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Book 2: Chapter 17: Charlatan Pair

He had never brought a girl back to his apartment before, and now he was remembering why.

Cressida's curious gaze fell on Horatio's old cot which still sat tucked up to the opposite wall. Arthur had taken down the sheeted walls that separated their beds after Horatio left to give him more room.

"That's... a friend's," Arthur said. "A boy friend. Not a boyfriend!" he said quickly, "I mean, he was my roommate but he's, uh, gone now." He didn't want to tell Cressida about Sams. She knew a dangerous amount about him already.

"And you lived here," Cressida said slowly. "While, what, pretending to be a commoner?"

He shrugged again. "You know the Kane family's status. I'm not much of a noble. Look, do you want to do this or not?"

The sound of dragon roaring could be heard faintly through the cracked glass window. He'd paid Barlow off and trusted the man to keep secrets. The rest of the cooks may not be so tight lipped.

He fully intended to go to the hive leadership with what they saw in the scholar's guild, but not until Cressida had her chance with the pink dragon.

Cressida looked like she very much wanted to argue this point, but glanced out the window and nodded. Then she deliberately shook out a thin, delicate purse hidden up her sleeve.

From it, she withdrew her four Rare cards. The purse was her card anchor. It made sense. A young noble lady likely would not be allowed a tattoo.

Arthur removed the Rare Phase In, Phase Out card he'd taken from the bat scourgeling and placed it the cot. She did the same, fanning her collection out.

Polyglot Tongue

Knowledge

Rare

The wielder of this card will be able to understand and repeat any spoken language, cant, dialect or accent. This does not include written words.

Eidetic Imagery

Knowledge

Rare

This card grants its wielder the ability to recall images and visual concepts from memory with perfect precision. Sound, taste, and touch based memories are recalled with a higher, though possibly imperfect, precision.

The Quest of Life

Meta

Rare

This card fundamentally changes the wielder’s outlook to semi-gamify their life. Internal tasks and goals are outlined and waypoints are rewarded with minor to moderate prizes depending on the difficulty of the task. Search for additional cards in this set to expand abilities.

Warning: This card's features are only accessible in the heart deck.

Mental Bookshelf

Knowledge

Rare

This card grants the wielder the ability to organize learned knowledge into a mental bookshelf, and is able to find and retrieve that knowledge at will. If placed in the heart deck, the wielder may voluntarily display pages from the mental book to other parties. As memories fade, so do the pages inside the books.

Arthur stared with greed at the cards. He wanted all of them. Well, maybe not the polyglot card. He'd never encountered anyone who spoke another language, though he heard it was possible.

The rest made his fingers itch.

"How do I know which one the dragon will like?"

Cressida's words snapped him back to the present. She was biting at her lower lip, clearly worried. Shame welled up within him for his self-centeredness. This wasn't about him. These were for the dragon.

"I suppose I shouldn't test them out?" Cressida continued, doubtfully. "If they only touched my heart briefly, perhaps there wouldn't be damage..."

Arthur shook his head vigorously. "There would be. It's your heart -- they'll always be a part of you. Especially this one." He pointed to the quest card. "It changes your entire outlook on life. You might not be... right if you went back."

Her shoulders slumped. "And using them all would be foolish."

She probably could. Everyone had a different upper limit before the number of cards began to weigh down on their heart, but ten was considered average. There were exceptions -- cards that expanded a heart deck, or cards of the same deck. Arthur's two Legendary cards functioned as one, for example -- but unless one was going for a specialty it was considered unwise to load up a heart deck with one type of card.

He guessed that three knowledge and two meta, including the Phase card, wouldn't work well with Cressida's existing deck. Hers seemed more combat oriented with the Flame Bear Summon, the shield, and whatever power had allowed her to manipulate fire.

Adding one or two knowledge-meta type cards might be a good idea to introduce balance, but all of them together risked introducing imbalance.

Also, it wasn't guaranteed to mesh with the dragon.

"Why don't we ask the expert?" Arthur suggested and mentally reached for the pink dragon.

It appeared laying on the floor, blinking wet eyes.

"Where?" she gasped.

Cressida sank into a graceful kneel beside the hatchling. "I have some cards for you. Would you like to see them?"

The pink looked at her with something like hope in her eyes. "Please..."

One by one, Cressida brought the cards right before her muzzle. The baby dragon couldn't read, so Cressida described them.

"I don't... I don't know..." The pink waved her head back and forth, agitated. "They don't feel like anything... I can't..." She stopped and let out a chain of rattling coughs. By the end, she was wheezing and her vivid pink hide had paled to a washed out hue. It made the dark streaks stand out more vividly.

The dragon was dying. Fading right before their eyes.

Arthur stepped forward. "Let me put you back in my storage. Chances are, the hive leaders will strip the scholars of everything not nailed down. They might have more Rares. Or we can look to other hives."

He could write to Horatio. He and Sams owed him. Maybe they had a line on local card shops. Valentina and Whitaker wouldn't like anyone reaching out to another hive, but surely the death of a hatchling Rare was worse.

Cressida shook her head. "No. She can't feel the cards because it's not inside of a heart. I have to choose."

She looked over the cards, plucked The Quest of Life, and, before Arthur could say anything, pulled down the collar of her shirt and stuck it in her heart.

Her reaction was immediate. She gasped, hunching over. The pink dragon, who was half slumped in her lap, fell back.

"Cressida?" Arthur gripped her shoulder. He'd never seen a poor reaction from adding a card before, but the way Cressida was hunched over made her look like she was in agony.

Cressida straightened at the touch. She stared at him with eyes that burned an unnatural blue, and just for a moment something else flashed within them -- like floating text ripped out of a book.

Then she let out a gasp like someone who'd been underwater coming up for air at last. Her eyes faded back to normal, and she blinked at him.

"Are you all right?" Arthur asked.

She opened her mouth to reply, but Arthur found himself shoved to the side. The pink dragon had surged to her feet and with strength Arthur had no idea she had, pushed him away to stand before her.

The dragon's legs shook and though she tried to speak, she didn't have air to gasp out words. Instead, she brought out a dim, flickering image of her own card.

Charlatan Pair

_eta

Ra_e

When linked ____, matches and duplicates a ___ random card of the same set. Warning: Must use ___ of the ___ rank and tier.

There was something wrong with the hatchling's card. Parts of the description were blurred as if it had yet to be written. This was what the healers had meant when they said the card was undeveloped.

Arthur felt a twinge of fear for Cressida. Her card was potentially powerful on its own. Would the dragon's card drag hers down or enhance it?

Cressida didn't seem to care either way.

"Yes," she breathed. "I'll link with you."

Then she gestured out a projected copy of her own card and pressed it against the dragon's.