The next few moves are desperate. I play for time, sacrificing what I must, trading off every non-essential piece just to keep the king alive. Larkin is merciless, but never cruel. Hepicks off my pawns with surgical precision, each capture a clean, decisive snap.
The fire burns lower, the coals now the color of dying stars. The temperature in the room drops a few degrees, and my breath starts to fog at the edges. I do not ask for a blanket.
Larkin leans in, elbows on the table, hands framing the board. His body language is relaxed now, loose, but his eyes are electric, alive with some private joke.
“You’re better than I expected,” he says.
“Because I’m a girl?” I ask, amused.
“Because you’re a Vale,” he replies. “They never taught you to lose.”
I smile, show my teeth. “There’s a first time for everything.”
He laughs, and the sound is genuine. “You could still turn it around,” he says, but I can tell he doesn’t believe it.
The game ends in a flurry of moves. I see the trap too late—a rook and bishop pincer, forcing my king into a corridor of death. Larkin waits for me to realize, then finishes it with a gentle flourish: checkmate.
He sits back, hands on his thighs, and looks at me with something like respect.
“Well played, Miss Vale.”
I study the board, the way the black and white pieces are arrayed, the symmetry of defeat. I’ve never liked losing, but this one feels different, earned.
“Rematch?” I say.
He nods. “Always.”
We reset the board in silence, the fire dwindling to embers, the sleet relentless on the glass. Outside, the world is locked in ice. Inside, every move is a negotiation, a test, a confession.
“The roads are gone,” he says. “We’re snowed in. Whitby sent for help, but it’ll be days.”
“I didn’t plan on leaving.”
He gestures at the board. The pieces are reset, White on my side, Black on his.
I fidget in my seat, fingers still tingling from the cold. I advance a pawn, c4, then settle back, letting the move hang in the air.
Larkin matches, symmetrical, knight to f6. “What did you dream of?” he asks, as if it’s a normal question.
I consider lying, then decide there’s no point. “Glass,” I say, recalling my most vivid dream from the night before. “The ceiling was gone. Just the sky, and me, underneath.”
He studies the board, then me. “And did you like it?”
I furrow my brow. “I couldn’t tell whether the glass was keeping me in or out.”
He laughs, genuine this time. “I could see that. The house likes to blur the distinction. You dream more since your arrival, don’t you?”
“Yes.” No point in denying it. It’s probably more haunted house magic fucking with my brain.
We play three more moves in silence, the rhythm familiar, almost soothing. But when he captures my bishop, he holds the piece instead of setting it aside, rolling it between thumb and forefinger, feeling the weight.
He says, “My father taught me chess. When I was small. He used to say that every piece is a person, and that a game is just a story about who survives and who doesn’t.”
“Which were you?” I ask, not unkindly.
He sets the bishop down, facing me. “A pawn, mostly. Occasionally a knight. Never a king.”
“Why not?”
