Alone, under the quivering dim amber wall lamp, Deon sits on an overturned wooden barrel, facing another topped with a deck of tarot cards. The light glowing over their tousled hair casts a shadow on the cards, as if a vine wreath twines around their head.
Deon takes the deck and begins to shuffle it. The cards move through their fingers in a smooth stream, long past the point of thought. They lay two face down on the barrel top and a third above them. The flat glide of their hand fans the remaining cards in an arc that matches the curve of the surface before they sit back.
The door behind them thumps open when Val shoulders through.
“A-ha!” Her heel catches the door edge and sends it shut.
“I wouldn’t have guessed I’d find you in the storeroom, but evidently it was worth a try.”
She smacks the light switch with her elbow, the helmet hooked over it clattering against the wall as the fluorescent lights start sputtering to life.
“Are you hiding… or waiting for the next drama to knock?”
Overhead white light, harsh and unapologetic, makes a stack of crates at the end of the room and a huddled bunch of empty bottles by the mop bucket stand out.
Deon glances over their shoulder at the light switch as their sequinned waistcoat throws stray stars across the walls.
“Darling, the difference is academic.” Their smile stretches between a dare and a dare-you-not.
“Lights?”
Val takes half a step forward before flicking the switch off with a grunt.
Deon touches the edge of a card.
“You want a fortune, a favour, or a confession? You can only afford two.” They raise a card with its back turned Val’s way, their voice all purr and prickle.
Val steps closer and lets the helmet drop onto a crate with a hollow thunk.
“Ari’s Viper.”
“Oh?” Deon’s gaze lifts to the bare wall ahead.
“Complaints?”
“More than complaints.” Val glances at the door, making sure it didn’t reopen when she wasn’t looking.
“The Waiting Room’s full of souls who’ve forgotten more than their spots in the queue.” She turns back to Deon.
“Viper’s not just fogging memories. Some don’t remember at all why they’re there. Lower Admin’s losing whole hours. Schedules are…” Her brow draws in.
“It’s tangling the timetable.”
Deon’s eyes light up with trouble yet to be tested.
“Now, that’s usually my playground. Confusion and a dash of panic with a sprinkle of drama.” Their hands stop on a card.
“If you miss the point of the actual why, the root reason, as they say, for your forgetting, all that’s left, unfortunately, is noise. Even I wouldn’t know what to do with the madness of that.”
They collect the fanned cards with a sweep of their hand and stack them into a neat deck.
“And you saw Maz and Eli tonight. Still on it, so long after exile. That rush should’ve burnt out. Their old tricks should be dust. But they had that look…”
A grimace pulls at their mouth.
“That’s not what Viper was meant to do. You checked Ari’s last batch?”
“I checked it.” Val folds her arms and lets her back thud against the wall.
“It matches his last filing. If he tweaked it, he didn’t do it on paper.”
“He never does if it’s urgent enough.”
When Deon turns towards Val, their knee hits the empty barrel across from them, and as it wobbles, two from the deck slide off.
Val watches the cards fall onto the sticky floor. The Tower lands, upside down, with its crown pointing at a cracked cocktail glass near the wall, while The Lovers spins and comes to rest reversed.
With a soft kick at the side of the barrel, Deon slides down and sinks to a crouch to pluck the cards up between two fingers, one at a time.
“Disaster delayed.” They study The Tower before moving on to The Lovers.
“Love running crosswise. Naturally.” They stand and place the cards on the barrel.
“Ari’s too clever by half, but when he gets complacent, he gets sloppy.”
Deon pats the side of their waistcoat.
“Voilà, I still happen to have the spare keys to the honey shop.”
Val’s eyes narrow at Deon’s pocket before snapping up to meet theirs.
“You’re not saying sabotage.”
Deon laughs, too pleased with themself to let the sound carry.
“No. I wouldn’t dream of it. I’m saying correction.”
Their sequins send sparkles onto the walls as they step closer to Val.
“He’s causing messes in a division he has no right to interfere with. If his scales aren’t even helping the queues, that certainly goes beyond being his mess alone. It bleeds into mine. Yours too. Everyone’s.”
Val adjusts the collars of her jacket as her shoulders rise a notch and lock into place.
“He says the boss signed off. Says it’s all orders from higher up. If he’s got the boss’s blessing, I’m not meant to get involved. But there’s nothing from the Queen. No co-sign. No clause. No form. Rules don’t move without her. Not the ones that matter.” She tips her head back.
“Wherever she went.”
“Boss?” Deon’s smile leaves their face as if it had never been welcome.
“He doesn’t own my division, much less yours. And don’t get me started on how she never ceded that crown.”
“He’s grown somewhat peculiar about names and titles, especially since the new name regime.” Val looks at the floor where The Tower card had been.
“However, you’re not wrong.” She drags a palm down her face.
“So, performance review or migraine?”
Deon grins with a glint in their eye that carries part joy, part declaration of war.
“Why choose? Besides, someone needs to remind our beekeeper that ‘the boss said so’ doesn’t qualify as a constitution.” They tilt their head at her. “Which is where you come in.”
“Me?” Val’s eyebrow shoots upwards.
“No. Absolutely not.”
Val keeps her eyes on them while Deon’s face remains unchanged.
“You want me complicit.”
“Darling…” Deon reaches back to flick a card off the top of the deck and catches it with one hand.
“You’re already complicit. You’ve seen the queues. You’ve seen what his version of ‘forgetting’ is doing downstairs.”
“Ari swears he’s just following orders. Says the queues stay calm, boss stays calm. Says it’s for stabilising the situation until she returns. I have to stand behind that.”
Deon lets their whole body deflate, shoulders first, as if Val just cancelled a party. They turn towards the barrels and throw the card onto a surface without looking.
“Then stand where you like. I’m not letting Ari make a confusion ward out of the whole Lower Admin because someone ticked the ‘lazy convenience’ box.”
Val watches them fly and land before laughing.
“Fine. What’s the plan?”
“Yes.” Deon takes a dark duffel bag from behind a barrel and slings it over their shoulder.
“We borrow what our beloved Jackal left chilling in the fridge. We’ll pay Ari’s cupboard a visit. A quick little switcheroo. That’ll let us give the queues a fighting chance… perhaps also a chance to remind the oh-so-mighty boss that the queues aren’t the problem to begin with. It should take Ari about a week to notice his precious jar isn’t singing the same way.”
Val hooks the helmet back onto her arm.
“By then, maybe Maz and Eli will remember why they were meant to stop. We might even get a straight answer out of the boss.”
“Hope springs eternal.” Deon tips their chin at the door.
“Never ask it to do admin, gods make dreadful pen pushers.”
Val snorts before heading for the door.
“Meet me outside Ari’s in ten.”
Deon dusts their hands, as if brushing away the remnants of a performance.
“They must have forgotten what real scales look like,” they murmur too quietly for Val to hear.
Val’s footsteps fade behind the door as Deon looks around the room.
A corner of a tarot card, between the barrel and the wall, catches their eye. They reach in and tease it free. Seven of Swords. Their fingertip finds a crease on its back.
They turn it over and notice a handwritten note in faded blue ink at its centre. The letters seem scrawled in haste and softened by time.
As Deon reads it, a slow smile grows on their face, deepening with the fine lines of countless forgotten secrets until the corners twist into a defined curl.
They read it again in a gentle whisper.
“For Elysinth… If you get caught, smile first. The heart is just a dot away from truth.”
The ‘i’ in the name carries a tiny heart in place of its dot.
“Never hurts to rig the deck.” They slip the card into their waistcoat pocket.
“Not quite an ace up the sleeve, but we always did improvise.”
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