The deck feels heavier than it should. It’s just a stack of worn, dirty cards, edges softened from too many hands, too many nights like this, but when it reaches you, your fingers hesitate.

No one rushes you. That’s the worst part.

The circle is quiet, the kind of quiet that presses in on your ears. Snow crunches faintly under shifting weight, the fire crackling somewhere behind you, too far away to feel like warmth.

Across from you, Travis is watching.

Not openly, he’s trying not to, but you catch it. The tension in his shoulders, the way his jaw is locked so tight it looks like it might crack.

“Go on,” someone murmurs.

Your thumb slides across the top card. For a second, you think about not looking. About dropping it. About running. About anything else. But you turn it over.

The symbol hits you all at once.

The queen.

You don’t breathe. No one does.

The silence shifts, sharp now, electric. Like the air just changed shape around you.

A sound breaks it. Not loud. Not dramatic.

Travis.

“...no.”

It’s barely more than a breath, but it cuts through everything.

You look up.

He’s staring at the card in your hand like it’s wrong. Like it can’t be right.

“That’s not-” he starts, then stops himself, shaking his head once, hard. “No. Do it again.”

No one moves.

“That’s not how this works,” someone says from the circle. Calm, firm, final.

Travis ignores them.

He steps forward, closer to you now, eyes locked on yours. There’s something different in them - not just anger, not just fear.

Panic.

“Give me the deck,” he says, reaching out.

You instinctively pull your hand back, the card still clutched between your fingers.

“Travis-”

“Give it to me,” he snaps, sharper now. “We’re not doing this. Not like this.”

A few of the others shift uneasily. You can feel their attention turning, tightening, like a net being pulled.

“It’s already done,” someone else says.

He whirls on them. “Shut up!”

The word echoes, too loud in the cold air. Then he’s looking at you again.