Bron awoke to yet another average morning, the sunlight filtering through the curtains, the scent of tea wafting from the kitchen. After dressing at his own leisurely pace, Bron headed down to eat without any inkling that today would be any different from the others.
Firstly, he didn’t even notice the card lying faced-up next to the vase on the hallway table – a seven of clubs. He walked past it without noticing, some part of his brain categorizing the card as the remnants of carelessness of a servant.
Secondly, the card grabbed his attention as he started descending the stairs, and this time he actually stopped, picking up the card from its place between the steps with two fingers. A three of spades. He looked at the card briefly, then frowned, placing it on the nearest table. *The kids from the kitchen playing cards on their break again. It’s not my business.*
Thirdly, the card rested directly next to Bron’s plate on the table.
He stopped reaching for the tea in his hand, looking down at the card. Jack of hearts, neatly placed right in front of him where his fork was supposed to be. His jaw tightened.
"Who put this here." It wasn’t so much a question as a statement.
The closest maid jumped at Bron’s tone. "I don’t know, sir. I arranged the table personally, there wasn’t anything there when I—"
"Then how did it get there." He picked up the card, holding it out at her accusingly. "Someone is playing with my head around here, and I want to know who."
"I honestly don’t know, sir, I swear it."
He flung the card away and pushed the plate back, his appetite ruined. "Find out. All of you. I want this sorted out before this day ends."
As the morning dragged into afternoon, Bron’s temper got shorter. He had a meeting over lunch with a merchant to discuss the price of a shipment and halfway through their discussion, Bron’s gaze fell upon the card neatly placed beneath the ledger belonging to the other man, visible only from his side. He didn’t say a thing, clenching his jaw as he continued their discussion distractedly and agreeing to worse terms than he wanted to.
At the end of the day, in his study, he took a book off the shelves to spend the time in reading and found a card fall out of the pages when he opened it, landing face up on the carpet. Ten of Clubs.
He just stood and looked at the card for some time, something cold creeping up his spine but refusing to call it anything other than irritation. He slammed the book closed and strode out of his study, yelling for his head of household staff before he’d even left the room.
"Some fool thinks that hiding these wherever I may look is funny. I want that card found and whoever did this to stand in front of me by nightfall, or I’ll be questioning all of you about it!"
The household staff fanned out through the house at his order and went through drawers, cabinets, even behind curtains, bringing back four more cards, spread in different rooms of the house and no explanation as to why any of them were there. Every servant asked claimed they didn’t know anything about it, hadn’t seen those cards before, would never have done such a thing to their master.
"Someone is trying to deceive me. Someone here knows what is happening and thinks that I’m stupid enough to believe it."
And none of them would say a thing. None of them had a word to say.
Silence hung in the air throughout dinner as Bron fidgeted with his food, unable to eat with any real hunger. The only thing on his mind was finding some sense in what had occurred during the day and trying to figure out who might be behind everything.
Bron ascended up the stairs to his bedroom past sunset after spending the entire day looking for answers, but he found none, and the lack thereof disturbed him far more than the cards themselves did. He quickly undressed himself and laid down on his bed. He closed his eyes and began to think again.
I will hire someone tomorrow, some Numen tracker, someone who is actually capable of finding the person behind all of this and bringing it to an end.
Some cold object was placed against his temple.
Bron’s eyes shot open.
The card stood perfectly still and flat against his temple in the darkness; he didn’t need to move at all to see how detailed it was.
King of diamonds.
It was late at night when Andre finally managed to round up the rest of them into the main hall, and every inch of the building had been searched twice already without even a hint of an answer coming forward.
Fidel looked paler than usual by the door, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, while Arturo stood next to him as if wishing himself anywhere but there.
"We go tell the boss." Pedro’s voice trembled slightly. "This is not natural. We have got a somebody here with us, moving around the entire building, and none of us have seen anything of the sort."
"We say nothing about this to the boss." Andre ground his teeth in frustration. "This one is a coward. The real threat does not hide his cards behind a blanket and wardrobe, but tries to scare us with them. That’s all."
"Scaring us quite effectively, I must say," Alfredo muttered to himself.
"You search the building again." Andre’s voice did not allow any argument. "All rooms and corners, and keep an eye on the street outside from both sides. Anyone who even glances suspiciously in our direction – we detain him. Got it?"
André led Pedro and Alfredo down to the basement himself, all three of them going down an extremely narrow staircase with only one oil lamp held between them, the flickering flames creating more shadows than light within the damp stone walls. The atmosphere in the basement was denser and colder; even the odor of old wood and mold seemed very strong there.
"There is nothing here," whispered Pedro, feeling too loud in the cramped space. "There is no one who would hide the cards in a rat-infested basement."
"Search anyway." André held the lamp higher, sweeping it across a row of old crates stacked along the far wall.
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