Endless Knight (The Arcana Chronicles #2)(71)

In one of my early visions, villagers had blamed the red witch for their famine. Had they been right to? In as innocent a tone as I could manage, I asked, “Has there been a catastrophe to honor that card, the other one who’s immune to my poison?” I’d tried so hard to remember which one it was. Maybe Death would spill. . . .

He gave me a thin smile. “For me to know.”

“Let me guess—now it’s the Sun’s turn?”

He nodded. “These events have a way of pulling Arcana together and keeping us from the notice of humans. One doesn’t look up to the sky to see a flying boy if bodies are writhing all around one’s feet.”

“The field of battle.” Just as Matthew had told me. “But those other tragedies weren’t apocalyptic. Why was this one?”

With raised brows, he glanced at my untouched glass. Fair’s fair. I chugged, gasped, winced at the refill.

“I believe something about this damaged world—the planet, not the card—couldn’t take the sunlight. The gods might have salvaged things, but they’ve gone.”

“So we’re champions of various gods, right? Like you were tapped by a death deity?” A curt nod. The idea made me shiver. “And what about me? You said I was more Aphrodite than Demeter. Were you being literal?”

“The gods go by countless names. What they’re called is unimportant. All that matters is what powers they gifted to you.”

“Your Touch-of-Death gift doesn’t seem very fair. Is it only in your hands, or is all of your skin deadly?”

Skewering me with his gaze, he enunciated the words: “Every last inch of me.”

I couldn’t tell if his words held innuendo—or a threat. Moving on. “What’s your call? How come I never hear it?”

“Perhaps I’m beyond one,” he said, evading.

“Have you heard each of the Arcana calls?” As king of the airwaves. “Even the distant ones?” The ones I could hear only wanted to whisper about the Empress’s impending gruesome death.

“I have. But for the one who awaits activation.”

I cast my mind back. Wasn’t there a card who remained dormant until he or she killed an Arcana?

“You are inquisitive this time around. You’ve asked me more questions in days than in your other lives combined.”

Added to all my other faults, I’d been a conversation hog?

“You puzzle me,” Death admitted. “You seem altered from how you’ve been in the past—at least on the surface. I want to know why.”

“I can’t say why I’m different. I don’t remember much about any past lives.”

“Based on your history, I must assume that this is all an act.”

“It’s not. Look, I’ve gotten the impression that I wasn’t exactly Miss Congeniality in past games. But in this one, I’m pretty transparent.”

“Then you’ll answer any of my questions with honesty.”

I had a feeling he was about to test me, like he’d only ask questions he already knew the answers to. “Shoot.”

“Are you and the Fool engaged in a plot against me?”

Busted. “Often.”

“Would you kill me right now if you had the opportunity?”

How to answer that? “Not if you joined my truce.”

“Alas, I know the futility. Do you think Arcana have never tried this in the past? Leave a few cards alive, with a pact of peace among them. It works for a time. Yet then the temptation of immortal life grows too strong. The killing begins again. Fate will figure out a way to make you fight.”

I hadn’t believed I was the first Arcana to have these ideas. But to know a truce had been attempted—and failed—was demoralizing. If Death told the truth about this.

“The strongest of the Arcana couldn’t make it work,” he continued. “Interestingly, you entered into a pact before. And you were the first to fold.”

“How? What’d I do?”

Another glance at my glass.

When I drank my shot, he emptied his own, refilling us. Again? I was starting to get buzzed.

“If you want to know, creature, then remember.”

“And what if I can’t?”

“Then you’ll never know. Haven’t you heard? I keep secrets like a grave.”

Again, was this teasing from him? “In any case, that was before; this is now. I’m not the same person this time around. I can’t even comprehend how I was so evil.” The record holder.

“Your family line has always taken the game very seriously, training you to be a vicious killer.”

My lips parted as I recalled my grandmother’s words: Evie, there’s a viciousness in you that I must nurture. I remembered her eyes had twinkled with affection as she’d told me, You’re going to kill them all.

I’d been eight at the time.

If my mother hadn’t sent her away, what would I be like now? What would Gran have taught me, given eight more years of my childhood? I swallowed. What would she teach me now?

Probably not how to end the game. And truces hadn’t worked in the past anyway.

I’d been stubbornly holding on to the belief that my grandmother could help me. Considering all I’d learned—and remembered—that idea seemed almost laughable. Maybe I’d held on so tightly because the alternative was murdering kids I cared about. . . .