Cupbearer taps the table with his knuckles. Naomi wonders, suddenly, if he is unable to bet concepts now, constrained to those things to which he can gesture. He motions with his hand toward his throat, inhales two sharp breaths. His life? No, too early for that. Hand drifting from throat to heart. Hound is leaning forward, as if he has come under the same impression, chewing his lip, covering half of his face with his hand, like a child waiting for a jump scare in a horror movie. Cupbearer holds up one finger.

“A year of your life?”

He nods.

Hound says, “Jesus fucking Christ.”

What does Naomi value the same as a year of her life? Though there’s some question whether a year of Cupbearer’s life and a year of hers are worth the same. Based on a comparative survey of behavior, she would say it’s unlikely. Not that Naomi is pitiless. At least, she does not think she is. Maybe she has a smaller share of pity than she is supposed to.

“My hair, and all the French I’ve learned,” Naomi bets. “And what I know of dancing.”

Farewell to the foxtrot. Cupbearer does not flinch. Does he remember that it was once his?

“Bet,” says Oracle. “A blood luck spell, lasting a month.”

Naomi’s fingers twitch. She has a pen tucked into her front pocket, could scribble onto the back of her hand, blood luck spell. What does that mean? Sometimes her skin tingles with how afraid she is of forgetting what she learns down here. The difference between a word and a real word is whether it’s in the dictionary, and by the same law, Naomi thinks, nothing is fully in the world until it’s been recorded. Not that it doesn’t happen, but that in the absence of definition it can’t be relied upon, can twist and blur and vanish, mirage-like, into something else.