by Kresley Cole
I. The Magician, Master of Illusions (Finneas)
II. The High Priestess, Ruler of the Deep (Circe)
Aric tapped the page beside Circe’s name. “Just the Priestess. Also known as the Water Witch.”
Lark wrote “Hand of Fate” next to Matthew’s, then edited Circe’s. “Considering Poseida of the deep, or whatever, has been parked outside the castle for weeks, I think we should discuss this witch. What’re her weaknesses, boss?”
I added, “If she remains in the abyss, how could she ever be defeated?”
Aric looked amused. “Give up my ally’s vulnerabilities?”
My? I drew my head back. So did Lark.
I said, “If we are your allies and she’s one too, doesn’t that make all of us allies?”
His tone was flat as he answered, “No, it does not.”
I parted my lips to argue, but I didn’t trust my muddled mind yet. I bit my tongue, and we read on.
III. The Empress, Our Lady of Thorns (Evie)
IV. The Emperor, Stone Overlord (Richter)
“How did you defeat the Emperor two games ago?” I asked Aric.
“His rage is his strength, but also his weakness. He expends his power too readily and too extremely. I used another card to bait him—until the Emperor was depleted. After that, he was a mere mortal.”
So how to bait him? Coming for you, Richter . . .
V. The Hierophant, He of the Dark Rites (Guthrie)
VI. The Lovers, Duke & Duchess Most Perverse (Vincent & Violet)
VII. The Chariot, Wicked Champion (Kentarch)
I glanced up. “Who’s Kentarch?”
Aric said, “My other ancient ally.”
And I was Death’s ancient enemy. “What’s his power?”
“Teleportation and intangibility.” To Lark, he said, “In games past, he was better known as the Centurion.”
She scribbled again.
“Why isn’t he here?” I asked. “Will he help us?”
Aric shrugged. “He searches for his wife. I doubt he will do much of anything else until he locates her.”
But we could use him! “You can’t talk him into fighting for you? Call on your friendship?”
“He and I aren’t friends.” Aric seemed to grow more distant by the second. “Our interests have been aligned.”
I bit back my frustration, planning to keep working this angle.
VIII. Strength, Mistress of Fauna (Lark)
IX. The Hermit, Master of Alchemy (Arthur)
X. Fortune, Lady of Fate Luck (Zara)
XI. Justice, She Who Harrows (Spite)
XII. The Hanged Man, Our Lord Uncanny (??)
“The Justice Card was known as the Fury,” Aric said. “Her title, She Who Harrows, is the same.”
Lark updated the list. “What were Spite’s powers?”
“She was a fanged demoness with batlike wings and the ability to spit acid. Strangely, her acid wouldn’t rise when we faced off.”
“A Bagman might have bitten her,” I said. “Sol talked about a card whose powers were neutralized.”
“By the way, boss”—Lark’s eyes grew tinged with animal red—“I officially called Fortune’s kill. Zara and her stupid choppers are mine.”
He raised his brows. “Good luck with that. You’ll need all the luck you can get.”
“What are the Hanged Man’s powers?” I tried to remember more about that player.
“I don’t know,” Aric admitted. “I’ve never faced him, nor seen him mentioned in any chronicles I’ve read. The Star had his icon in the last game. But did the Arcane Navigator take it himself, or harvest it from another?” Aric rotated his shot glass on his desk blotter. “The Hanged Man remains a mystery. That is why he’s called uncanny. In this game, all have been accounted for, but for him.”
“Then he’s the inactivated card?” One Arcana was dormant—until he or she killed another player. “Matthew told me to beware of that player but wouldn’t reveal an identity.” He’d just said, Don’t ask, if you ever want to know. Merely thinking of Matthew made my anger churn. “Of course, the Fool’s a cowardly liar, so I’m not banking on anything he said.”
Both Aric and Lark looked surprised by my tone.
How could they be? Seething, I turned my attention back to the page.
