The stairwell wasn't marked.
That was the first rule.
Anything important in Rustline didn't ask to be found.
Cole felt it before he saw it—the way sound flattened, like it had hit something soft and stayed there. The street above kept moving. Boots. Voices. A laugh that tried too hard.
Below that—
Quiet with weight.
Dusty stopped at the top step.
Not afraid.
Considering.
Cole rested a hand on the dog's shoulder. Felt the tension there. Spring-wound. Alert.
"Alright," he said.
They went down.
The stairs were poured concrete, old enough the edges had rounded like river stone. No handrail. No lights that worked the way lights were supposed to. Someone had strung glow-filament along the wall—thin, blue-white, humming just enough to feel in the teeth.
The air cooled fast.
Not cold.
Stored.
Like this place had been holding onto night since before night meant anything.
At the bottom, the space opened.
Wide.
Too wide for what the building above could support.
Cole paused.
He knew that feeling.
Space lying.
The room had once been a floor of tables. Not one. Not two.
Dozens.
The legs were gone. The tops remained—wood slabs half-buried in dirt and grit, arranged in rows that didn't quite line up with the walls. Some were cracked. Some burned. Some stained dark enough he didn't want to think about what had soaked in.
Cards lay everywhere.
Not scattered.
Set down.
Face-up.
Face-down.
Bent.
Whole.
Ruined.
They covered the floor like leaves after a bad season.
Dusty padded forward, nose low.
He stopped short of the nearest slab and sat.
Didn't cross the line.
That mattered.
Cole stepped in beside him.
The Ace of Spades pressed heavy against his ribs.
Not colder.
Heavier.
Like gravity had found it.
The House spoke.
Not with urgency.
Not with ceremony.
HOUSE OF RECKONING // LEGACY SITESTATUS: DORMANTACCOUNT HISTORY: EXTENSIVE
Cole exhaled.
"Dormant," he said quietly. "Sure."
The glow-filament flickered.
The air shifted.
Not moving.
Remembering.
Cole walked between the tables.
Each step felt measured by something he couldn't see.
Here, probability didn't flow clean.
It pooled.
Thick in places. Thin in others.
He felt it tug at old injuries. At scars he didn't remember earning. At gaps where memory had already been taken and the shape left behind was still sore.
A table near the center held a single deck.
Not dark-backed.
Not luminous.
Plain.
Worn soft.
Someone had wrapped twine around it, tight enough the cards bowed inward like they were trying not to breathe.
Cole didn't touch it.
He didn't need to.
He could feel the reason it was bound.
The House hadn't sealed this place.
It had… stepped away.
Dusty whined once.
Soft.
Cole looked down.
The dog's eyes weren't on the deck.
They were on the far wall.
Cole followed his gaze.
A section of concrete there had been poured twice.
You could tell by the seam.
By the way the second layer didn't quite trust the first.
Something had been buried behind it.
Not a body.
An idea.
The Ace pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
Cole felt the House shift its weight.
HOUSE OF RECKONING // MEMORY OFFSET DETECTEDWARNING: PROLONGED EXPOSURE
"Yeah," Cole murmured. "I feel it."
He backed away from the wall.
Slow.
Respectful.
Some places punished curiosity.
Others punished understanding.
This one felt like it did both.
A sound came from above.
Footsteps.
Careful.
Cole turned.
A man stood at the top of the stairs.
Not a Dealer.
Not local.
His coat bore old stitching—faded red, almost brown now, like dried blood that had learned to behave.
A lieutenant.
Royal-touched, but not Royal.
He looked down at the room with something like regret.
"Didn't think you'd find this so soon," the man said.
Cole didn't answer.
Dusty stood, body angled, blocking half a step of space without being told.
The man noticed.
Everyone noticed Dusty now.
"This place used to matter," the man went on. "Before the House decided it didn't like what it had built."
"What is it," Cole asked.
The man shrugged.
"A mistake," he said. "Or a precedent. Depends who's counting."
Cole watched him.
"Which Royal," Cole said.
The man smiled thin.
"Not yours," he replied. "Not yet."
The House flickered.
ACCOUNT HISTORY: RESTRICTEDACCESS DENIED
The glow-filament dimmed.
The man took a step down, then stopped.
"You should leave," he said. "Probability gets… sticky down here."
Cole believed him.
That didn't mean he moved.
"What happens when the House remembers," Cole asked.
The man's smile faded.
"It doesn't," he said. "It adjusts."
Cole felt the truth of that settle in his bones.
The man turned to go.
At the top of the stairs, he paused.
"Tell the Queen," he said without looking back, "that the floorboards are creaking."
Then he was gone.
The glow-filament brightened again, like it had been waiting for permission.
Cole stood a moment longer.
Felt the weight of the Ace.
Felt the quiet resentment of a place that had once decided outcomes and been punished for it.
He turned and left.
At the stairs, Dusty paused and looked back.
Just once.
Then followed.
Aboveground, Rustline kept bleeding slow.
Below it, something old shifted in its sleep.
And the House—for the first time in a long while—pretended not to notice.