Endless Knight (The Arcana Chronicles #2)(60)

Touché. “Fine. You first.”

“I heal quickly, but not like you. And I retain my scars to remind me of my victories.”

So he had strength, speed, skill, and enhanced healing? “I remember you stabbing me in a desert,” I admitted. “I remember how badly I wanted to live, but you didn’t care. Not until you realized you could touch my skin. You said you’d see me well.”

“The Fool showed you nothing else?”

“Before you tried to kill him? No.”

“If I’d wanted him dead, he would be so.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

“You think I couldn’t have gotten your mortal to drop the Fool’s unconscious body into the deep? The boy was already frenzied to save the female he . . . sleeps with. All it would’ve taken was a few cuts across your pretty flesh, or maybe a jostle of your broken arm. He would have dropped the Fool to rush headlong to you. Then I would have gutted him without even setting you down.” In an absent tone, he said, “I regret not gutting him.”

“Jack’s smarter than you give him credit for.”

“I think he’s sly, like an animal, but you have him under your spell. He, at least, believed that what you gave him that night was worth dying for.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Merely stating fact.”

“What Jack and I share is more than a single night. That was just the icing on the cake.”

Death’s grip on me tightened, as if he were jealous. Which made no sense. I could accept his attraction—since I was the only girl he could touch—but I couldn’t accept his jealousy. Not when I knew how much he hated me.

“Everyone thinks of you as some kind of earth mother,” he said. “They have no idea you’re a femme fatale, more Aphrodite than Demeter.”

Gran had mentioned Demeter as well.

“You used the mortal to keep you safe, until you came into your powers. Now he is obsolete.”

“I didn’t use Jack. And we will be reunited. We’re fated—”

Death’s arm squeezed even harder. “Do not talk to me of fate.”

“I don’t have to talk to you about anything,” I told him, resolved to say nothing else.

Dusk came and went, the rain pouring with abandon. Late into the night, we rode.

I hadn’t been on a horse for this long a span since riding my old nag Allegra. Jack and I had freed her before we’d burned down Haven, before the arrival of the Army of the Southeast. Would they have captured her? Eaten her?

Eventually I started nodding off, catching myself dozing against Death’s armored chest. Each time I would pinch my arms, biting the inside of my cheek to shake my drowsiness. No use. Finally I went out like a light, didn’t know for how long.

I only jerked awake when my ears began popping. Sure enough, I was relaxed back against him. I sat up, scooting forward in the saddle.

As if in reflex, Death’s arm tightened around me, the four-inch long spikes of his glove hovering near my neck.

“Watch the gloves, Reaper.”

“They’re called gauntlets.” When he released me, he accidentally(?) brushed my new cuff, sending pain shooting down my arm.

I hissed in a breath, eyes watering. But knowing how much he enjoyed my suffering, I refused to let him see any more of it.

I tried to get my bearings as we wound along a narrow rocky trail, but the rain and fog were thick. All I could determine was that we were already above the tree line—or what used to be the tree line—and still ascending. Up here, it was barren. I’d wager no plants had grown in this dismal terrain even before the Flash.

The higher we climbed, the more Death seemed to relax, while I grew colder and colder. Just when I decided this was the highest mountain I’d ever been on, the path widened to a gravel drive, fronted with an enormous gate. A stone wall towered over us.

“And now we arrive.”

His lair was atop a mountain? Ogen lumbered ahead to open the gate, and we rode through. The horses’ hooves—and Ogen’s—clacked on a brick courtyard. A jaw-dropping mansion, almost a castle, came into view. Through the fog, I spied several stories and two sprawling wings.

Death lifted me from the saddle and plopped me on the ground, then dismounted. Lark did as well, and Ogen led the horses away.

“Come,” Death commanded, and I had no choice but to follow.

At first I was impressed with this stronghold. Yet as we neared and details came into focus, I thought, No, Finn, this is officially the creepiest place.

If someone had asked me to sketch my idea of the world’s eeriest mansion, I couldn’t have imagined the scene before me. Death’s home was so . . . Death.

Dwarfing Haven House, it was built of gray stone. Courtesy of the Flash, the walls were slashed with charred black. The slate roof had dozens of different pitches and turrets, with one looming above them all.

Chimneys climbed into the night sky. Rusted weather vanes squeaked. An unseen shutter thumped, like a spirit banging on a coffin lid. Fog seemed to be trapped in place, choking the courtyard, clinging to the walls.

As we approached, I detected animal calls growing louder and louder. Even some exotic ones. I jumped when I heard a lion’s roar. Somewhere on this mountain, creatures teemed. With that many to control, Lark might prove unstoppable.