Chloe sidles into the conversation as smoothly as she can. They're talking about… betting odds, it sounds like. There are tens of thousands of metallic poker chips lying around on tables, which – are they making side bets with tournament chips? Is that allowed?

There are a few different ways of facilitating wagers on sporting events, but the simplest way is to offer moneyline odds. The payout is binary and phrased as a multiple of one hundred, which makes it easy for the bookmaker to tabulate their positions. Sora has his hands full creating a Dutch book – not an economic or epistemic Dutch book but a Dutch book in its original sense: laying favorable odds for himself in both directions, such that profit is guaranteed if enough gamblers take him up on it. The key word is 'enough' – Sora will not get an infinite number of clients, since he is not operating Hilbert's Hotel, so he needs a substantial edge to stop a few dark horses from wiping him out entirely.

Fortunately, he doesn't need to guarantee a large profit. The real goal is to distribute as many of Stephanie's original chips as possible back into the tournament pool.

 "Felix at table seventeen is done for any second now," says the next man in line, referring to a player that in all likelihood is not done for any second now.

"Minus one-fifty," Sora offers.

 "Minus what?"

"If you're right and he busts out first, I give you 150 chips for every 100 you stake on it."

 "What if I haven't got a hundred chips left?"

"75 for every 50, fifteen for ten, and so on."

 "Fifty against Felix it is."

Juno Mandagot is probably the best source of information here, being a technically disinterested party.

"Is he trying to set up a prediction market?" she asks.

It's amazing how many humans know what prediction markets are, seeing as Elkia has failed to use them in any meaningful fashion.

"Not feeling confident enough already, Zell?"

She makes 'Zell' sound like an insult – more so than usual, that is.

"Confidence doesn't enter into it."

"All about the money, aren't you? Goes a little further if you don't have to post blinds, betting until you've got a stack again."

This really should not work. The blinds will go up too fast for anyone to stay in the tournament this way, unless Sora is exceptionally bad at bookmaking. They're better off in expectation by waiting at a table and hoping their opponents get bad cards. The odds of getting a lucky break are low but not as low as they could be, considering the average skill level in the room.

The more parsimonious explanation is that everyone here is bad at math. This is rarely a bad assumption, in Chloe's experience, but it doesn't explain why Sora is up here instead of down there.

"Information is always nice. What are the odds on me?" she asks him.

"Couldn't say. No one is betting against you, that's for sure."

"What if I wanted to bet against me?"

"If you're as good at hold 'em as you are at stud, I'd say you could do better."

If it were anyone else Sora would offer them odds, if only to get an idea of what it'll be like when『____』reaches the final table with her. Coming from the woman herself, denominated in tournament chips and not gold, she could just be trying to distort everyone else's predictions.

And it's not like he needs that information. Either she'll play normally and lose, or she'll try to cheat him the way she cheated Stephanie yesterday and make his life easier.

This cannot be happening.

Oddly enough, Fiel isn't giving her any advice. Chloe decides to keep the conversation going.

"What odds have you offered so far? I could be persuaded to double up."

On the one hand, this could be bad news. Unlike everyone else he's bet against, Chloe liking the odds enough to gamble is evidence that he's made a mistake. He would ideally offer her worse odds to compensate, which is presumably why she asked specifically about other players.

On the other hand, this could be great news. Win or lose, she's entangled either way.

Sora doesn't think any of this in so many words, he just feels a wave of satisfaction before he starts listing the wagers he's already made.

Fiel doesn't care about any of that. She's busy steadying her nerve, preparing as delicate a spell as she's ever cast in her life. Sora thinking about Chloe cheating is a dark cloud with a gold lining: Chloe is on his mind, which means he won't be suspicious when she actively scans him. She needs to know where the leak was – if she can find and plug it without drawing suspicion this whole mess might still be salvageable.

It's also going to cost her a fair few lilims, but that's a small price to pay to stay in the game.

She tugs on the fading strands of memory and builds the scaffold, angling to have Sora revisit yesterday afternoon in a way that feels spontaneous and genuine.

How was Chloe Zell cheating?

