liquid and partly because he’s not sure he wants to drink more mystery liquid and it doesn’t feel right to spill it.
“Concentrate on doing it for him and not yourself,” Mirabel says when he reaches the little alcove with its dice reset to roll again.
Zachary reaches for the dice and misses, grasping the air next to them instead. He must be more exhausted than he’d thought. He tries again and takes the dice in his hand and rolls them around in his fingers. He doesn’t know much about Dorian, doesn’t even know his real name, but he closes his eyes and conjures the man in his mind, a combination of walking in the streets in the cold and the paper flower in his lapel and the scent of lemon and tobacco in the dark in the hotel and the breath against his neck and he lets the dice tumble from his palm.
He opens his eyes. The wobbling dice are hazy in his vision but then they focus.
One key. One bee. One sword. One crown. One heart. One feather.
The dice settle and stop and before the last one ceases to move the bottom falls out of the alcove and they disappear into the darkness.
“What did he get?” Mirabel asks. “Wait, let me guess: swords and…keys, maybe.”
“One of each,” Zachary says. “I think, unless there are more than six things.”
“Huh,” Mirabel says in a tone that Zachary can’t decipher as she lets him take hold of Dorian again who suddenly feels much more there with the memory of the storytelling fresh in his mind and that faint lemon scent. It’s warmer down here than Zachary remembers. He realizes he lost his borrowed coat somewhere.
On the other side of the room Mirabel picks up the covered glass and looks at it carefully before uncovering it and drinking it. She shudders and replaces the glass in the alcove.
“What did it taste like when you drank it?” she asks Zachary as she takes Dorian’s other arm again.
“Um…honey spice vanilla orange blossom,” Zachary says, recalling the liqueur-like flavor, though the list of notes does not do it justice. “With a kick,” he adds. “Why?”
“That one tasted like wine and salt and smoke,” Mirabel says. “But he would have drunk it. Let’s see if it worked.”
This time the door opens.
Zachary’s relief is temporary, realizing how far they have to go as they enter the giant hall.
“Now we get him checked in,” Mirabel says. “Then you and I are having a real drink, we’ve earned it.”
The walk to the Keeper’s office attracts the attention of a few curious cats who peer out from behind stacks of books and chandeliers to watch their progress.
“Wait here,” Mirabel says, shifting all of Dorian’s weight to Zachary’s shoulder and again it is surprisingly heavy and more something than Zachary would care to admit. “Straight flush, right?”
“I don’t think that term applies to dice.”
Mirabel shrugs and heads into the Keeper’s office. Zachary can’t make out most of the conversation, only words and phrases that make it clear it is more argument than conversation, and then the door swings open and the Keeper marches in his direction.
The Keeper doesn’t even glance at Zachary, focusing his attention on Dorian, pulling his head up and brushing the thick salt-and-pepper hair back from his temples and staring at him, a much more thorough visual exam than Zachary received himself.
“You rolled his dice for him?” the Keeper asks Zachary.
“Yes?”
“You rolled for him, specifically, you did not simply let them fall?”
“Well, yeah?” Zachary answers. “Was that okay?” he asks, half to the Keeper and half to Mirabel who has followed him out of the office with Zachary’s bags slung over her shoulder and a compass and a key dangling from chains in her hand.
“It is…unusual,” the Keeper says but does not elaborate, and seemingly finished with his perusal of Dorian he releases him, Dorian’s head settling on Zachary’s shoulder. Without another word the Keeper turns and walks past Mirabel, and goes back into his office and closes the door. They exchange a pointed look as they pass each other but Zachary only sees Mirabel’s side and her expression doesn’t give away enough for him to interpret.
“What was that about?” Zachary asks as Mirabel helps him with Dorian again, after adding his satchel to the bag collection.
“I’m not sure,” Mirabel answers but doesn’t meet his eyes. “Rule-bending combined with a low-probability roll, maybe. Let’s get him to his room. Don’t trip over cats.”