The Dark Calling (The Arcana Chronicles #5)(82)

The two vanished.





38





The Queen of Cups stared at the spot vacated by Kentarch, looking stunned by the turn of events.

“How could you do that to him?” I demanded.

Regaining her composure, she said, “He asked me a question; I answered it. The problem with being a winner like him is that sooner or later, everyone must lose. He couldn’t stomach a defeat like that.”

“Who could?” He felt responsible for the death of the one he loved best in the world. Could we locate him and bring him back into the fold? Maybe he was forever lost to us. If so, what would Joules’s fate be? “I thought you liked to help people. You were going to be a freaking shrink—you could have helped him.”

“A Major we don’t favor?” Lorraine snapped her fingers again, and a guard traded her full chalice for an empty one. As if she hadn’t just crushed a good man, she said, “Your turn, Empress. Remember: one question only.”

I, too, was a Major they didn’t favor. Like Kentarch, I wasn’t the most psychologically sound individual. What if she told me something that sent me over the edge?

Whatever Jack saw in my expression had him struggling to break free. “Doan do it!” He caught my eyes. “You know what’s at stake. Stay with me.”

He was telling me not to give my blood. Not to risk insanity. Not to reveal my pregnancy. To live out my days with him.

But if Lorraine could divulge so much to Kentarch, surely she could tell me how to kill the Hanged Man. Hadn’t Circe said the answer would be on the coast?

I sensed I was only going to get one shot to learn Paul’s weaknesses—and this was it.

Decision time. My hand drifted down to my stomach. Aric wouldn’t want me to jeopardize his son.

“Fight them, Evie!”

Fighting meant surrendering Aric forever. How would I tell my kid that news? Yeah, I could’ve saved your father, but I gave up on him.

Lorraine said, “What would you like to know? Perhaps how to kill the Hanged Man? He’s taken control of your allies, hasn’t he?”

That settled it. I crossed to her throne. “Yes.”

“Damn it, no!” Jack snapped. “The Cups have got to be the ones coo-y?n warned me about—the bad dreamers. The Flash turned them evil. Everyone’s been hailing them like they’re good, but they’re not!”

“We do believe in dreams, Empress.” With a challenging glint in her light eyes, Lorraine said, “Perhaps you should deny me.”

Ignoring Jack’s protests, I shoved up my sleeve.

She raised her knife to my bared arm. “Very good, Empress.”

I winced from the slice. Lorraine and I both watched my blood pour, like two elevator passengers regarding floor numbers as they lit up. Almost there . . .

Once the chalice was full, she didn’t even glance at my blood before she said, “There is only one way for an Empress to defeat the Hanged Man: you must strangle him with a noose that has taken the lives of twelve murderous souls, his Arcana number.”

This was the weapon Circe had spoken of! All my waiting had paid off.

She gave a dramatic sigh. “Alas, the noose no longer exists. An Old West museum had one in an exhibit, but the Flash burned the rope to ash.”

My chest twisted. Then Aric was lost to me forever. “You knew it was gone, yet you still took my blood.”

“We know all the Majors’ weaknesses. I didn’t need to waste a blood offering.”

Bitch! “Tell me how to kill Richter.”

“Ah-ah.” She held up one finger. “A single query only. Now it’s my turn.” To do what? Lorraine gazed at my collected blood, swirling it like wine. Top notes of nightmares. “What secrets does the Empress harbor that I need to know?” She breathed over the rim. “Wait, what is this?”

The Lorraine mask began to slip.

Slipping . . .

Slipping . . .

Gone.

She jerked her gaze up, lips drawn back from her teeth. She threw the chalice against the wall, blood streaking the fancy wallpaper. “You carry his child! You’re pregnant with Death’s spawn!”

I gazed from one Minor to another, gauging their shocked expressions.

“You sought that noose because you want to save Death, so you can return to him as his wife!” Lorraine sputtered, “All but one Major must die or the earth won’t revive! Yet you want to live on with your Arcana offspring? Should the earth perish forever because of your selfishness?”

“My kid isn’t an Arcana. He’ll be a normal mortal.” Saying the words out loud almost made me believe it.

One guard said, “A union like that violates the dictates of the gods. We’ll all be punished!”

The King of Cups added, “You’ll bring down the gods’ wrath upon us all!”

Jack yelled, “Or she could save everyone!” One of the guards whaled a punch into his stomach. Jack doubled over, gasping.

The men holding him forced him against a column, cuffing his wrists together behind it.

I advanced on them. “Don’t touch him again!”

“Or what?” Lorraine cried. “I saw enough of your blood to know your powers are stifled.”

They knew I was a wreck. But I have a secret . . . .