She didn't come to the square.
That would've been honest.
Instead, Cole felt her before he saw her—pressure easing where it shouldn't, like a headache letting go all at once. The House went quiet around the edges. Not absent. Just… respectful.
That narrowed it down.
Cole stood on the roof of a half-collapsed depot overlooking Rustline, watching lanterns flicker back to life in the streets below. The town worked around its wounds the way frontier towns always did—quick, unsentimental, afraid of stopping long enough to feel it.
Dusty lay beside him, head up, ears pricked.
Then Dusty stood.
Didn't growl.
Didn't bark.
Just stood and stared into empty air.
Cole didn't turn right away.
"You're late," he said.
She stepped out of the dark like it had been holding a place for her.
Same coat. Same red stitching that caught the low light and bent it slightly. Same calm smile that never reached her eyes.
Queen of Hearts.
Lena, once.
She stood at the edge of the roof, boots balanced on broken concrete like gravity worked differently for her.
"I had to wait until the King finished posturing," she said. "He does that when he's embarrassed."
Cole looked at her then.
"You bring friends."
"No," she said. "I brought truth. That's worse."
The House didn't flicker.
Didn't announce her.
That told Cole more than any text would've.
Dusty growled then. Low. Uncertain. The sound of an animal trying to reconcile instinct with experience.
The Queen's gaze dropped to him.
"There you are," she murmured. "Still breathing."
Cole's fingers tightened.
"Don't talk about him like that."
She raised a hand, placating. "Easy. Curiosity isn't a threat."
"It can be."
She smiled. "That's why it survives."
She walked closer, slow, deliberate, stopping just far enough that Dusty didn't lunge.
"Rustline didn't collapse," she said. "That cost you."
"It cost them," Cole replied.
"Yes," she agreed. "And now they'll remember your name every time the lights flicker wrong."
Cole looked back over the town.
"Say what you came to say."
The Queen leaned against a broken beam like this was a porch and not a battlefield.
"The King is cheating," she said.
Cole didn't react.
She continued anyway.
"He's been skimming probability off the House. Laundering it through towns like this. Rustline. Bleakwater, before you arrived. A half-dozen others that don't exist anymore in any clean way."
"And the House lets him," Cole said.
The Queen's smile thinned. "The House hates inefficiency. Not injustice."
Cole felt that settle heavy.
"Why tell me."
"Because you broke a table without sitting clean," she said. "Because the House hesitated. And because the dog did something it shouldn't."
Dusty's ears flattened.
The Queen tilted her head, studying him more intently now. "He feels wagers before they trigger. Not outcomes. Intent."
Cole said nothing.
"That makes him valuable," she continued. "And dangerous."
"To who."
"Everyone," she said. "Including you."
The House stirred then. Just a whisper of pressure behind the eyes. No text.
Listening.
The Queen straightened.
"I can protect him," she said. "From the King. From other Royals. Even from certain… House corrections."
Cole turned fully toward her.
"And the cost."
She shrugged lightly. "Later."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only honest one," she replied. "I don't know yet what it'll ask of you. Only that it will."
Cole looked at Dusty.
The dog watched the Queen with flat eyes. Not afraid. Not trusting.
Real.
"No," Cole said.
The Queen's smile faded. Just a little.
"Think carefully."
"I am."
"You're already losing pieces of yourself to the House," she said. "Memory. History. Sooner or later it'll take something you can't afford."
Cole met her gaze. "It already has."
Silence stretched.
Wind moved across the roof, carrying the smell of hot metal and tired people.
The Queen sighed.
"Then take information instead," she said. "Free. For now."
She reached into her coat and withdrew something small.
Not a card.
A token.
Metal. Thin. Etched with a symbol Cole didn't recognize—not spade, not heart, not club or diamond. Something older. Crooked. Like a rule that had been broken so many times it forgot its own shape.
"This isn't in any deck," she said. "It's a marker. A way through certain doors when the House pretends not to see you."
She set it on the concrete between them.
Cole didn't touch it.
"Why help me," he asked.
The Queen looked out over Rustline again.
"Because the King thinks he's inevitable," she said. "And inevitability gets lazy."
"And me."
"You're stubborn," she said. "And stubborn men break patterns without meaning to."
The House hummed softly. Displeased. Interested.
"You come to Rustline's table again," she said. "Soon. The King won't wait. He never does once someone touches his ledgers."
Cole nodded once.
"I figured."
She stepped back, already receding into shadow.
"Oh," she added, glancing at Dusty one last time. "Don't let him wander alone."
Cole's hand dropped to the dog's neck.
"Why."
The Queen's smile returned. Thin. Sharp.
"Because the House is watching him now."
Then she was gone.
Not vanished.
Gone the way leverage leaves a conversation—leaving weight behind.
The pressure returned all at once.
The House exhaled.
HOUSE OF RECKONING // INTERACTION LOGGEDNOTE: ROYAL CONTACT — HEARTSSTATUS: MONITORED
Cole stared at the empty space she'd occupied.
Then he picked up the token.
It was cold.
Too cold.
Dusty whined softly.
"Yeah," Cole said. "I don't like it either."
Below them, Rustline worked through the night.
Above them, the stars burned indifferent and sharp.
And somewhere far off, a King of Spades began counting how many moves it would take to make Cole Marrow kneel.
Cole didn't plan on giving him the chance.