The Dark Calling (The Arcana Chronicles #5)(34)

Now he said, “You need to eat from the supplies we have, Empress. If not for yourself, then for your baby.”

“I’ll never keep it down.” The only thing worse than eating Sheba would be experiencing it on the way back up.

Joules rested his head against the window. “Canna stop thinking about real food. Gabe and me used to smell bacon cooking in the castle. About drove us barmy. Sizzling, juicy rashers . . .”

We each fell silent, lost in our own thoughts.

I missed Aric. I missed the life we’d had together. I missed Jack. I missed food meant for humans without bits of humans in it.

As ever, I wondered what Aric was doing in his lonely castle and how Lark was coping. Had they had a funeral for Finn? Maybe they’d buried him on the hill close to Gran.

I wondered if Aric had left my painting on the wall of our bedroom. Would he water the rose bloom he’d grown from a seed—or destroy it?

I frowned. I could simply ask Aric. I turned to Kentarch. “Can I borrow your phone?”





15


Death





How much longer could I remain in this castle without going mad? I sat in my study, gazing out at the night, sharpening my swords.

This task used to soothe me, but inside, I was chaos.

Kentarch, my long-time ally, had betrayed me, spiriting my duplicitous wife away into the Ash.

I kept replaying the image of her, wounded, in the back of that truck, traveling farther and farther from my reach.

As long as she lived, I would be at risk of falling for her beauty and charms, because I was weak when it came to my nemesis.

I scraped a whetstone along one sword edge. Evidently, there was no end to what I’d believe from her lips. The Grim Reaper, a father? The back of my neck heated, and I cringed at my idiocy.

The Hanged Man’s sphere of clarity protected me from her spellbinding, which she’d known. As Paul had explained: “The Empress wanted me dead because I can defend you and the others from her powers. I’m the only one she can’t mesmerize.”

But his sphere wasn’t spreading fast enough. We Arcana had fueled it in the beginning, causing it to overrun this mountain. Now it grew in fitful spurts.

I couldn’t reach the Empress without leaving it. Not an option.

A shadow passed by my window, the Archangel flying by on his watch. He and Fauna split those duties.

After losing the Magician, she was proving to be less of an asset than ever. Though she’d sent creatures to scout for the Empress, her usual drive had disappeared.

She’d moved into the menagerie, sleeping continually, seeming dazed whenever awake. And she kept close her wolves, as if she’d sensed a threat from me.

She should. I raised my sword to eye the edge. Along with my new mental clarity, my murderous impulses grew stronger every day. I was returning to the Grim Reaper of old—

My phone rang. I stared at it on my desk.

Her. I knew it was the Empress calling from Kentarch’s phone. My chest constricted, every inch of my skin feeling feverish. I set aside my sword and whetstone to reach for the phone. Paul entered just as I answered, “Empress.”

“Aric.”

She was the only person who’d called me by my given name in more than two millennia. One soft word from her had sent chills racing over me.

I’d gotten used to touch. I’d gotten used to bedding her. To loving her. What if, by some miracle, she could have been true?

Paul studied my expression. Though I masked my reaction to her, he noticed, was clearly disappointed.

Would I spit in the face of his enlightenment? How could her effect on me still linger? “Why have you called?”

“I miss my husband.”

My gods. “I miss . . . the idea of you.” I’d caught myself debating whether I could ignore everything she’d done to me and take her back to my bed. Such is her power.

No. Never. Eventually she would try to poison me. That was her MO. “But I always knew you would turn on me.”

“I haven’t. You’re being influenced by Paul.”

“He’s shown me the truth. Because of him, I escaped the Magician’s fate.”

“Paul killed Finn—not me!” Then she seemed to make an effort to control her emotions. “He ended the life of my friend, a sweet teenager who respected and looked up to you.”

“Ah, my beautiful poisoness, you dispatched the Magician—just as you usually do.”

“Then how did an inactivated card like Paul get activated? Why does he wear Finn’s icon? Check his hand.”

“He wagered you would bring that up again as ‘proof.’”

With a grin, Paul displayed the Magician’s mark to me—an ouroboros symbol. The snake eating its own tail symbolized the eternal power of transformation.

“Then how do you explain it, Aric?”

“By the time Paul returned to the castle, your poison had ravaged the Magician’s organs and mind, but his body still clung to life. Paul delivered a tonic to put the boy out of his misery.”

“You did CPR on Finn. You can sense death, and you told us he was dead. So if I’m guilty, I should have gotten the icon.”

“I was mistaken. The Magician still lived. The boy’s own powers must have altered my perception.”