The smart thing to do would have been to lose, but I was never very good at doing the smart thing.

I was tired of Cebu and I wanted to get back to Shencheng. Since my airship had been stolenlost, I needed airfare. And since I tended to drink my savings lately on the bad days, I needed to win it all at once so I could buy my passage and go. I'd spent my evening so far at a single mahjong table, slowly chasing off most of my opponents, letting new ones join and chasing them off too. The last person standing was a man called Malaam who managed teams of dockworkers.

I've never known why the odds will fall in my favor if I ask them to, but I know they do. Usually I don't push hard enough that anyone notices more than a run of good luck here or there, and I have enough of a reputation for bad luck that the opposite goes unremarked. But I'd let this go much too far.

I just wanted to be done. Perhaps in more than one sense of the words.

The murderous look on my opponent's face told me that maybe laying down three chow in a row, neatly counting from one to nine, was a bit much.

"That seems unlikely," he said carefully. I noticed he'd switched from Mandarin to his native Cebuano at some point, emphasizing that this was his playing field. He had backup here; I didn't. I should be intimidated.

I'd had a little too much to drink, unfortunately, and I've never had the good sense to know when to stop.

"You dealt them, my friend. Are you accusing yourself of cheating?"

"I would hardly use such a word," he insisted, "but perhaps there is an issue with the tiles. Let us declare this hand void and begin again."

I should have taken the invitation, lost, and then joined another table. But I was annoyed and my original goals had narrowed to a pinpoint option. I had to win. I had to do it here, now, all in one streak, or I might as well give up entirely.

It wasn't as if I deserved to get out, after all.

When he laid down the tiles, he watched like a hawk as I pulled mine. I plucked each one in a neat row on my turn, one after another, and set down first one and then another chow exactly as they'd gone down in the previous game.

"Keep picking," he told me, and I picked up the next three tiles and laid them immediately down in order. Seven, eight nine.

"Sorcery," he whispered, looking at the tiles and then up at me with anger in his eyes. "Do you take me for a fool, Rose?"

"Do you see any elements on display, Maalam? Any charms or... or stones?" I tried to make myself focus through the alcoholic haze. "Perhaps Lady Fortune simply favors me."

He scoffed at that. "She must, if you're still breathing after the things you've done."

I doubted he could know how that cut through me, so I fell back on my bravado. "If you have a problem with me, say it."

At first I thought he would follow through on his accusation, but then he took a step back and relaxed. "I've heard you're trying to leave the island, Rose. If your Lady Fortune is so good to you, I can make that happen."

That sounded like a reckless and terrible idea. No doubt if Gerrund were sitting next to me, he'd be gesturing at me to stop talking.

But he wasn't there, so I leaned in to hear what Maalam had to say.