by Kresley Cole
"Call it what you want," Lark told me. "If Joules and Gabe are on the verge of biting it out there, you know this means certain death for a lone mortal."
Good. He was a murderer.
Paul cleared his throat. With his brows drawn, he said, "I'm to head out into the Ash, then? Where will I go?"
I was more convinced than ever that his whole demeanor was an act. "Not our concern. Leave. Now."
His voice broke as he told Aric, "Sir, I . . . I'm scared."
Damn it, that admission tugged even at my sympathy. What if I was wrong about him?
I'd been wrong before--epically. I'd tried to run away from the game: wrong. I hadn't listened to wise cards like Aric and Circe when I'd gone to rescue Selena from the Lovers: wrong. Richter had burned her anyway, laying waste to Jack's army in the process.
Though I hated and mistrusted Paul, the responsibility for killing a mortal weighed on me.
I needed Aric to take my hand and offer support. Instead, I could feel his disappointment in me. After last night, I'd thought we'd be united in this.
Finally, he spoke: "This isn't right."
"Seriously, Aric?" He rarely reversed himself. "What happened to trusting me? What happened to following where I lead?"
"Then choose the correct path! Will you show no mercy, Empress?"
"Empress?" I couldn't remember the last time he'd addressed me like that. "What is wrong with you?"
Paul called, "Please don't fight over me. I'm sure I'll be fine. Thank you, sir, for over a year of protection. It's more than most received." He turned to go, heading down the drive.
He took one step farther away. Another. With a last look, he strode out of sight.
Finally! Good riddance.
But Aric said, "No, no, this is all wrong."
"Let him go." With Paul out of our lives, I'd be able to lower my guard; I would take the leap. "Please, Aric!"
Finn said, "I know I'm the new kid on the block, and my vote doesn't really count"--Lark's gaze whipped to the Magician's sweating face--"and I know I'm about to be in the doghouse with the missus 'cause she's a fan of Paul's. But I got real bad vibes about him."
Someone else felt the same way! I'm not crazy.
Lark's lips parted. "How can you say that? He's my friend."
Finn ran his coat sleeve over his face. "Babe, when he examined me and offered to do the surgery, I turned him down flat. Maybe it's the Magician in me, but I sense something's not right with that dude. Figure he's as trustworthy as gas station sushi."
"God, thank you, Finn." I crossed to him and took his hand. "You don't know how much better this makes me feel."
With his eyes on Lark, he said, "Just calling it like I see it." Had he tottered on his feet? "And hoping my girl can . . . my girl can . . ."--he cleared his throat--"understand." Sweat was dripping down his face now. "Whoa. Something's off." He coughed, then again.
I turned to Aric. His gaze remained on the road, even though Paul was no longer visible. "Aric! We need to get him inside."
A gurgling sound came from Finn's throat. His face was turning purple! Wait, this had to be an illusion. He'd told me they were involuntary to a degree, and the stress of this situation must be affecting him. "Is this a trick?"
When Finn collapsed to his knees, Lark shoved me away. "He's choking!"
Aric sped into action, pulling him up to deliver the Heimlich maneuver. Nothing happened. He tried again.
Frantic, Lark sprinted to the gate. "Paul, we need help!" No answer. "I don't see him on the road!" He couldn't already be down that long mountain drive.
Aric said, "Fauna, send your animals to find him."
She gave a jerky nod, and her eyes turned red as she ran back to us.
When a line of white foam dribbled from Finn's mouth, Aric laid him on the snowy ground. "The Magician isn't choking. This is a toxin of some kind. Maybe venom or a poison."
Finn clutched his throat. Had he eaten something bad? Or . . . "Oh, God, Paul did this." Gran had accused the medic of poisoning her.
Lark dropped down beside Finn. "Enough about Paul! If he was here, he could fix this!"
The Magician's eyes were wide with fear.
"Don't leave me, Finn! I love you."
He released his throat to grasp Lark's hands. He believes he's about to die, is trying to comfort her.
Lark must've concluded the same. A high-pitched whine left her lips. Chaos erupted. The animals spread over the property went berserk, yips and howls filling the air.
