Selena told Finn, “You’re lucky to be alive after what you pulled with me. See, Evie? I’ve already made sacrifices for this alliance. Normally I would’ve punished the Magician for using his powers on me. He played me—”
“For a fool,” Matthew said.
Selena glared at him, then said, “But I’ve made allowances to keep us strong.”
“Are we an alliance?” I asked. As of a few days ago, the Archer had been plotting to kill me. “Why the turnaround?”
Her eyes flitted to Matthew and back. “We’re an alliance,” she said in a firm tone. He must’ve told her something about the future.
“Punish me?” Finn snapped. “Stop talking like you’re a warlord, Selena. I didn’t mean to treat you like a fool. I can’t control it . . . sometimes I have to trick people—”
More skittering upstairs. I jumped when one Bagman gave a sharp wail.
“I don’t understand this,” Selena whispered. “Shouldn’t they be happy in the rain? Why aren’t they standing there with their mouths raised to the sky?”
“Back to the subject at hand.” Finn’s gaze fell on Selena’s bow. “Tell me you hadn’t ever planned to kill us in this game.”
“Of course she had,” I said in a low voice. “You heard her. First we take out Death, then all bets are off.”
Gazing around wildly, Finn opened his mouth and closed it. Open, closed. “You guys are humming my balls, right?”
Everyone frowned at him.
“Gargling my marbles? Screwing with me?” His eyes looked frantic. “Tell me, Selena!”
She didn’t reply. Just stared straight ahead.
“Tell me or I swear I’ll yell.”
Jackson raised his brows, giving the boy a dafuq? look. With a subtle movement, he aimed his bow, ready to shut the Magician up in case of emergency—ever the survivor, prepared to do whatever it took.
At length, Selena said, “One player gets to live. That’s the rule. I was raised to play this game, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy any of it.”
Finn looked like something had broken in him, any yell quashed.
Jackson lowered his bow, a disturbed expression crossing his face. He and Selena might never have been involved, but I was sure he’d considered her a friend.
Not a cold-blooded murderer. This game was going to turn us all into murderers.
If we let it.
Jackson glanced at my bare legs, at the skin mending itself, then slipped his flask from his pocket for a generous slug. Freaked out much, Cajun? Not that he ever needed an excuse to drink.
Finn hopped down from the counter to sit by himself. “I can’t believe I gave you food and shelter,” he told Selena. “I even gave you my last Snickers bar! Might’ve been the last one on earth.”
Her face was blank.
“So why have you held off?” he asked her. “From ganking us?”
Selena looked at me rather than him. “Though it galls me to say this, I need you.”
I made a scoffing sound. “I’m supposed to trust the Bringer of Doubt not to slit my throat if I lower my guard for a second?” Apparently I could no longer depend on Jackson to watch over me as I slept.
Finn turned to me. “Now that you’ve remembered the game, are you gonna kill us?”
“No.”
Selena whipped her head around. “Now who’s the liar?”
“I don’t play games where I don’t make the rules,” I said, sounding like a Frau Badass, like my fierce mother had been. Finally. And more, I believed what I was saying. “I’ll take out Death. Then I’ll stop.”
I’d get a handle on that “heat in battle” aspect. Yes, bottling up my powers had caused me problems, but I had an ace up my sleeve. “My grandmother, the Tarasova, will help me. All I have to do is reach her in North Carolina.” Assuming she was still alive. Which I did. I felt like she was.
Selena was eyeing me with new interest. “You can’t just stop.”
“Watch me.” Maybe I didn’t have to reject my abilities. I could use them outside of the game to help people, like those girls in the dungeon. If I’d been empowered to play this messed-up game, I could repurpose myself, fight freaking crime if I had to. “I want no part in this game. I’d rather die than hurt Matthew.” He patted my marked hand again.
“How are you going to get past the other cards?” Selena asked. “I already sensed some not too far away. With the Alchemist’s death, they’ll come running for us. They could be waiting outside this basement in the morning, ready to give us a wake-up kiss.”
“Then I’ll have to convince them not to play.” Was my voice growing fainter? “I’ll start a different kind of alliance.”
“We go up against the wrong cards and you’ll never get a word out.”
Despite the threat of more Arcana, I leaned against Matthew as another wave of dizziness hit. “I’ll take my chances,” I said, barely keeping my eyes open.
Finn considered all this, then asked me, “What’s so important about this Death dude? Why’s he the only one you’ll fight?”
“Because he’s a psychopath, who won’t stop until I’m dead.”
Poor Matthew’s stomach was growling. Even as exhaustion dragged me down, I asked, “Anybody got any food for Matthew?”
Finn raised his brows at Jackson. “Somebody didn’t give us a lot of time to provision for the gotta-save-Evie trip.” To me, he said, “We abandoned my copious stores. Glad we got here in time to save you, by the way.”
I turned to Jackson.
He held up one empty hand and his crossbow. In a curt tone, he said, “I got nothing for coo-yôn.” Cajun for fool. “My bag’s in the truck.”
What had he been thinking to leave his bug-out bag? He considered separation from one’s survival gear to be a cardinal sin, like suicide, had dog-cussed me whenever I’d stepped even five feet from mine. “You doan have this bag?” he’d said, shoving it into my arms. “Then you’re done. You hear me? DONE.”
I’d managed to hold on to mine until I’d been kidnapped by that militia group. Jackson had saved me from those men, proving himself a hero.
Had that only been three days ago?
Now he was right here with me. And he’d never been with Selena. I wanted his strong arms around me. I wanted him murmuring Cajun French to me in that rumbling voice of his, the words I alone understood. But he felt a thousand miles distant.
