Quietly, the Coinbearer leaned close and murmured for Elise's ears alone, "Stay at my side. No matter what happens, do not let go of the cloak." Elise swallowed and gave a tiny nod, fear and resolve mixing uneasily in her chest.
They turned back to the Librarian. The Coinbearer lifted his chin. "Name the game," he said. "What are we playing?"
With a delighted flourish, the Librarian snapped his fingers once more. The library around them heeded his will. The lectern that held Elise's book sank back down into the floor and vanished. The marble tiles beneath their feet rippled like the surface of a pond struck by a pebble. All around, bookshelves slid aside and rearranged themselves with uncanny grace, forming a wide circular clearing amidst the aisles. The floating globes of light overhead dimmed further, until only a great chandelier of candles descended from the lofty ceiling. It came to a halt above the newly formed clearing, illuminating it like a spotlight on a stage.
In the center of the circle, a large oaken table emerged from the floor. Its round surface was carved with elaborate swirling patterns, constellations and arcane sigils interlocking. At each end of the table, a high-backed chair took shape. One chair was adorned with inlays of silver filigree, the other with gold.
Elise's heart pounded as she watched the transformation. It felt as though they had become pieces on a gameboard, the library itself bending to the Librarian's whim. She hovered just behind the Coinbearer, one hand clutching his cloak, as the Librarian glided to the golden chair and stood behind it like a ringmaster.
"We shall play a game of cards," he declared grandly, his voice ringing out theatrically in the cavernous space. "But not any ordinary cards. This is a contest of souls and stories, of memory and magic." A thin smile. "The rules… we shall explain as we go. It's more fun that way."
With a gesture from the Librarian, a tall deck of intricate cards materialized in front of him on the table, shuffling itself with a whispery flit-flit-flit of cardstock. An opposing deck appeared before the empty silver-filigreed chair on the other side, awaiting the challenger. The Coinbearer regarded the setup for a long moment. At last, moving deliberately, he walked to the silver chair and sat down. The faint clink of metal sounded as he drew his trusty Coin from its pouch and set it on the table before him. It gleamed in the chandelier light like an impartial judge overseeing the match.
Elise took up a position just behind the Coinbearer's right shoulder, unwilling to stray far. The cloak drifted behind the Coinbearer as well, hovering protectively. Across the table, the Librarian remained standing behind his golden seat, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.
"Now then," purred the Librarian. "As the challenged party, you may take the first turn, Coinbearer."
With a wave of his hand over his deck, five cards lifted themselves from the top and floated before the Coinbearer, backs to the Librarian. On the opposite side of the table, five cards from the Librarian's own deck rose and hovered, their faces turned away from the Coinbearer. The game was set.
The Coinbearer tentatively reached up and took his five cards from midair. They flipped toward him, revealing their faces only to his eyes. Elise peered curiously at the cards over his shoulder. Each bore beautifully painted images and titles , she caught glimpses of names like Lost Sentry, Hellshadow Wolf, Midnight Oath, and other stranger things.
The Coinbearer studied his hand silently. At last, he selected a card and laid it onto the table between them. "I play this," he declared, voice calm but tense.
The card's face glowed as it left his fingers. An illusion shimmered up from its surface, a figure taking shape in pale light. It was a knightly warrior in ghostly armor, a spectral sword in hand. The knight bowed its helmet to the Coinbearer, then stood ready. The card's title flickered: Lost Sentry.
The Librarian gave an acknowledging nod. "A valiant spirit. How quaint." He drew a card from his own hand and slapped it onto the table with a flourish. "I summon the Healer of the Last Dawn."
A gentle golden radiance swirled up from the Librarian's card, forming the hazy image of a robed woman with kind eyes, holding a bowl of light. The comforting glow spread over the Librarian's side of the table. The spectral knight on the Coinbearer's side shifted warily, its hollow eyes fixed on the radiant healer.
The Coinbearer's eyes narrowed behind his mask. Clearly, the Librarian meant to bolster his position defensively. The Coinbearer drew a new card to replenish his hand and quickly chose another to play. He laid it down. "Summoning Hellshadow Wolf," he intoned.
