's on me. Stakes: the reason each of you is really here."
The cards in front of us flipped themselves.
Mine showed a dragon and a vampire embracing while the world burned behind them.
The caption, in Thorne's handwriting and my mother's blood:
Because love was never the safe choice.
Thorne's card mirrored it, but the caption was in my handwriting:
Because I was tired of being afraid.
Remy's card: a coyote howling at a moon made of broken promises.
Caption: Because someone had to keep laughing when the world ended.
Celeste's: a skateboard made of frozen blood, twin tails streaming like comet fire.
Caption: Because power without love is just another cage.
Seras's: a cheerleader pyramid built from burning bodies.
Caption: Because rage is warmer than grief.
Lucian's: a dragon curled protectively around a tiny flame.
Caption: Because some things are worth burning for.
Jax's: a wolf pack running under a sky full of falling stars.
Caption: Because family isn't blood; it's who shows up.
Li's: a laptop screen cracked open to reveal an entire universe inside.
Caption: Because someone had to document the end of the world.
Elowen's: a dragon shedding its last scale to reveal a human heart beneath.
Caption: Because I was tired of being the last.
The empty chair's card flipped last.
A little girl in a white dress, holding a black balloon that bled galaxies.
Caption, in a child's scrawl:
Because I just wanted to go home.
Coyote exhaled smoke that formed the shape of the Veil (cracked, bleeding, still holding).
"Clock's ticking," he said softly. "Next hand decides whether the Veil stays cracked… or whether we tear it down and start over."
He looked straight at me and Thorne.
"Your deal, key and lock."
The table pulsed once.
The next nine cards slid from the deck and landed face-down in front of us.
Waiting.
I reached for mine.
Thorne's hand covered mine (steady, cold, eternal).
Together, we flipped.
The Second Hand (Truth or Burn)
The second card landed between my fingers like it had weight heavier than worlds.
I flipped it.
A single image:
Me, age seven, standing in a burning warehouse.
Mom's hand reaching for me through the flames.
Dad's journal open on the floor, page 187 circled in blood:
"If the chalice runs black, run."
Caption, in a voice that tasted like smoke and regret:
Because I didn't run fast enough.
The card burned gold, then sank into my palm like it belonged there.
The table waited.
Thorne flipped next.
His card:
A boy (maybe twelve) locked in a stone crypt, wrists bleeding from silver chains.
A woman in Council robes (Vespera) standing over him, whispering,
"Crave nothing, want nothing, and you'll never break."
Caption, in Thorne's own handwriting from centuries ago:
Because I learned to starve before I learned to live.
The card turned to shadow and slid into his chest, right over the Sanguis Draconis mark.
Remy went next.
His card:
A teenage boy on a reservation road, watching federal agents drag his older brother into a van.
The boy clutching a baseball bat wrapped in copper wire for the first time.
Caption, in Coyote's laughing drawl:
Because somebody had to teach the world that tricksters bite back.
The card dissolved into coyote-gold sparks that circled his wrist like a bracelet.
Celeste flipped hers without hesitation.
Image:
A pale girl with platinum hair in a hoodie, watching her life get turned upside down by Her grandmothers legacy and Julian's bite.
She's holding a skateboard made from the titanium with titanium trucks a gift from her soon to be husband.
Caption, in elegant crimson script:
Because I decided weakness was a choice.
Ruby fire crawled up her arms and settled behind her eyes like permanent embers.
Seras's card:
A burning cheer gym.
A girl made of flame standing in the ashes of her human family, pom-poms still in hand.
Caption:
Because if everything I loved was going to burn, I'd be the one holding the match.
Lucian's:
A copper dragon curled around a dying star, wings shredded, still refusing to let go.
Caption:
Because some fires are worth becoming ash for.
Jax's:
A lone wolf watching his pack get slaughtered by hunters wearing Council rings.
Caption:
Because I learned real early that family is the ones who bleed with you, not for you.
Li's:
A girl in a dark room, typing code while the world ends outside her window.
Caption:
Because someone had to hit record.
Elowen flipped last.
Her card was blank at first.
Then it bled.
An image formed slowly:
A dragon kneeling in front of the Council, wings torn off, offering her last scale in exchange for the lives of every remaining dragon child.
Caption, in a voice like breaking mountains:
Because I chose survival over pride, and I've hated myself every day since.
The card turned to ash in her hands.
Silence fell so heavy the stars stopped moving.
Coyote leaned back, cigarette long gone, eyes soft for once.
"House calls that a clean tell," he said quietly. "No burns."
He looked at the empty chair.
The little girl's card flipped itself.
Image:
The Void goddess (before she was a monster) standing at the edge of the Veil, reaching toward a light she could never touch.
Caption, in a child's whisper:
Because they locked me out and called it mercy.
The card caught fire (gentle, almost kind) and drifted upward as golden ash.