Her final hand was sixes full of twos, improving from two pair to a full house on the final card. Two pair is not a great hand facing an opponent showing an ace and a queen – half the time she ought to expect Stephanie to have a better two pair (assuming Stephanie will play literally any hand from the short stack, which is a dubious assumption), making this a bad situation to semibluff in. It would have been a good play in Stephanie's position, but as the player with more resources Chloe was (in expectation) giving her opponent a better price on her last hand for no good reason.

This was such a bad choice that he immediately suspected her of cheating. Players who don't know how to handle endgame spots like that don't go on to win major tournaments. The more attractive explanation for calling Stephanie's raise with a garbage hand followed by calling Stephanie's all-in with a weak two pair is that Chloe knew what her last card would be in advance.

what

This is… relevant… because her ability to predict whether other poker players will win or lose is indicative of actual skill? It's safe to assume she's not enabling other cheaters in the same tournament she wants to win, right?

Sure.

Ah, watching people self-rationalize never gets old.

Fiel ends the spell and opens her eyes. She hasn't answered all of her questions, but what she's got is good enough for now.

Sora doesn't know Chloe is cheating, nor does he know how. He only suspects, albeit with what he believes to be strong evidence. It probably is strong evidence – the conclusion flowed from the premise and Fiel doesn't know enough about poker to say otherwise. But he doesn't know. As long as Chloe is not actively cheating when he accuses her, she'll be fine. Mystery solved.

This information ought to be conveyed to Chloe as soon as possible. Unfortunately, Sora did not think about Princess Stephanie when prompted, and pushing him further in that direction risks alerting him to her presence. If Stephanie recruited this guy to help sink Chloe's chance at victory there could easily be other collaborators in the crowd, waiting to strike. Fiel needs to be absolutely certain before she resumes her role in this farce.

:Can you risk a few chips on a wager with him, dear?:

:Yes.:

Sora's offering −125 on a middling player and −200 on a player who is quite bad but not all that likely to bust out first; she'll put 300 chips on both of them. Risking 600 chips won't make a difference in the long run, not with Fiel backing her up, but it's a gamble she'd happily make on her own. Neither of those players are making it to the final table, so their bet will resolve one way or another before it really matters.

Damn, the two wagers he was the least confident in. This'd be a real kick in the gut if the result had any bearing on 『____』.

"You don't need to leave your chips with me," he says, offering her a handshake. "I'll come by to settle up when the action's over."

"See you then."

Sucker.

Sucker.

That will do. She won't risk another active scan, but prompting Sora to think about Chloe more frequently raises the odds that he'll inadvertently leak the identities of his partners. He has at least one, although even in his thoughts he was careful to avoid naming them. Once she has the full picture she can decide how to proceed – not directly, not in a way that a human is likely to detect, but anything that won't make them suspect Chloe's involvement is on the table. That means acting at one remove, arranging catspaws, and going behind Chloe's back to give her plausible deniability.

Fiel Nirvalen has precious few assets she can use here. Chloe Zell isn't just her ace in the hole, she's her only ace. She needs more options.

:Keep an eye on Sora for a minute or two. Tell me if he approaches anyone.:

:Will do. It hasn't happened since I left the game.:

Fiel pinpoints every mind in the castle between herself and the sixth floor before breaking into a sprint. Elves are ordinarily a bit slower than humans on foot, but magical enhancement more than makes up the difference. She traverses the castle faster than any human could run, climbing the staircases at speed with less physical exertion than a leisurely stroll, and reaches the unoccupied baths without crossing anyone's path.

It's the middle of the day, which means the castle's hot water supply is being put to use elsewhere. It'll take time to bring the baths up to temperature if she does it the normal way, flushing out the lukewarm water and replacing it from the cistern, so Fiel uses magic to boil what's already there. There's not a lot of room to cleverly optimize what is essentially a spell to convert lilims into thermal energy, but she has more than enough strength to do it in seconds. The water shimmers and bubbles and erupts with steam, drowning the baths in an oppressive hot fog. A thin film of moisture beads up on the floor; the wall on the opposite side of the baths is a little hard to make out.

She locks the door and closes the windows. It's already uncomfortable in here, but it's about to get much worse.