Endless Knight (The Arcana Chronicles #2)(64)

He waved a negligent hand. “Fauna will show it to you later.”

They had a freaking pool. “How are you growing food? Where’s the garden? It can’t be outside.” I narrowed my eyes. “Are you using indoor sunlamps?” I’d bet a sunlamp could give me the strength I needed to “chew off my own arm.” Which would be preferable to seducing this conceited man.

“Suffice it to say that we don’t use Empress blood.”

“Show me the garden.”

He gave me an incredulous look. “Never. All you need to know is that we’re equipped to pass a comfortable apocalypse.”

“Until you kill us all.”

He inclined his head. “As I always do.”

I gazed at Lark. She was cool with this? Without a word, she headed to the opposite end of the table. She stared at her plate.

Testing Matthew’s theory—proximity, seduction, freedom—I sat directly beside the Reaper. He lowered his paper to frown at me.

When we’d been out on the road, he’d smelled of rain and steel. Now I perceived his innate scent: masculine, underscored with hints of sandalwood and pine.

Which was heavenly to a girl like me.

“What do you want?”

At his question, I blinked to attention, remembering why I was here, remembering that I hated this man. “Whose icon is that?” I pointed to the small markings on his right hand. The image beside Calanthe’s looked like miniature scales. “Who else did you kill? I’m guessing it must be Spite.”

“You don’t recognize it? You remember even less than I thought.”

“Wouldn’t you know exactly what I remembered since you were able to read my mind for weeks?”

“I could. However, that did not mean I wanted to be in your thoughts every second of the day. I had a game to play, and I could endure only so many banal and tedious musings.”

I didn’t know why, but that insult piqued me worse than any of his others. Trading barbs about murdering each other was one thing, but this . . .

An obviously intelligent immortal had been inside my head and found me lacking.

Then I reminded myself that I didn’t give a damn what a serial killer thought of me. “So how does this supermax work? My incarceration?”

“During the day, you’ll have free range of the compound—with your guard, of course. Certain areas of the manor are off-limits to you. Fauna will point those out to you. You will respect my privacy.”

“Privacy? Or is it caution? Your request has nothing to do with the fact that I almost spanked your entire alliance out on the road?” When I bit into a perfectly crisp piece of bacon and couldn’t stifle a moan, he gazed at me with a peculiar expression.

A forkful of eggs confirmed they were fresh as well. So in addition to a dairy cow and pigs, they had chickens too?

“That cuff has made you a non-threat, the weakest of the Arcana,” he pointed out. “Further, I don’t make requests. I give orders. If you follow them, you might keep your head a little longer.”

“No ganking me today?”

He stowed his paper, surveying me. “Not yet, creature.”

“Not that I’m complaining, but why are you holding off?”

“At present, I don’t have enough information to make that decision.”

My mom used to say that, refusing to be pushed into any decision she wasn’t prepared for. No one can make you choose anything before you’re ready. No one, Evie.

I supposed Death’s decision was whether to “keep me.”

“And of course,” he continued, “I enjoy tormenting you with your upcoming execution.”

Or not. “How about you stop killing altogether? If you free me now, I might consider allowing you to enter the truce.”

“Which involves trust. Understand me, Empress, I listen to your call. I know you don’t say those words lightly.”

“Your loss.” I noshed another slice of bacon.

“You truly believe your plan will work? Strange, you weren’t willfully na?ve in any of your other lives.”

“My truce has already proven itself. Joules and his crew could’ve killed me, but they looked out for me instead.”

He gave a mocking laugh. “You and that boy allying? Did you know that one of the first Tower cards had an image of lightning striking a tree? Not a castle tower. Hmm, why do you think that might be?”

I hadn’t known that. “Fascinating. But if Joules and I had grief in the past, it’s ended. You said history repeats itself—I don’t believe it has to.”

Another puzzled look. “Does it not?”

“Nope. Which means I have a solid alliance of seven Arcana, all bent on taking you out.”

He exhaled. “Your ‘solid alliance’ will devolve as soon as the necessity of allying wears off. They always do.”

“I told you—there won’t be a necessity. Because I’m going to stop the game. I never agreed to it. Want no part of killing.”

Death gazed at me with that unnerving intensity. “Did you decide this before or after the Alchemist? Perhaps after you poisoned the cannibals’ limbless captive? Tell me, did you already know you were going to envenom his corpse when you volunteered to murder him?”

I set down my fork, tossing my napkin on my plate. “His name was Tad. And no, I’d never thought to use him after his death. I just wanted to end his suffering.”