Dead of Winter (The Arcana Chronicles #3)(9)

“What is your plan?”

“Finn disguises us. You fly us over. We march right into the Lovers’ camp. I fumigate their tent. Selena and I extract Jack.”

Gabriel was quiet for long moments.

With a glare, Selena removed her hand; at once, he said, “I shall assist you with more than transportation, as a full-fledged member of the team. But I have a condition.”

Full-fledged said the boy with wings. “Let’s hear it.”

“We go there to assassinate any Milovníci. Not to ask them to be in an alliance. Not to spare them.”

I totally agreed, but hadn’t thought he’d be this hard-core.

“We’ve talked to soldiers here about the general and his spawn. They must be stopped.”

“We’ll take them out,” I assured him.

He offered his claw-tipped hand, and we shook. “Joules will be displeased. I sense an AC/DC moment in my future.”

Huh? “Like the band?”

“No, like the currents. But I’ll handle him.”

“You do that,” Selena said. “Bring a bandanna for a spore mask and meet us at the watchtower. Midnight sharp.”

I frowned. “That’s hours away.”

“Their soldiers maintain a regular schedule,” she explained. “Like they do here. Reveille in the morning, even though there’s no daybreak. At midnight, most of the camp will be asleep.” To Gabriel, she said, “Don’t let any humans know what we’re planning.”

“Understood.”

I furtively kicked Selena’s boot; she straightened and said, “Oh. Thanks, Gabe. I won’t forget this.”

“It will be my pleasure, Selena. I look forward to it.” His eyes widened. “I mean, not that I am pleased about the occasion.”

Selena let him off the hook. “I look forward to kicking serial killer ass.”

He grinned. “Precisely.”

We started back toward Selena and Finn’s tent. Halfway there, she murmured, “I can’t believe he’s going against Joules! I would’ve bet my bow he’d refuse. My God, we might free J.D. tonight. Evie, if this works . . .” Though Selena was 100 percent, grade-A badass, her eyes glinted, a hairline fracture in her prickly fa?ade. “If we get him back, you and I’ll be solid again.”

“Were we ever solid?” I was so different from her, and we’d hated each other at first. But we’d muddled along until we’d begun to rely on one another. And now she was lowering her guard a degree.

As soon as the thought occurred to me, her expression hardened. “In every game, the Archer has an arrow for the Empress.”

I exhaled. “Yeah, yeah, I remember.”

“In this game, I might have misplaced it.” Shoulders squared, she turned from me.

As she strode away, I realized two things:

That’s the closest she’ll ever come to telling me we’re friends.

I’ll take it.





6


“Battle comes for the Empress.”

Near midnight, Matthew and I had holed up in the top floor of the watchtower. We sat facing each other, the toes of our boots touching. We spoke with hushed voices, as we had in the back of that van with Jack and Selena.

A gas lantern flickered light. Outside, a storm raged. Cyclops stood watch below.

“I’m ready.” To take on psychotic mass murderers. To head into the skies with a winged boy. A gust rocked the watchtower, making it shudder. Not exactly the greatest conditions to fly in. . . .

After Selena and I had secured Gabriel’s help, I’d checked on the mare (doing much better; still pissed at me), then headed to the tent Jack shared with Matthew.

I’d tried to rest, but as soon as I lay down on Jack’s cot, his familiar, pulse-quickening scent had surrounded me. I’d alternated between bouts of missing him and jolts of panic about his imprisonment.

There’d been little sleep.

“Do you want to go tonight?” I asked Matthew.

He shrugged, like I’d asked him to go grab a slice. “Got stuff to do.”

“Like what?”

“Stuff,” he answered, sounding like such a teenage boy.

“Will you tell me about the Lovers? Anything at all?”

“Duke and Duchess Most Perverse.” He lowered his voice even more. “Their card’s upside down. Reverse. Perverse.”

“But what does that mean?”

He rocked forward and back. “Animus, animal passions, disharmony, conflict, jealousy. When they say love, they mean destroy. They want retribution because they chronicle and remember.”

“What are their powers?”

His rocking slowed. “They don’t use them as they have.”

“What did you mean about smite, fall, mad, and struck?”

He nodded. “Sometimes the world spins in reverse. Sometimes battles do too. The word carousel means little battle.”

I nodded back as if that made sense. “Matthew, what will they do to Jack if I fail? Will they mesmerize him? Control his mind?”

“They are vain. They practice their craft. With sharp tools, they remove things, discard them, transform people. You begin as one thing and die as another.” A gust punctuated his low words.