Endless Knight (The Arcana Chronicles #2)(65)

“Don’t tell me you possess empathy this time around.” He sounded amused. “Do you think other cards are of like mind? Do you believe, for instance, that the Lovers will honor your truce?”

Their powers were temptation and mind control, among others. What had Gran said? The Duke and Duchess can control any who love, warping them, perverting them. Pain becomes pleasure. . . .

Okay, we might have to take the Lovers out too.

“They have an army,” Death continued, “larger than any in all the history of the game. Exponentially larger than the Hierophant’s miners. They drive north toward us now.”

“Great. Then all signs point to you finally losing. Even you couldn’t defeat an army, huh?” Then I frowned. “Which army?”

“One you’re familiar with. The Army of the Southeast.”

My mouth went dry. Vincent and Violet, the twin children of General Milovníci, were the Duke and Duchess Most Perverse?

“The twins will not be brought to heel as easily as you think,” Death said. “They marched thousands of men on your home just to capture you.”

The Army grinds on, a windmill spins—Matthew’s words, and now I understood them. Haven, that army’s destination, had been equipped with windmill pumps. In his own way, Matthew had been warning me about the Lovers.

Death steepled his fingers. Such a condescending, king-of-the-castle gesture. “Before taking your head, they had intended to torment you with their . . . contraptions.” In a dry tone, he added, “I’m told capture by the Lovers is a fate worse than Death.”

They were the ones who’d tortured Clotile, Jack’s sister. I swallowed. Had she experienced their contraptions? Oh, God, that poor girl. Jack must never find out about this!

“Those two hunger for pain.” Death rose, staring me down. “Do you really think they’ll bow out of a game so rife with it?” With that, he strode away, his boots echoing through the corridor.





28

“What the hell was that?” I demanded. A hair-raising roar had just tolled over the entire compound.

After exploring the kitchen, the media room, and, yes, the pool after breakfast, Lark and I had just started touring the humongous barn, filled to the rafters with her free-roaming menagerie. Prey and predators milled together, obeying her command to ignore the food chain and play nice.

At the roar, Lark had ducked behind a stock-still lioness. Even Cyclops hunched down, his frizzy fur quivering. Seeming oblivious, a Komodo dragon waddled past, flicking its tongue.

“Tell me what’s going on!”

Under her breath, Lark said, “Ogen. He’s pissed about something.”

“But he sounds a thousand times worse than he did before, even in battle.”

She shrugged. “Look, we can take the grand tour another time. He’s having a fit.”

“Does he have them often?”

“There are a ton of dates that are sacred to him, annual Sabbats. And not like cool Wicca Sabbats either. These are dark. I try to keep track of them, but I haven’t been with him for a full year to chart them all. Bottom line: sometimes he hankers for the occasional . . . offering.”

“Will he hurt me?” I asked.

“Death ordered him not to hurt anyone.”

“Does Ogen follow orders?”

In a low voice, Lark said, “There’s a reason the Devil’s horns keep changing lengths. Whenever Ogen disobeys him, Death lops off an inch. Once there’s no more left to cut, Ogen gets beheaded. That’s their deal.”

How sick. “Why did Ogen agree to a deal like that?”

“Death had him at sword point. Told Ogen he’d spare his life for a time—on a couple of conditions, of course.”

I heard those towering gate doors groan open, then slam shut.

With a relieved exhalation, Lark straightened her cap and stood. “He’s off the grounds.”

“Why would you stay in a place like this—with him? Wait a second, I know what’s going on here. Death is holding these animals hostage, coercing you to work for him.”

“He’s not like that, at least not to me. We hooked up because my dad managed this menagerie for him. At least Dad had before he went on a surprise acquisition run and bit it in the Flash.”

“So if Death isn’t pulling the strings, then screwing us over is all on you?”

“I never said he didn’t pull the strings. He does, often.” When a peacock strutted over to her, Lark skimmed her fingers over the edge of its tail fan. “For the record, after I met you guys, I told him I couldn’t go forward with the plan if you were all going to die.”

This was surprising, soothing a bit of my hatred toward her. “Let me guess—he assured you that we’d be fine?”

She lifted her chin. “If you think back, I was the one who got Death to spare you in the beginning. And then to save you from drowning.”

“I wouldn’t have needed help if you hadn’t betrayed us in the first place! I can’t believe I took up for you against Selena. Unlike me and Finn, she had your number from the start!” As my voice scaled higher, more creatures eased over to Lark, surrounding her protectively.

“You’re not going to make me feel guilty about what I did.”