I couldn’t stop myself from asking him, “You’re not going to say anything about all this?”
He gave me a cruel smirk, a flash of his white teeth. “This ain’t my party, now is it?” Anger gleamed in his gray eyes.
“No. It isn’t.”Everyone fell silent.
Despite the tension thick in the air, my lids grew heavier. Sleep was about to overwhelm me, but I feared Selena.
Matthew whispered in my mind —She’ll protect you with her life, until Death is done. If Death is done. She knows you’re his sole weakness.—
And me? Will I hurt them? By accidentally unleashing poisonous spores and such.
—Safe. You have control now.—
At that, I closed my eyes. I could feel Jackson’s gaze on me, even before Matthew said —He stares. He stares. He hungers to know what’s behind your false face. The curiosity burns him.—
I turned in to Matthew, wanting to hear more. False face? Is that why he looks like he hates me?
—Loathe/love. Hurting/hating.—
I don’t understand.
Matthew didn’t reply. Probably staring at his hand, which always meant: subject closed. And I didn’t have the energy left to press.
Finn cleared his throat. “So this Death dude, he wouldn’t, like, trouble himself to come after a second-stringer like me?”
Just as I slipped off to sleep and into dreams, Matthew murmured woefully, “Death comes for us all. . . .”
I’ve lost too much blood; it streams from a wound in my side, dripping to the desert sands.
My enemies have closed in on me. We’ve collected in this place like leaves on a whirlpool. Their calls sound even louder in my head. I’ve already killed four of their strongest, but am now drained of power, injured.
I have no thorns, no vines, no trees to aid me. Nothing grows in this wasted land. No water in any direction, just canyon wall after wall.
And I have no idea how to navigate the terrain, no horse to carry me. As I stumble through a maze of interconnecting gorges, my feet sink into the sand. Going in circles?
There, ahead . . . I see my own blood trail. I have been walking in circles! I lean back against a rock. Why couldn’t I have been gifted with the Mistress of Fauna’s senses?
Hoofbeats begin to echo through the canyon, what sounds like a massive steed. Death? Has he found me at last? I somehow manage to increase my pace, a shuffling run. Sweat pours. Blood pours—
I stumble to a stop. I’ve reached a dead end. Trapped. I spin around as the Reaper comes into view.
He is alone, astride a white stallion with red eyes. He wears black armor, a helmet covering his face. Two swords hang from his belt. A polished scythe juts from a saddle holster. “Empress,” he intones.
“Death,” I bite out, trying to disguise the severity of my wound.
“I watched you battle the others today,” he says, his voice deep and raspy. “Your powers are monstrous, creature.”
“And yours are not?” He can kill just by touching another’s skin. Other Arcana whisper that he prefers to kill with his touch.
But I want to live! I have only eighteen springs, am far from ready to leave this world.
Death tilts his helmeted head. “Your flesh repairs itself. I wonder if the others could even kill you at all.”
“They cannot,” I lie. “Nor can you. So leave me.”
As if I haven’t spoken, he removes his helmet, revealing a shocking sight: his face.
He is . . . beautiful.
His masculine features are even and bold, with a proud brow and nose. His tanned skin and light blond hair make his amber eyes stand out. I guess his age to be no more than seventeen.
He dismounts with a lethal grace. As he stalks closer, I have to crane my head up and up to hold his gaze. He must be over six feet tall. His bearing bespeaks arrogance. Obviously highborn.
His gaze falls on the bloody hand I use to clutch my side. “So many icons. Soon to be mine.”
If he murders me, those images will appear on his hand, my kills becoming his own. Whichever Arcana has all the marks at the end, the last one standing, wins.
Lions roar in the distance. Fauna with her beasts.
Where are my allies? Fool, have you forsaken me?
When Death draws a sword, I spit blood at his face and run to the right; he cuts me off with unnatural speed. I run to the left, the same. I splay my fingers and slash at his armor, expecting to furrow the metal with my indestructible thorn claws.
Sparks flicker, but my claws dull, leaving nary a scratch.
Gasping for breath, I shake my head wildly, thrashing my reddened hair. No poison whispers from my tresses. I raise my free hand and call upon my lotus to appear. Nothing. I press my lips together, licking them. They are numb, cracked. No toxin covers them for a fatal kiss.
I’ve used up my powers earning the four icons on my hand, my glyphs gone dim in this hated desert.
“Beg me for your life.”
I jut my chin, even as my lungs struggle for air. “I am the great Empress . . . the May Queen, a killer of the first order. . . . I will never beg.”
He gives me a grudging nod, as if he respects me for this. “You’ve earned an honorable death, creature.” He meets my gaze; his eyes begin to glow, as if filled with stars. I can’t look away. “This will not hurt for long.”
Without a sound, he thrusts his sword, stabbing me through. I shriek in pain, clutching the blade that pins me to the rock. My screams die when I begin to choke on blood.
There is no sympathy in Death’s starry eyes, nothing but resolve as he secures my wrists, pinning them with one gloved hand. He raises the other to his mouth, using his teeth to tug off the gauntlet.
To touch me.
And it is then that I know: this boy will win the entire game. . . .
4
DAY 247 A.F.
—I’m coming for you, Empress.—
I woke, shooting upright. Death was in my dreams and in my mind. It was as if I could sense his presence in my head, a heavy feeling.
Like being possessed.
That dream with him had been so vivid, I pressed my hands to my stomach, expecting to feel a sword.
The details of his handsome face floated at the edges of my memory. He’d looked younger in the dream than he was now, and his black armor had been different, appearing ancient. Was this some kind of vision from another, even earlier game?