Endless Knight (The Arcana Chronicles #2)(85)

“I am a knight,” he replied, making me grin.

On the way up the stairs, I remained at his side. If he was bothered to be pressed together in the narrow stairwell, he didn’t show it. His shirtsleeve brushed my bare arm, and again—

My breath hitched when skin touched skin. Death had furtively shoved up his sleeve? Was that his cuff button pinging on a step?

With each contact, his lids seemed to grow heavier, his eyes gone starry once more.

Now that I was hyper-aware of the loneliness inside Death, I’d begun having this overriding urge to ease it. To be fair, what woman wouldn’t?

Yet at the door to my room, we stood in awkward silence. It was as if he were dropping me off at the porch of Haven after a date.

The spacious landing felt small to me. “Can we have a rematch tomorrow night?”

He leaned his shoulder against the wall. “Perhaps.”

“If I’d won tonight, I was going to ask you to tell me about our past.”

“You wouldn’t have asked me for longer to live?”

I shook my head. “You’re not going to hurt me.”

In the muted light of the landing, his gaze was so brilliant as he said, “Will I not?”

“I know you enjoyed tonight. Why deprive yourself of me?”

With a perplexed expression, he turned toward the stairs. But I thought I heard him murmur, “Why indeed?”

I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic, or asking himself a genuine question.

Once he’d gone, I floated into my room, pleasantly buzzed, marveling at how much fun I’d had. Cyclops was already on the bed. As I changed into a nightgown, Matthew tentatively called for me. —Empress?—

I was in such a good mood, I felt bulletproof. I allowed him in. What is it?

—The Empress is my friend. I miss Evie.—

The pang in my chest shocked me with its intensity. I missed him too. Even after everything. Didn’t mean I could forgive him.

—Don’t be angry.—

You hurt me, Matthew. And I wonder if you even care. Maybe he was scheming right now.

—We need you. We fall to ruin.—

Fall to ruin. J’tombe en botte. Jack had told me that the night at Finn’s place when he’d bared his soul to me.

Or at least, select, edited parts of it.

Jack and Matthew weren’t my responsibility anymore. The two of them equaled pain. Still, I couldn’t stop myself from asking, Did you tell Jack what I learned? That I knew he’d helped my mother kill herself, then lied to me repeatedly?

Now that I was in a somewhat better state of mind, I could see things more clearly, accepting that Jack would never have hurt my mom on his own. His motives might not have been pure, but my fierce mother could be . . . persuasive.

If she’d decided her suicide was the only way to save my life, then Jack had never stood a chance. I could only imagine the toll that night had taken on him, a boy who despised violence against women.

When he’d worked so hard on that dinner for us the last night at Haven, making it as nice as he could, they both must have known it would be her last. Which made me realize that Jack was devious. By his behavior, I never could have guessed what he was on the cusp of doing.

Jack had said he didn’t have secrets. Another lie. And I sensed I’d only scratched the surface of them. At least Death had been up-front about his continual impulses to kill me.

—I told Jack.—

And?

Matthew sighed. —And.—

What does that mean?

—You’re in my eyes.—

A vision began, and I saw a blur of Jack. He was frenzied, tearing at his hair as he yelled—

NO, Matthew! I shook my head hard. No, I don’t want that! I’d only recently gotten my emotions under control. I wasn’t that bulletproof.

It faded. —Empress?—

I don’t want to see him. I can’t. I couldn’t handle any more rabbit holes!

—I feel your heart; it actually aches.— The same words he’d told me on the night Jack had confessed his feelings to me.

You need to get him far from the game, Matthew. It’s not his war to fight, and what he hopes for isn’t going to happen anyway. I couldn’t be with someone who reminded me of grief, someone I couldn’t trust. You need to make him go. It was for the best, anyway.

Over these weeks, I’d come to accept that I didn’t belong with a non-Arcana, which Matthew had told me again and again. Jack, for all his faults, deserved a long life. He wouldn’t get it if he continued to wade into our deadly contest.

For the best . . .

—You’re not ready, Empress. The machines won’t end without Death.—

Yet another decoder-ring statement. My head started hurting as I tried to make sense of his words. I’m almost afraid to ask.

—You sail on weeks of lull, then the storm. The game begins in earnest. You must be ready to strike. . . .—





37

DAY 318 A.F.

“I want to show you something,” Death said as he escorted me back to my turret. He’d done this for each of the three nights we’d played cards this week—would’ve been four but for another one of his excursions.

When he’d returned that next night after, he’d caught me checking his hand, telling me, “Relax. I’m still only one ahead of you.”