Jacks and Queens at the Green Mill by Marie Rutkoski Page B

fully about Shades or that this boy was made of stern-enough stuff.
    And maybe—she thought, staring at his rippled features again—he had to be.
    â€œYou’re fair,” he said quietly.
    â€œFair?” She wasn’t sure what he was driving at.
    â€œDid you know that, long ago, ‘fair’ meant both ‘beautiful’ and ‘just’? Isn’t that nice, the thought that justice and beauty were once twins?”
    â€œYou’re an odd sort of gangster, to be concerned with justice and words.”
    â€œYou’re an odd sort of anything. But, I hope, you’re also fair.” A hand pulled a deck of cards from his suit pocket. “Play me for the gun.”
    The corner of Zephyr’s mouth twitched. How strange it was, to have flesh, and for it to explain her emotions to her.
    Amused. She was amused. “What game?”
    â€œMy favorite. Black Jack. Know it?”
    As if they didn’t play cards in her world!
    Though she wasn’t quite sure if he knew about her world, even if he knew about Shades—unusual enough. The memory of them was supposed to have been obliterated in the Alter after the Great Chicago Fire, which is what humans called the genocide of her people.
    â€œWhoever gets closest to twenty-one wins,” Zephyr said sharply. His expression nettled her. It was patient, ready for anything she might say. That made her impatient, and ready for nothing. “Face cards are worth ten. Aces are one or eleven, player’s choice. Twos are worth two, threes are worth three…”
    â€œAnd don’t go over twenty-one, girl, or you’ll lose.”
    Her body decided before her mind did. Zephyr took the cards. After the barest of pauses, during which she wondered what she was doing, and how the evening had taken the shape of this alleyway, this boy, these red-backed cards, Zephyr began inspecting them for folded edges, pinpricks, the signs of a marked deck.
    â€œIt’s clean,” he said.
    She snorted, and kept shuffling.
    â€œWhat does it feel like?” he said abruptly. “To go from nothing at all to that ?” He waved a hand at her entire body.
    It sounded less like a question and more like flirtation. It sounded like he needed to be reminded of some basic boundaries, such as the kind between predator and prey. “And how did it feel, to go from what you were to that ?” She pointed at his face.
    He blinked. That small movement sent a dart of feeling into Zephyr. It took a moment for her to recognize it as guilt. She folded her arms defensively, and a card from the deck in one hand fell to the pavement. “Well,” she said, “I’m sure a criminal can do a million things to deserve whatever happened to you.”
    He bent to retrieve the card. “I’m not sure,” he said slowly, straightening, brushing the dirt from the two of diamonds. “I’m not sure what a ten-year-old kid can do to deserve getting his face held flat against a hot stove.”
    Zephyr took the card from him. She slipped it back into the pack, and was silent. Then she said, “When I step into my body, it feels like water before it hardens into ice. Like silk before it’s stretched and stitched onto a wire frame and called a lampshade.”
    â€œSilk and ice,” he said, running the words together so that they sounded like silken ice . “That’s you, all right.”
    She packed the deck tight and hard into his outstretched hand. “Deal, guttersnipe.”
    He cut the deck, arced the cards between his fingers. “Joe,” he said. “My name’s Joe.” He tossed a three of clubs face up at her sharp-toed shoes.
    â€œAgain,” she said.
    Another card: the six of hearts.
    â€œAgain.”
    His hands didn’t move. “The polite thing,” he said, “would be to tell me your name.”
    â€œAgain,” she snarled.
    He shifted his weight, lifted his