XIII. Death, the Endless Knight (Aric)
XIV. Temperance, Collectress of Sins (Calanthe)
XV. The Devil, Foul Desecrator (Ogen)
XVI. The Tower, Lord of Lightning (Joules)
XVII. The Star, Arcane Navigator
XVIII. The Moon, Bringer of Doubt (Selena)
Just as I’d reduced Selena and Jack to epitaphs, Lark had reduced the Moon to a scratched-out name. Because of Richter, Selena had been banished to history.
XIX. The Sun, Hail the Glorious Illuminator (Sol)
XX. Judgment, the Archangel (Gabriel)
XXI. The World, This Unearthly One (Tess)
Oh, God, they hadn’t heard.
“I had a scout on Tess for a while,” Lark said. “She’s possibly the nicest person I’ve ever stalked.”
“Her powers will suffer this game, becoming unstable,” Aric said. “She needs mass amounts of calories to wield her abilities, and there’s little food out in the wastelands.”
Voice thick, I said, “The World is . . . gone.”
“You mean dead?” Lark’s lips parted. “Did Richter get her icon? Figures it’d be him!”
I shook my head. “Her death was an accident. Joules or Gabriel must have her icon.” In the case of an Arcana’s accidental death, the closest player would receive it.
“What happened?” Aric asked, with what might have been sympathy in his eyes.
“I believe Tess reversed time, and her power got away from her.” At Lark’s frown, I explained, “Each minute she went back in time drained her. Her corpse was wasted, the way it looked when she reversed time before. She loved to help so much. . . .”
Lark folded up her list and pocketed it. “You saw her body? Gabe and Joules just left her to rot?”
“Someone had buried her in Fort Arcana.”
“What’d you do, Eves, go grave-digging?”
Aric had once told Jack, If you can’t speak your deeds, then don’t do them. “I . . . did. I had to know if it was Tess’s grave—if reversing time was an option or not.” Yet more evidence of my love for Jack.
I glanced at Aric. His eyes had turned cold as ash.
Lark made a sound of disbelief. “Damn, girl, you went to the mat, huh?”
It hadn’t mattered. I hadn’t been able to change fate. Did that mean I never would be able to alter the course of my life? Would I always fail—because I had zero control over my own destiny?
I was learning a lesson, painfully: maybe fate couldn’t be changed.
And we were all fated to fight. Or die.
When Aric and I just stared at each other, Lark muttered a curse. “I forgot you two have . . . unresolved issues.”
My need for revenge overshadowed everything. The Emperor was all I could think about now. I felt as if I hadn’t taken a real breath since the massacre, hadn’t truly slept between nightmares. All-business, I asked Aric, “What do you think Richter will do next?”
Aric’s demeanor was equally emotionless. “In time, he and his alliance will locate us. If Fortune finds another helicopter, she could fly the Emperor here when he is at full power. If she acquires a military helicopter, she could fire on us herself, even deploying missiles. But Fauna’s creatures will be our sentries, alerting us to any attack in advance.”
Lark lifted her chin. “Damn straight.”
Her animals would be our PEWS, a perimeter early warning system. Jack had taught me about that the day my mother had died. The day we’d burned down Haven and escaped together.
To keep from reacting, I imagined how Richter would look when I injected him with poison—the first time.
“But we’ll be blind whenever she sleeps,” Aric sa
id. “So the Priestess keeps watch through her rivers. She has surrounded this area with water and controls the only road to the castle.”
I somewhat recalled him yelling for Circe to let him pass. “Did she spare me because of you?”
He knocked back a shot. “Ask her.”
I intended to. I’d been talking to puddles all this time; why stop now?
Then understanding dawned on me. “Whoa, whoa, it sounds like we’re preparing for . . . a defense. I need the Emperor dead.”
