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happy.”
    “I am not in the business of making those who are irresponsible with their money happy. Lord Mortsani—or any of my clientele—would be wise to acknowledge the possibility of financial loss before they enter my establishment.”
    I had a feeling that as the ex-enforcer of the goblin queen, Tamnais Nathrach would have an appropriate response to any fit of pique Sethis Mortsani might suffer from being embarrassed at one of Sirens’ high-stakes tables.
    If a man’s gonna gamble big, he’d better be prepared to lose the same way.
    I turned back toward the card table, my attention on Sethis Mortsani. His stack of chips wasn’t getting any smaller, but Phaelan’s was. Dammit.
    “I don’t like trouble in my casino,” Nathrach said quietly from where he stood directly behind me.
    No one beyond the two of us heard his words, but the goblins who made up casino security and were stationed unobtrusively at regular intervals along the wall like so many statues stood just a little straighter. Either Nathrach had given them the subtlest of signals, or they were highly attuned to their boss. Considering the goblin’s rumored abilities, either or both were possible.
    “I don’t like making trouble.” Again, not a lie.
    Nathrach gave me a soft chuckle. “That is not what I have heard.”
    “I’d like to say you’ve heard wrong, but I can’t. My job is to stop trouble someone else made the poor choice of starting, not make more of my own. If everyone played nice and didn’t take things and people that didn’t belong to them, there wouldn’t be any trouble.”
    “And you wouldn’t have most of your clients,” Nathrach noted smoothly. “People misbehaving are what keep you in business. The same might be said of me.”
    “Of your business, or you?”
    His lips twitched at the corners. “Yes.”
    I thought about that and shrugged. “You’re right, but that doesn’t mean I like causing it.”
    “Oh, I think you like it very much, Mistress Benares.” He leaned forward, his breath warm against the sensitive tip of my ear. “But be warned that if you misbehave, you must be prepared to accept your punishment.”
    The warmth of his breath—and his all-too-there presence—vanished.
    I turned.
    Gone.
    As if he’d never been there.
    Though my entire body, with every nerve now standing at quivering attention, knew otherwise.
    The guards were back at their earlier stances. I hadn’t seen them move, either.
    I took my first decent breath in five minutes and forced my attention back where it belonged—on the table where my cousin sat next to Lord Mortsani. I had no way of knowing if on some level he could sense me or what I was about to do. Nathrach’s wards distorted sight from the inside, blocked sound from both directions, and made telepathic communication impossible. Unless he’d packed any little surprises in there, his wards shouldn’t affect the type of seeking I was about to do, which was through inanimate objects. I’d forged a connection with the bracelet, and the bracelet had a preexisting bond with the ring. I would merely be sensing the jewelry’s reaction to each other. 
    I stood perfectly still, blocked out the noise around me, and opened my senses. As close as I was to Lord Mortsani, if he had the ring or any of the jewels on him, the bracelet would let me know with a slight tingle against my wrist.
    Almost as if on cue, the fine hairs on my wrist stood up. 
    Yes.
    Then I heard crying. From somewhere on Sethis Mortsani.
    What the hell?
    A child’s cry, a little boy. Scared. No. . . terrified. But muffled by distance or through some kind of barrier.
    No one around me, including Nathrach’s security, gave any sign they’d heard anything. Then I realized that I didn’t hear the crying with my ears. It was in my mind. I’d never experienced anything like that before.
    There was no doubt that it was coming from Sethis Mortsani. Not him personally, but from something he carried.
    The