Afterward they got to the card game.
Old Maren was seventy years old, had three teeth, and the posture of someone who has been winning at the same thing for twenty years and has come to consider winning simply the natural state of things.
He looked at Lira when she sat down across from him.
"Vampire?"
"Yes."
"You know how to play?"
"No."
"Then what are you doing here?"
"Learning."
Maren looked at her for a moment.
He explained the rules.
Lira listened to them once.
---
The northern sector card game had sixteen base rules, eleven exception rules, and three rules Maren had added personally over the last twenty years that technically weren't official but that no one had questioned because Maren had been winning for twenty years and those who lose don't question the winner's rules.
Lira processed the sixteen plus the eleven in the first game.
Maren's three in the second.
In the third she started winning.
Maren looked at her differently after the third.
