EMBER’S POV

A valet who appears to file his teeth for a hobby opens my door.

And I step out into Casino Royale, Casino Royale on the invitation, the Slaughterhouse to everyone who actually comes here, and I make myself look bored.

It is the single hardest thing I have ever done.

Because the place is depravity made flesh.

We come up out of the stone into a cavern that somebody has poured a king’s fortune into making beautiful and filthy in equal measure, gold everywhere, black marble veined with something that glows, honeyed light spilling from nowhere and pooling like liquor.

And the liveliness of it is quite the...