Thoughts mired and emotions tangled, I headed to the bathroom and glanced at the mirror. A cry left my lips.
A strand of my hair had turned permanently red.
Death
I found Temperance’s chronicles on my desk, a note atop them:
Helped myself to engine parts and tires. We journey to the Sick House.
Kentarch Mgaya
I might have wondered why he hadn’t stayed to talk—after all, we’d never met in his current incarnation. But in all the games, he’d been no-nonsense and focused on the mission. A visit didn’t coincide with his current mission.
As predicted, Jack and his crew were heading to Fort Colman to find out why Fortune had refused to attack that place. Which meant they were heading toward evil. Again.
With a sigh, I murmured, “The hunter and his puzzles.”
15
The Empress
Day 666 A.F.
“You’ve been at that for hours,” Aric told me from his desk where he worked on the translation of Temperance’s chronicles. Over the last three weeks, he’d gotten halfway through.
I’d been studying my own chronicles, rereading from the very first line: What followeth is the trew and sworne chronikles of Our Lady of Thorns, the Emperice of all Arcana, chosen to represent Demeter and Aphrodite, embody’g life, all its cycles, and the myst’ries of love. I’d found nothing promising about overthrowing the game.
I nodded toward the books spread across his desk. “You haven’t exactly been taking breaks.”
Aric looked gorgeous as he concentrated his mental might on the task. Whenever he jotted notes, his hand would flex, and his icons would shift.
Despite the red witch’s lust for them, she wasn’t greedy for Aric’s. No longer did I hear her passing thoughts of killing him. She’d had a change of heart—now viewing him as a worthy, lethal companion. In fact, I’d gotten the crazy sense that she’d accepted him as her . . . Arcana mate.
“True,” he said. “It’s a compelling task, with much at stake.”
The majority of what he’d translated so far had been about Calanthe’s abilities, the nature of sins, and the power of guilt.
Although Aric had shared a fascinating snippet: “In the first game, an alliance existed between the Dawnrider, the Beast Whisperer, the Abysmal, and the Betrayer.”
“So Sol, Lark, and Circe. The Betrayer must have been the Hanged Man.” I frowned. “In the first game, I was in an alliance with Circe and Lark. Not Paul or Sol.”
“Perhaps they united after you’d died. Despite such a powerful union of four, they couldn’t defeat the Fool when he struck.”
“Then I wasn’t the only one he killed in that game?”
Seeming troubled, Aric murmured, “It appears not. . . .”
I’d scanned the English part of those chronicles, but other than a better understanding of Joules’s character (he was a big softie inside, for all that he acted like a bruiser), I hadn’t gotten much out of it. “Have you found anything else interesting?”
“I’ve just translated a section on the Minors.” The study’s firelight played on his excited expression.
This was huge! “What does it say?”
“We know that the Minors have three purposes—to hide evidence of the Major Arcana, to hasten the end of the game, and then to shepherd humankind into a better age. But these chronicles go into more detail about their specific roles.”
“Like what?”
“In past games, the Pentacles facilitated commerce, and the Cups focused on civilization and repopulation. The muse-historian Wands inspired art and religion—while recording events in the games. The Swords married knowledge and might, tasked with providing rational order.”
“They all sound wonderful and welcome. But in this game, the Cups were evil, and we know the Pentacles are trading women. And don’t forget that my grandmother specifically warned me about the Swords.”
“Perhaps the apocalypse has altered the suits. I recall that in the games following a time of peace, there were fewer malevolent Arcana. Only two or three.”
Like me.
I rose to find a pack of Tarot cards on the bookshelf, then brought it to my spot at the desk. I separated out the Pentacles, the Minors that Jack would soon face—because nothing I’d said would dissuade him from going to their fort. Stubborn Cajun.
Each of their cards featured a coin engraved with a five-pointed star. I turned one card upside down and frowned. “A pentacle upside down is a pentagram.” The kind kids used to spray-paint under bridges.
Aric glanced over. “Correct. The pentacle is a positive symbol, representing harmony among the five elements: air, water, fire, earth, and spirit. Inverted with a single point down, it represents a state of worldly goods or bodily desires corrupting the purer spirit. Only the Devil card features an inverted pentagram in his upright position.”
I found the Devil in the deck and grimaced at the depiction: a giant, horned goat-man perched above a man and woman in chains. The pentagram lay cradled between the Devil’s twisted horns. Vivid memories arose of Ogen strangling me—making it last—before Aric had come to the rescue.
A gust of wind hit the castle, and I shivered, could almost feel the temperature plunging. Snowmageddon was here to stay.
Aric had relayed to me that Sol felt the sun rise each day. It still worked, but maybe divine magics kept it hidden. Was that what kept the soil barren and the seas devoid of life? Was that why Lark’s creatures didn’t procreate without her power?
Was Jack’s need to reach the Pentacles all part of the tilted stage? “I’m nervous about Jack out there.” I didn’t downplay my feelings for him in front of Aric anymore. My knightly husband was too in tune with me; it’d be like trying to hide my feelings from myself.
“He was safe as of a few hours ago.” We’d talked to Jack earlier, asking him to rethink his journey.
Hampered by snow, he and his crew made only a mile or so a day. “Not you too,” he’d said, sounding exhausted. Apparently, the others had been giving him pushback.
I asked Aric, “What if the game is luring Jack toward a MacGuffin?”
“Perhaps it is. But if they reach the Sick House, he will investigate threats to you.”
“What powers do you think the Pentacles might have?”
“I can only speculate. I hope these chronicles will provide more answers.”
“Kentarch could come get us when the guys arrive at the fort. We could go in as backup.” Not that I’d be a lot of help. My powers remained haphazard. While I might manage a body vine or two, I hadn’t been able to spread vines for sentries or even revive the thorn forest outside the castle.
Aric’s frown made me feel ridiculous. “You can’t jeopardize Tee.”
Frustration bubbled, because Aric was right, but that didn’t make this situation fair. “Fine. Then you can go with them.”
“And leave you alone here with Lark? Not a chance.” He didn’t say this in French, didn’t care if she heard or not.
I’d stopped arguing with him about her. With Aric working on the translations and the weather preventing surveillance, I’d spent more time with her, rebuilding our friendship. But the forced downtime gave her too much time to think about Finn, and she’d sunk into a depression again. . . .