The Gentlemen were there, but they wore suits this time, and I realized they were the Urquhart brothers, all three of them. They sat in the dirt to the left of the campfire. Across from them sat a tall blond man with glasses. He wore ratty old clothes like a tramp, but he looked arrogant, and his grin had something of a sneer to it. Between them was a large metal tray with three bone-colored dice lying on it. They didn’t look like normal dice—no dots on them, just symbols. An eyeball and a snake and a dagger showed faceup.

The middle Urquhart brother spoke.

“The game is on, Mr. Sanford?”

Holy shit. The blond guy was my great-grandfather. I could see it now, kind of. I could see his resemblance to Jeremiah.

“The game is always on, old friend,” said my great-grandfather, grinning wickedly in the firelight. “The oldest struggle there is. I want what’s yours, and I want it all.”

“And if we win?” said the middle Urquhart.

My great-grandfather laughed. “If you win, I’ll pack my shit up and leave this place. I’ll stop bothering you altogether. I’ll give up my claim to this land, to this world. You’ll never hear another word from me again, that I promise you.”

“That isn’t enough,” said the middle Urquhart.

“Fine, fine,” said my great-grandfather. “If you win, I will be yours. Every last member of my family from my daughter on down will serve you from now till the end of the line. You’ll be our kings.”

The Urquharts huddled together, whispering back and forth.

“We accept,” said the middle Urquhart. “Cast the bones.”

The bones? Were the dice carved from bones? It made sense—the color, the rough shape of them. This was old magic, I knew deep in my heart, something that was a part of me, that maybe always had been.

“You first,” said my great-grandfather.

“Very well,” said the middle Urquhart.

He picked up the dice and rolled. They clanked and pinged across the plate, landing on a falling star, a sickle moon, and an hourglass.

My great-grandfather began to laugh then, to cackle horribly in the windy night. I saw him slip a single die from his coat sleeve into his left palm. He passed it to his right hand smooth as a magic trick, and I knew for a fact that not a single one of the Urquharts had seen it. Only I could, from where I was standing. My great-grandfather scooped the other dice and rolled, cupping the extra one with his pinky. Again, he was smooth about it. If I hadn’t been standing so close to him, looking over his shoulder, I wouldn’t have even noticed.