From this second card rose a much darker apparition: a great black wolf formed of shadow and flickering hellfire. It padded soundlessly on the air above the card, lips curled in a silent snarl. At a nod from the Coinbearer, the Hellshadow Wolf slunk to the ghostly knight's side, red eyes blazing at the Librarian's healer across the table.
The Librarian tisked under his breath and plucked one of his own cards. He flashed a sharp grin as he slapped it onto the table. "I cast Shadows of the Past."
All at once, every candle on the chandelier overhead guttered and burned blue. The ambient light in the library dimmed to a dusky indigo. The Librarian's card oozed tendrils of inky darkness that snaked and coiled across the table like living things. Elise felt an involuntary prickle of dread on the back of her neck. The spectral knight and the wolf both recoiled slightly as the dark tendrils pooled at the center of the table, forming a roiling cloud of deep violet mist.
Elise's fingers tightened on the back of the Coinbearer's chair. She sensed something emanating from that cloud – a presence, a familiar sorrow. Within the swirling mist, shapes were forming… a scene was unfolding.
The mist parted like curtains to reveal a phantom tableau: a humble cottage's interior at night, lit by a single flickering hearth. Elise's breath caught. She recognized the place at once – it was her childhood home. At the center of the illusion, a bed was visible… and on it lay her father, pale and sweating with fever in his final hours. A much younger Elise knelt at his bedside, holding his hand and silently weeping. Beside them stood a dark figure in a cloak – the Coinbearer as he had appeared that night years ago, come to deliver the coin and ease a soul's passing.
Elise felt as though her heart had turned to ice. This was the moment of her deepest pain, projected here like a stage play for all to see. On the table, the Librarian's Shadows of the Past card pulsed, sustaining the cruel illusion. The phantom scene played on: her father's labored breaths, herself crying and begging him not to leave, the Coinbearer intoning the ancient words of passage and flipping his silver coin…
"No…" Elise whispered, her voice trembling. She could even hear echoes of her own sobs emanating from the apparition. Across the table, the Librarian watched her intently from behind the indigo mist, his expression keen. He was trying to break her composure by dredging up this nightmare. The ghostly knight and wolf on their side of the field shifted uncertainly, unfocused by their summoner's distress.
Elise's vision blurred with tears as the scene above the table reached the moment forever seared into her memory: her father's final smile, his last whispered words of love, and the Coinbearer murmuring, "Heads or Tails?" to decide the man's fate. In the illusion, young Elise screamed in anguish as the coin was flipped…
Elise could bear it no more. "Papa!" she screamed now, a raw cry that tore from her soul. She reached out with both hands toward the vision, as if she could tear through time and yank her father back from death.
In that charged moment, something inside Elise shattered – or perhaps, burst forth. The grief, love, and fury within her soul ignited a raw, ferocious power. It answered her call with elemental force. A gale howled into being around Elise, spiraling outward from her in all directions. Whorls of wind whipped her hair into a dark halo and sent her cloak flaring behind her. The oaken table groaned as the sudden cyclone lifted its edges; playing cards fluttered off the surface like panicked birds. The roaring wind slammed directly into the swirling illusion at the table's center.
The projected cottage scene buckled under the assault. The phantom Coinbearer flickered and the spectral father and child wavered as if seen through rippling water. Tendrils of darkness were shredded by Elise's wind. She stood at the Coinbearer's side, eyes brimming with tears that now glowed with fierce resolve. The shimmering sigil of the game's magic that had tethered her as an onlooker burned white-hot on her skin, unable to contain the surge of power within her.
"You will not use my pain against me!" Elise cried out. With a sweep of her arm, she sent a howling gust straight into the heart of the misty projection.
The image of her father's death shattered like glass struck by a hammer. The dark mist exploded outward, swept up into the vaulted heights of the Library and torn to nothingness by the raging winds. High above, the chandelier's candles guttered violently, nearly snuffed by the tempest, then flared back to life once the wind passed.
In the sudden stillness, Elise stood with her chest heaving, tears streaming down her face. But within those tears now glinted triumph and release. She had taken that weaponized nightmare and banished it with the very power the Librarian hoped to suppress. The hideous memory lost its hold on her, at least for now.