I could only nod.
Yet this seemed to sadden him. “I think a part of me believed you were immune to fully loving me because half of your heart is taken. I’d forgotten the most important thing about the Empress. Your wrath is boundless—but so is your love.”
“Then you can understand why I can’t ever lose you. You told me you wanted a life for me and Tee. We want you.”
“But our wants must come second to the needs of our son. Everything we do must be for him. Everything for Tee.”
Even your death? “I need him to know you and love you.”
“Sievā, he already does. I have been unsure about many things in my long life, but I feel his love as strong as a battle-tested shield.” Such a knight. He drew me back down against him. “We don’t have to figure this out tonight. I’m open to ideas.”
“If you believed we could thwart the game, you’d be more reluctant to throw yourself away.”
I expected him to say that Jack might find a clue about the game in the Swords’ library, or that we’d keep searching for an answer.
Instead he said, “You’ve read and reread all the chronicles with me. You know what I know about the game. And based on the information we have, I don’t believe it can be ended—and neither do you, my love.”
Hadn’t I begun to suspect that we were spinning to our bloody end? Yes. But to hear him say it out loud, to accept it . . .
Kentarch had spoken about the whisper of one’s hope. I feared mine would lie to me about thwarting the game right up until the end.
“One must win. And one must live as an immortal. You must.”
“I can’t.” The red witch purred, I can. “I won’t get over you. Don’t force me into that situation.”
“It will be out of my hands. As all war ultimately is.”
“You wrote something similar in your chronicles.” The only way to control the outcome of war is not to fight it.
“The end must come for us all. My hope is that I meet it well.”
“What does that mean?”
“Many warriors fight well; they practice to achieve greatness. But there’s no practice that can make one die well. You’re either born with that stern stuff or you’re not.”
Would I be? Whenever my life had been in jeopardy in the past—such as when I’d been mind-controlled by the Hierophant or battling the Alchemist—I’d never had much time to think about what happens if I lose.
Now I did, and I wasn’t convinced I would survive the upcoming clash against Richter, even with Sol’s help. How long did we have? “When do you think Matthew will restore the Arcana calls?” Each player’s signature phrase alerted us to their proximity. Richter’s—Quake before me!—had sounded just before he’d struck Jack’s army.
Aric said, “Whenever the Gamekeeper is ready for the end, when all his plots and machinations have fallen into place. Crazy like a fox is apropos, no?” Matthew’s own call.
“You make him sound sinister.”
“I hope the Fool isn’t. But don’t ever forget that he won the first game. There’s a reason Tarot cards are about his journey—because he was the first immortal.”
I pictured his card: under the bright sun, a blithe young man strolled down the road with a bundle of belongings over his shoulder, a white rose—one of my symbols—in his free hand, and a dog at his heels. He had his head tilted back, was about to walk blindly off a cliff.
I remembered wondering, as a girl, if he would fall to his death or tumble into a new adventure. “Do you think he’ll keep his vow to me never to win again?” If not, which one of us could defeat him?
“I am betting on it.”
Though I did have reason to think otherwise, Matthew still struck me as good. I recalled the way he’d gazed at me with endless trust, and how other kids had ostracized him, having no idea how extraordinary he was. Yet I hadn’t definitively answered his question: Do you trust me?
Matthew’s call reminded me . . . “Will you never reveal what your call is?” Aric’s chronicles hadn’t mentioned it.
A hint of a grin. “I told you I’m beyond one. As the victor of this game, I enjoy certain advantages, such as a stealthy approach when I desire it.”
“But you weren’t always the victor. In that first game, you had a call.”
He inclined his head.
“Aric, tell me!”
In my ear, he rasped, “From the grave, I rise for you.”
Chills broke out over my skin. Sometimes I forgot how deathly he was. As his opponent, I would have been overcome with terror to hear that.
Yet now it struck me as romantic—because I knew he would come for me across eternity. Even death couldn’t keep us apart. . . .
31
The Empress
Day 851 A.F.
“What are you working on today?” I asked Circe as I entered her pool house laboratory with Tee.
The only thing that could make Castle Lethe weirder was the actual practice of witchcraft. An unholy scent mix of sulfur, charcoal, and herbs filled the halls. Circe’s irises would glow like phosphorescence whenever she perused the plant nursery, plucking random sprigs for her potions.
“I’m perfecting the memory spell.” She’d been working on it several hours each day, would only eat when I brought down meals for her. Over the couple of months she’d been here, she’d gained weight and grown stronger. Her eyes were brighter, her smile quicker.
She wiped her hands over her apron, then removed it to reach for Tee. “Come to Auntie.” All of her various cauldrons and beakers along her makeshift workbench bubbled higher with her excitement.
I untangled him from my vines and handed him over. He gurgled to go into Circe’s arms.
“Or at least I’m trying to perfect that spell.” She sat on her laboratory stool with Tee in her lap. With her free hand, she made a show for him, miniature waterspouts dancing on the countertop. “If I get this wrong, I might wipe out all your memories instead.”
“Hey, we have time.” Yet four months had passed since Tee’s birth.
“Do we, Evie Domīnija? Time is a thief.”
I frowned at that saying. People wasted time and spent it. We tried to buy more of it. It could be on our side. But we didn’t often think of it as a measurement of one’s remaining life—a lifetime. Now I couldn’t think of it any other way.
Circe’s next sentence resonated: “And this game is nearing its end.”
“I haven’t given up on stopping this thing.” I sounded like a broken record. “Have you accessed all the memories your own spell preserved?”
“Yes, but I only cast it a few games ago. So I have nothing from the times previous to that. Unlike you. The Fool gave you memories of all your games, no?”
“He said he gave me two games’ worth, but I think he meant that in a quantity type way. I’ve seen scenes from several, but never a whole game.” All I knew for certain was that everything he did was for a reason, as yet unknown. “There’s got to be something on your temple walls that points to a way out of the game.” Those walls were her spell book.