Aric’s gaze fell on one of his shelves. “I forfeited the one weapon that could have defeated him from afar.” The lightning javelin? He’d stolen it from Joules and safeguarded it for millennia. To save Selena from the Lovers—and gain my favor—he’d used the weapon intended for Richter.
In order to win me. Another decision he must regret.
Selena had died anyway. I’d chosen another man, and Aric had missed an opportunity to take Richter out the night of the massacre.
Can’t change fate. “Then I will kill him. You promised that you and my grandmother would teach me how.” In a past game, I’d taken down galleons, cracking them open like eggs. If I could tap into my full potential . . .
“The Tarasova will have more information about your abilities,” he said. “I can help you train. But even if we felt confident of a victory, how will we find the Emperor without the Arcana calls?”
The idea of waiting to get vengeance nauseated me. I couldn’t continue like this for much longer. It felt an awful lot like enduring—which was a slippery slope toward acceptance. “Lark and Circe will find him.”
Lark’s eyes flashed. “I’ve already got my scouts combing the area for Finn—and Richter. I’ll merge with my animals as much as possible. On that note, I’m gonna make like a stray and get lost.” She rose with her ferret. “Oh, here,” she said, reaching into her pocket. She handed me the red ribbon, then slipped out of the room.
Feeling Aric’s gaze on me, I fought not to react. He would suspect it had something to do with Jack—
“A token from the mortal, no doubt.” Of course Aric would know. “You’re taking this better than I’d expected.”
He should’ve seen me at the gravestone. I clenched the ribbon and remained mute.
“Outwardly at least. Are we not to talk about Jack?”
His name was like a sudden gunshot about to free an avalanche. “No, we’re not. I can’t.” Not yet.
“This is consuming you, but I’m not to be privy to your thoughts? Then you’ve turned your back on me again.”
“Don’t think of it like that, please.” If Jack had been the love of my life, Aric was my soul mate. I loved this man, I regretted his lonely existence, and I appreciated everything he’d ever done for me. But I felt as if I’d lost Jack mere days ago.
The weeks I’d spent unconscious hadn’t blunted my grief. When I’d had the hope of going back in time, I hadn’t allowed myself to grieve. After that, I’d been too busy trying to reach Aric. “I’m hanging on by a thread here.” As Jack had once told me.
“Then let me help you.” Aric seemed to be saying so much with his eyes, yet I understood so little. I got the sense that he wanted me to remember something—but my mind wasn’t up to speed.
I shook my aching head, struggling not to bleed out. Not quite yet.
He raked his fingers through his hair. “If you won’t let me help, then what am I to you?”
Now, on the spot, I was supposed to label our relationship? We loved each other, but we weren’t together romantically. If I believed that the game demanded blood and that fate couldn’t be changed, then we never should be.
I didn’t want to say the wrong thing, so I settled on the safest: “I . . . don’t know?”
“Then Fauna is mistaken.” His tone was like ice. “There is nothing unresolved on my part.”
“What does that mean?” Where was the man who’d urged me to live, who’d cared for me?
“You are welcome in my home. We are allies, of a sort. That will be the extent of our relationship.”
Of a sort? “I see.” What were my eyes telling him?
I love you, but I have nothing left inside me. I’m a drained husk like Tess. My head’s not right and won’t be till Richter begs me to kill him.
Does the game demand blood?
I stood to go. “For what it’s worth, thank you for the last two times you’ve saved me.”
Voice gone low, he asked, “You’re glad you didn’t follow Deveaux into the flames?”
“No, you were right. I need to avenge him.”
_______________
I didn’t realize until later how unintentionally cruel my parting words to Aric had been. As if I had nothing else in my life?
Where’s your head at, Evie?
20
Day 425 A.F.
I woke to my own cries, out of breath from another nightmare about Jack. Tears flowed down my cheeks like crimson seeping from a tourniquet.
“Twist, tighten, constrict,” I muttered, gazing around with confusion. Where was I?