Finn's illusions flashed all around the courtyard. Waves . . . a sunset . . . a middle-aged woman with a stern expression . . . how Lark had looked the first time we'd all met her.
Those animal screams rang out louder and louder. I was about to howl right beside them.
"Shut them up so I can think!" I concentrated, trying to sense if some plant-based toxin was inside him. Sensing . . . Not a plant. I couldn't produce an antidote. But some toxin was killing him. Think! Our only hope was for him to vomit whatever he'd ingested. He needed an emetic!
I yanked off my gloves, then flared my thorn claws. In my chronicles, I'd learned that I could deliver more than poison through them.
"You're going to claw him?" Lark bared her fangs, hovering protectively over Finn. "Oh, hell no!"
"I'm going to give him something to make him throw up. Let me try to save him."
She finally relented. "If he doesn't pull through . . ."
I sank my claws into his neck, injecting him. Please let this work. Withdrawing them, I waited, gaze flitting over his face for any sign.
Yet Finn's wide eyes grew sightless.
Lark cried, "I don't hear his heartbeat!"
I turned to Aric. "You know CPR!"
He knelt beside Finn, beginning chest compressions with his gloved hands. One compression after another after another.
Teardrops spilled down Lark's cheeks. "Finn can't be gone. He can't be. I-I just got him back."
Aric was sweating by the time he drew back. "The Magician's passed on. There's nothing I can do."
Finn was . . . dead.
Tears blinded me. Shock numbed my brain. There was something I needed to remember, but all I could do was stare at my friend's terrified face.
Lark wailed, a bloodcurdling sound. "Who did this to my Finn?" Would she still not believe it was Paul?
I didn't know how he'd gotten out of a locked room to poison Finn, but I knew why he'd done it.
The Magician had been on to him.
I barely noticed when Aric stood. "Do you feel that, sieva?" He surveyed the area. "Something is coming."
"Richter?" Was the end here for all of us?
Aric shook his head. "This is more like what the Moon Card might've done--a feeling. An ominous feeling. Some power is amongst us."
My gaze darted. "Where? How do we fight it?" The air shimmered, and a dome of hazy yellow light appeared above.
When it enveloped us, Aric's eyes glittered. "A pall falls over us."
Pall. Paul. Where was the medic?
The ice in the river cracked more loudly than usual, the sound echoing over the mountain like cannon blasts.
Lark rose up from Finn's body, her eyes turning an even darker red, her fangs sharp. "I know what happened here." Her tableau wavered over her. Then the image began to rotate until it had turned upside down. Reversed. Her animal gaze landed on me, her expression promising revenge. "You killed Finn. You poisoned him."
I gawked. "Me? Paul did this!"
"You made the ham. Finn was the only one who ate it, to be polite to you. And you touched him right before he got sick. You clawed him, and he died."
"Are you high?" How could she doubt me after all I'd done to reunite them? "Why would I ever hurt Finn?"
"You murdered him in the past!" I hated that she had a point. She stalked closer, her movements predatory. "My creatures will fang you apart."
"Easy, Lark, think about what you're doing." Unable to manage so much as a vine, I
hurried to Aric's side. "She's losing it!" I glanced up at him.
His Grim Reaper tableau appeared as well, turning, reversing. Just before it locked into an upside-down position, he held my gaze and bit out, "Run to the castle." Seeming to fight some inner battle, he drew his swords. "Run--from me."
9
Reacting purely by reflex, I leapt away and raced across the snow.
The fortress was on lockdown, only the front door open. I careened through the entrance, then slammed the blast-proof door closed. I turned the lock, but even this weighty barrier wouldn't keep Aric out for long.
"There's nowhere for you to go, Empress," he said outside the door. "For the first time since I met you, my thoughts are clear. I know I can never have peace while you live."
"WHAT???"
"You mesmerized me. Made me believe you loved me. Just as you've done before."
"Have you lost your mind--I do love you!"
"Lies!" He pounded on the door with his unnatural strength.
What was I going to do? "Something is happening to you! Your tableau is turned upside-down."
"Everything you say is a lie. Nothing changes. You killed the Magician--another of your allies--just as you do in each game! We trust; you betray." He kept pounding on the door: boom . . . boom . . . boom.
