Endless Knight (The Arcana Chronicles #2)(46)

“What have I wrought, Guthrie?” I surveyed the amphitheater full of bodies. “I’ve wrought your doom.”

The back of my hand tingled as a marking appeared. Beside the Alchemist’s icon was a tiny likeness of two raised fingers. The Hierophant’s symbol.

I’d destroyed him, and I was glad. Kill them all. Heat in battle. As I grinned down at my pair of icons, I craved more. There were four other Arcana in this mine, chained and helpless.

No! Rein it in, Evie! That wasn’t how this night would end. My next move was getting everyone free. On unsteady feet, I hurried toward the pantry, speeding down the stairs, winding around contorted bodies—

A hand shot out to seize my ankle. Meth-mouth. He was still holding a chunk of flesh in his other hand. “You’re unclean. Must die!” he choked out just before his body relaxed, his bladder emptying.

I peeled his fingers off me, then ran all-out for the cell. At the gate, I found Jack still straining against his chains. When he saw me, he rasped, “Evangeline, you . . . back?”

“I’m back.” I used my claws to break the gate lock, then freed Jack. He yanked me into his arms, squeezing till it hurt.

“You bagged the Hierophant!” Selena looked jubilant. “You took him out, Empress.” Possibly the first time she’d ever addressed me as that. “Now, let’s get out of here.”

“Are you okay, Jack?” I reached up to gingerly touch his head. “Goose egg, huh? Isn’t that supposed to be a good sign?”

“You’re worried about my head? I didn’t know what the hell they were doing to you out there!” Jack was growing more and more alert. “Free the others, ?fille. Patrols might return soon. Just because Guthrie’s dead doan mean the others’ eyes will clear. They’re bound to him even after death, right?”

“Yes.” Meth-mouth’s eyes had still been cloudy, Guthrie’s last order foremost in his thoughts. . . .

Once I’d popped everyone’s cuffs, I helped the other prisoners to their feet, while Selena and Lark lifted Finn between them. Wide-eyed, Matthew scuffed close to me, but he was holding steady.

We moved out as a large group, Jack in the lead. “We need to lay hands on our gear, our bows. Do you know where they stashed them?”

I nodded. “Just ahead, there’s a hub. You’ll see piles of supplies.”

When we reached the central cavern, everyone froze in place at the carnage: Tad’s grisly remains and my poison’s work. Corpses with unseeing eyes, faces frozen in agony. Meth-mouth with bloody flesh clutched in his hand.

Jack drew back, yanking me into his chest. “Doan look, bébé. I’m goan to get our things. Get your warm coat. Everything’s goan to be okay, just keep your back to this place.” He took me by the shoulders and turned me around like I was a little girl.

I understood his concern. Now that the heat had passed, I didn’t want to see. But I comprehended that I’d killed dozens. I told myself they were murderers who would never have returned to normal.

Maybe it helped.

“Selena, a hand,” Jack said, loping off to reclaim our things. She and Lark propped Finn against a wall; then Selena ran after Jack.

“Look for the littlest camo jacket,” Lark called, “that’s mine!”

The other prisoners murmured to each other, seeming equally uncomfortable with the prospect of leaving our protection—and standing near me.

Jack and Selena returned shortly after to distribute a pile of our gear. They’d also scored two flashlights, arrows, a torch, and some clean-looking material for a bandage.

As Lark wrapped Finn’s calf, Jack helped me into my coat, strapping my pack over my shoulders, warming my arms. But he made sure to keep me facing away from the main cavern. “Now, which way do we go? I got no idea where we are.”

Lark knotted Finn’s bandage tight, wincing when he did. “We go through the mountain.” She shrugged into her camouflage coat, checking the pockets for her things.

“That’s not the way,” the woman prisoner said, limping forward. “We know these mines, have lived near here all our lives.”

“If you go out the front entrance, you run the risk of more Teeth,” Lark said. To us, she explained, “My way takes us to the other side of the mountain in hours. You were heading south? This will save you days of climbing.”

Climbing?

“Finn could never make it in his condition,” she added, pretty much cementing my decision. Her two rats scurried to her then, startling the prisoners.

Even I got weirded out when the rodents climbed her like a jungle gym, clinging to the back of her coat with their tiny paws, baby-possum style.

Finn cracked a smile, as if he thought that was adorable.

At that, the locals started heading out, but the woman lingered to say, “We’re going to resupply, then make our way out the front. If you go deeper into the mine, you’re going the wrong way.” She followed the others.

I turned to Matthew, reaching up to brush hair from his forehead. “What do you think, sweetheart?”

His brows drew together, his eyes glinting. His pupils looked dilated from shock. “There’s one, there’s two, there’s three.”

“I don’t understand. Do you mean three directions?” I asked, but he just blinked at me.