My glyphs lit my new suite. I frowned to find Cyclops taking up half of the bed. He must’ve nosed his way in here.
He blinked his eye at me. Whatcha gonna do?
I lay on his neck and scratched his scarred ears until the roosters began to crow (whenever they thought it should be dawn). Then I rose and took a shower.
Under the steaming water, I struggled to clear the fog in my mind and decide my path going forward.
Now that I’d warned Aric and Lark about Gran, I would take more time with her, chipping away at her beliefs day by day—while gleaning as much information as possible about the other cards. I might not agree with her about my allies, but she and I would be on the exact same page about my enemies.
Dressed in a sweater and jeans, I let Cyclops out, then knocked on Gran’s door. No answer. Figuring she must still be asleep, I headed to the tower. The stairs were a misery on my still healing legs, but I made it to the top.
From the panoramic windows, I gazed out past the castle’s slate roof into the drizzly darkness. The river at the base of the mountain coursed like a moat, looking small from this height.
I turned back to the room, surveying the sunny landscapes I’d painted on the walls. This tower was a time capsule in itself.
I sat on the bed and fired up the laptop—one present among the many Aric had given me. I’d stored my zip-drive’s worth of family photos on it. Some part of me must have always known I would return to the castle of lost time.
From the bed, I could see my ballet slippers hanging on the back of the door. Aric had found them for me. Dancing for him had been pure pleasure, and each day I’d fallen for him more. I’d dreamed about him in this bed. And hated myself for missing Jack. . . .
Forcing my gaze from those slippers, I scrolled through pictures on my laptop. Gran might like to look at them. God, everything had been so shockingly green. This was how Jack had envisioned Acadiana. I patted my jeans pocket, where I kept the ribbon—
My eyes went wide. I didn’t have a single picture of him. I scrambled for one of my blank drawing journals and a pencil set. I hadn’t sketched much while here. Nothing had moved me to.
With my pencil flying over the paper, I drew Jack as he’d looked after taking command of the Azey South army. He’d ridden into Fort Arcana with his expression so heartbreakingly proud. He’d liked being a leader, and he’d been good at it. I would’ve said he’d been born for it, but his life had been cut too short.
On another page, I tried to capture the look in his eyes as he’d gazed down at me in Selena’s pool, just before our first kiss. Next I would draw him within the cypress stand he’d described to me, when he’d told me a story about our dream day together: “We decided it was our place. No one else’s. Because that was where we became Evie and Jack.”
As my pencil moved, I repeatedly whispered, “Twist, tighten, constrict—”
“Your grandmother is lo
oking for you,” Aric intoned from the doorway. I’d never heard his spurs. “She can’t climb these stairs, so she bade me to come get you.”
I clasped my sketchbook against my chest. “I tried her earlier, but she was still asleep.” How strange that I could be so numb inside, but I still felt love for Aric. My blood-starved heart had leapt at the sight of him.
“I’m sure you’re keen to catch up with her about old times.” Sarcasm?
“Will she and I talk about the past? I hope so.” In time. “But I’m also mindful that Richter could be heading our way. I need to learn everything she can teach me.”
He leaned one of his broad shoulders against the doorframe. “And she will be delighted to instruct you, I assure you.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You brought her here. You told me you wanted me to learn.”
“After I saved your life and reunited the two of you, I didn’t think her first lesson would be to eliminate me. At best, it’s flawed game strategy, since I am motivated to protect you.”
“I can pick and choose what I decide to believe,” I assured him. “To use.”
“Take care that she doesn’t poison your mind.”
“Didn’t you hear? I’m immune to poison.”
Aric parted his lips to say something, then seemed to think better of it. As he strode away, the sound of his spurs rang in my ears.
I glanced back at my sketch. When had I drawn a frame of flames around Jack?
21
The Hunter
Somewhere far in the West
“Goan to die in this hellhole,” I muttered. “Down here in the dark.”