I was trapped on this mountain with two Arcana who wanted to murder me. I had dead vines climbing the ceilings, but even if I managed to revive them, Aric would easily slice them away. My only real hope was to get to the nursery, to the sunlamps--
A spine-tingling growl sounded from behind me. I slowly turned; Cyclops crouched in the foyer, saliva dripping from his knifelike fangs. More animals filed into the chamber beyond. The creatures I passed by every day now looked rabid. Under Lark's control, they were all predators.
"No, Cyclops. Don't do this." I raised my palms in front of me, struggling to revive nearby vines. Would Lark truly make him attack? "I didn't hurt Finn!"
From outside, she screamed, "You poisoned him! Cyclops, disembowel her!"
The giant war wolf sprang for me. I squeezed my eyes shut. Vines shot from the ceiling, jabbing like wooden spears, out of my control.
YELP. When I looked again, the beast was skewered throughout his body, pinned to the floor. Unable to move, he cast me a heartbreaking look of confusion--my onetime bedmate and favorite pet.
"Cyclops, I'm so sorry." Reminding myself that he'd heal, I edged around the whimpering wolf.
A trio of badgers, a Komodo dragon, and two snarling hyenas blocked my way to the nursery. As they advanced on me, I screamed, "Stop this, Lark!" I revived more vines to knock the beasts out of my way, but twice as many took their place. My powers were already sputtering.
BOOM . . . BOOM . . . BOOM.
I'd never reach the nursery before Aric leveled that door. Lark's arsenal was preventing me from reaching mine.
No choice but to flee up the stairs. I'd barely made two steps when a wave of small forest creatures descended. I booted a couple, dodging the worst of the onslaught.
Racing upward, I tripped on two foxes. Falling forward . . . My forehead banged the edge of a step. "Ah!" Blood streamed into my eyes. Sprouts shot from the crimson drops, coiling around the creatures.
Gritting my teeth, I pushed on, managing to reach the second-floor landing. I drew up short, swiping my eyes. Paul stood off to the side, guarded by Scarface and Maneater.
"How in the hell did you get inside?"
"I know every secret chamber and passageway in this castle. I grew up here, was the caretaker's son." My lips parted. "I can get in anywhere, have had access to every inch of the place." He smirked as he said, "Even after I was 'locked up.'"
A hazy light glowed behind his head, the same color as that dome outside. It seemed to be strengthening, spreading.
Then an image flickered over him. A tableau. I'd seen it before: a man dangling upside-down from a rope looped around his ankle and tied to a tree limb. A jagged burst of yellow light haloed the man's head.
The Hanged Man. Paul was the inactivated card.
His tableau was reversed as well. Which meant the Hanged Man appeared to nimbly stand on his toes. No dangling--because he was in full control.
"You killed Finn." I looked for an icon, but he wore gloves. "You poisoned him, and now your powers have been activated." I tried to recall anything I'd read about this card. He was called Our Lord Uncanny--because so little was known about him.
"We both know that you poisoned him. Just as you did in past games. You are the princess of poison, remember?"
Had I murdered Finn in this game? I did clearly recall doing it before.
I sliced him to ribbons and choked him in vine. My God, I'd said that aloud! I shook my head hard. "Finn was my friend. I didn't hurt him--you did."
Paul tilted his head. "Interesting. Even as my sphere of clarity spreads, you're able to resist me."
He'd generated that yellow dome. Whereas Sol could emit a pure white light of illumination, Paul's was a bewildering haze. He must have the power to brainwash Arcana, which explained why Lark and Aric currently wanted me dead.
So how had I resisted?
BOOM . . . BOOM . . . BOOM. That door wouldn't hold much longer.
Once I killed Paul, the haze would surely lift, and then my husband and friend would return to normal. As I struggled to build poison in my claws, I called on the vines I'd revived downstairs to creep up the steps. Buying myself time to strike, I asked Paul, "Have you always known you're an Arcana?"
Outside, Circe's river continued to crack ominously. I knew she couldn't hear past the ice. Was she sensing Paul's activation?