Death (still faceless) reached out and caught the ash in one gauze-wrapped hand.
Raven spoke for the first time, voice like galaxies colliding.
"Second hand is done.
Third hand decides the Veil's fate.
One truth left to tell."
Every card on the table turned face-down again.
Except one.
The card in front of the empty chair flipped itself upright.
It showed all of us (exactly as we were) standing around this table.
But behind us, holding the Veil together with bare, bleeding hands, was the little girl in the white dress.
Caption, in every voice we'd ever lost:
The monster was never her.
It was what we made her.
The table went still.
Coyote's grin was gone.
"Third hand's a killer," he said softly. "Winner chooses:
Patch the Veil and keep the worlds apart forever…
or tear it down and let everything bleed together."
He looked straight at me and Thorne.
"Your truth broke the first lock," he said.
"Now you get to choose the last one."
He pushed the final nine cards toward us.
They were blank.
Waiting.
I reached for mine.
Thorne's hand covered mine again.
Together, we flipped.
The Final Hand (Celeste)
I've never been afraid of fire.
I was born in it, raised in it, married in it.
But the way the table waits right now (silent, ancient, hungry) makes even my blood feel cold.
The blank card sits in front of me like a dare.
Remy's hand brushes my knee under the table (steady, warm, alive).
His braid is frayed at the ends from the drive, Lakeside Rams jacket smelling like crawfish and gunpowder.
He doesn't say anything. He never has to.
I feel his heartbeat through the wedding ring on my finger (meteor iron and vampire fang, forged the night we decided forever was a promise we intended to keep).
Across from me, Riley and Thorne hold the same card together, fingers laced so tight their knuckles are white.
The Sanguis Draconis glows between them like a heartbeat made of sunrise and midnight.
The others wait (Lucian's wings twitching, Seras's flames banked low, Jax and Li shoulder-to-shoulder like they've been pack forever, Elowen staring at the ash of her last truth like it might still bite).
Coyote watches me with those dying-star eyes.
Raven's galaxies swirl more slowly.
Even Death leans forward, gauze rustling like dry leaves.
I flip my card.
It isn't blank anymore.
It shows me (platinum hair in twin tails, ruby eyes wide) standing in a castle courtyard at dawn. I refuse to let the high wizards of Shambhala cut my heart out to unseat my floating crown of power. Im Successful in convincing the council to give me a chance to prove that I'm not a monster.
I'm holding a skateboard made of titanium a gift from my future husband.
But this time the image moves. I look straight up (past the sunrise, past the executioner) and whispers to someone who isn't there yet:
"If I ever find someone who loves me when I'm monstrous, I'll burn the world down to keep them."
The card ripples.
The scene shifts.
Now it's Remy Lakeside Rams jacket too big on his shoulders catching me behind the bleachers at Lakeside. Healing a bird's broken wing. In Hot Springs with nothing but my first skateboard and murder in my eyes.
He doesn't ask why I'm crying.
He just says, "Hey, word travels fast on wings every bird in town will know who heals broken wings."
The card burns (soft, gentle) and settles over my heart like a brand I asked for.
Caption, in Remy's voice and mine braided together:
Because I learned that power doesn't have to be lonely when someone chooses to love the monster anyway.
I look up.
Every eye at the table is on me.
Coyote's grin is small now (almost proud).
Raven's galaxies blink like they're crying.
Death nods once (slow, respectful).
Remy squeezes my knee once.
I squeeze back.
The card dissolves into ruby light that crawls across the table and slots itself into the center like the final piece of a puzzle.
All nine final cards are played.
The table flares (white-gold, coyote-gold, dragon-copper, blood-ruby, living flame).
The Veil appears above us (torn, bleeding, fraying).
And then it holds.
Not patched.
Not torn down.
Healed.
The cracks seal with threads of every color we just bled onto the table (love, rage, grief, joy, choice).
The little girl in the white dress stands in the center of the healed Veil, no longer reaching.
She's smiling.
She waves once (small, shy, free) and steps backward into light that doesn't burn.
Coyote stands.
He tips his hat to every single one of us.
"House folds," he says softly. "You win."
The table dissolves into starlight.
The crossroads fade.
We're back in the pine clearing, dawn just starting to bleed pink over the trees.
The Chevy waits exactly where we left it.
Remy pulls me into his arms and kisses my temple.
"Told you we'd burn the world down together," he murmurs.
I laugh (wet, shaky, perfect).
Riley and Thorne stand wrapped around each other, the Sanguis Draconis glowing soft and steady.
The Veil is whole.
The worlds are still separate.
But the walls between them are thinner now (thin enough for love to pass through).
Coyote's voice drifts on the morning wind, one last time:
Y'all come back now, ya hear?
We pile into the Chevy, windows down, music loud, hearts louder.
The road home is long.
But for the first time in forever,
it feels like the story isn't ending.
It's just beginning.