Chapter Twenty-Four: The Die is Cast

He found six-sided dice in the drawing room. "Right where I wrote it," he said. "Now all we have to do is roll it."

"And then we'll get to the House of Fortune?" Tulip asked. "Which would be...?"

"The House of Fortune is a place where luck and chance rule supreme," he said. "Think of it like Vegas only more...eldritch. You can win big or lose all."

"And what are the stakes?" Tulip asked.

"Life, death, and everything in between," the writer said. "And to get there, we need to roll a specific number on one die."

Tulip laughed. "Let me guess," she said, "a seven."

"Nope," he said. "We need to roll a thirteen."

Tulip scrunched her forehead. "That's impossible," she said. "Even if you cut the die on the way down, the most you could roll would be seven. There is no way to roll a thirteen."

The writer grinned. "Want to bet?" He tossed me one of the die. "You roll."

"Why me?" I asked.

"Because you are the lucky one," he said. "Or, rather, the unlucky one. The Ivory Woman causes unlucky accidents, pockets of chaos that turned everything topsy-turvy. You roll the die and she will make it into the worst roll ever. Which, in this case, would be a thirteen."

"Why would that be the worst roll?" I asked.

"Because the House always wins," he said with a grin.

I took a deep breath. "Still impossible," Tulip said, "but go ahead anyway."

I rolled the die in the palm of my hand and then tossed it onto the table. It landed on one of the corners and started to spin. It spun round and round and round, until I became dizzy even looking at it, and then it cracked apart, splitting into three pieces. I added up the dots on the cracked pieces. Thirteen.

The world around us spun, like a roulette wheel. I closed my eyes and waited for it to be over.

It was over in a second and then I opened my eyes.