He leaned a shoulder against the wall, fully relaxed. "When I first spied Dominija, the mysterious businessman who'd purchased my childhood home, I sensed I had some kind of mystical connection with him. So I figured out how to get into his household and make myself indispensable." Paul cast me the smile I used to think was charming. "I've read everything here I could lay hands on, including your chronicles. After talking to your grandmother for hours on end, I suspected I might actually be an Arcana, the inactivated card. After all, fate likes us to converge, and I'd long dreamed I had supernatural abilities. But how to activate myself?"
"By killing an Arcana."
"It's not so easy a feat! I didn't want to arouse suspicion with an unexplained death, so I decided to kill someone connected to the game--your Tarasova grandmother. The right meds accelerated her decline."
"I knew it!" Everything Gran had said or written toward the end became clear. A rat on my table gnaws the threads . . . the serpent coils around the tree and chokes its roots.
Paul was the rat, the threads coming from a hangman's noose. Like a serpent, he'd been coiled around me while choking her--my roots.
But Gran had been too far gone by that time to make me understand. "She discovered what you are."
"Eventually. I feared someone would catch on when she kept blabbering about midnight and noon."
Comprehension. "Twelve is your card number."
"Evie gets a star!" He grinned, crinkles forming around his wide blue eyes. "When I gave her that last injection, she experienced a small window of lucidity. She stared me down and said, 'Evie will figure out I was murdered, but she'll blame Death. She'll avenge me. I want this.'"
Gran had written in my chronicles, I have put the end into motion.
"As soon as your dear ol' gran kicked it, I felt the stirrings of my abilities, and I reached out telepathically."
Aric had said "errant thoughts" kept hitting him. Was Paul's telepathy similar to Matthew's, working like a two-way radio? Arcana powers often overlapped--because the gods' powers did.
Could the Hanged Man hear thoughts? I mentally screamed, LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU, PAUL!
Yet he droned on: "The Reaper and Lark were easy to reach. But you and Finn . . . not so much. The Magician was immune to me--I dreamed his card was a foil to mine--but you're not naturally immune." He narrowed his eyes,
as if trying to see inside me.
"Brainwashing has no effect on me, not since I freed myself from the Hierophant's mind control." Cracking ice still sounded outside. Had Paul reached Circe as well? Was she trying to break free to help me? Or to end me?
Irritation stamped his features. "I'm no brainwasher."
"Then what are your powers?" Would he tell me? After so many months of taking orders and skulking in the shadows, this smug man must be all too ready to crow about himself.
"What do you think they are?"
"Aside from telepathy? I think you possess guile and concealment." His forgettable appearance was a power in itself. I'd rarely noticed him in the beginning of my stay here. "Definitely trust manipulation."
"The power to lie and always be believed? That's the same as brainwashing." Huffing with indignation, he said, "I'm not like the Hierophant! From what I've read, he used eye contact to turn his followers into unthinking drones. My sphere brings clarity. When I reverse an Arcana's card, they're in no way mindless. They still have free will. They're simply enhanced. Whereas the Hierophant lied, I mentally relay truths."
"Not seeing much of a difference from where I'm standing, Paul."
"Oh, Evie, a card reversal means that I can only work with what's available."
So he couldn't manipulate Aric and Lark to hurt me--unless they were already inclined to do so?
As if to illustrate, Lark shrieked from outside, "I'll kill you, Empress! Why him?"
Paul tsked. "She can't decide whether to end you or herself." Then her most marked Arcana trait--her single-minded determination--was gone. "Of one thing I've recently convinced her: the need to protect me at all costs." He petted Scarface.
BOOM . . . BOOM . . . BOOM. The hinges screamed as the door bowed.
Poison finally welled in my claws, my vines slithering higher. Would I get to Paul before Aric got to me? "And Death?" His card was all about embracing change, letting go of the past and bitter resentment. The reverse of that meant he'd be mired in the past, and our history was filled with mistrust, hatred, and murder.
The present that we'd built for ourselves would be destroyed.
Paul grinned again. "Hating you is the knight's factory setting, if you will. Which works for me."
"Lark will hear everything you've said through her wolves."
He glanced at the slavering beasts. "And she'll thank me for plotting against you. She despised your grandmother, was happy to see her go. I've been of service to Lark, to everyone here but you."