Jack was the one who saw her first. He always let himself fall in love at first sight; that’s what he spent his luck on, when he had it. Everyone knew that about him, especially Joker, who tends bar down at the Green Lady, where all the sharps hang out. She wasn’t a sharp, you could tell. She was a mark; and just plain, old-fashioned unlucky.

“I hear this is a place you can- can buy? Some luck?” she’d asked someone, like she didn’t believe it herself. Of course Jack would fall in love with that, with her lost-puppy eyes.

Me, I didn’t have time to notice a lost puppy. We had a trick to pull.

We’d been casing The Tower for months, sniffing around the outside, pulling smaller tricks to keep us in enough luck to make sure we didn’t get made. To the marks, The Tower was just another fancy casino, but any sharp knew it had more than money locked in its vaults. It had luck, and lots of it. But it was also an arcana joint, and you don’t mess with those without a really good plan. And a will.

We had a good plan. Me, I didn’t bother with the will, though. If I had enough to give anyone, or anyone to give it to, I wouldn’t be desperate enough to pull a trick on the arcana.

I won’t bore you with the details. My luck held; Jack’s didn’t. When it was all over, I stopped back at the Green Lady one last time, to pick up the fake passport I’d stashed with Joker and to say goodbye.

She was there again; or maybe she’d never left. I knew just what Jack would do if he was there, so I went and did it for him.

“I’m Ace,” I introduced myself. “You seem down on your luck.”

“You can say that again,” she agreed.

“Can I give you some of mine?”

Her eyes went a little wide. “So it’s real?”

“It’s real,” I said. “And I find myself pretty lucky right now. Except that I was going to share my luck with the person I loved. And now I can’t.”

“So not that lucky, actually,” she said.

“That’s not how it works,” I snapped. It came out harsh. “I could find someone new, if I wanted to spend my luck that way,” I tried to explain. “But I don’t want to.”

She nodded, and I could see she understood.

“Here,” I told her. I took her hand, and gave her the luck I’d taken from The Tower – all of it. “Just… stay away from tarot cards for a while, okay?”

I got up and walked away quickly, before she could do what I thought she might with the luck I’d just given her. I hadn’t been lying; I didn’t want someone else. And I still had a new passport, and a plane ticket in my pocket. There would always be better luck tomorrow.