They now covered Kent’s high-chair tray as Jack fed the grinning infant. Avocado smeared one of Jack’s cheeks, which only made my heart pang.
From his seat beside a singing Clo, Tee asked me, “Can I go fishing with Dad today?” All he wanted to do was tromp around the farm after Jack. As expected, they were best friends.
“I don’t know. Have you been behaving?”
Tee mirrored Jack’s grin and gave me the most Cajun of retorts—a shrug with one palm up.
“I see. We’ll talk when I get back.” I told Jack, “Reinforcements are on the way. I’ll be right back.” I slipped from the kitchen to go feed Taka.
I missed Lark even more than usual this morning, had been dreaming about her all night.
Over the years, I’d told her—through the falcon—about our new kids and the growing settlements of both Acadiana and Circe’s Port Edwin. How members of Jack’s old army had found their way here, and he’d put them to work keeping order.
I’d told her all about Sol’s adventures. After the Sun had written five weighty tomes about the castle’s treasures, he’d buttoned up the place and journeyed to Circe’s bustling port. With help from her currents, he’d sailed across the ocean.
In sunny Spain, he’d started his own colony on the beach, Cielo, for hedonists who’d had enough of apocalyptic suffering. His motto: Wine, women, men, and song!
I’d told Lark about the rumors surrounding Matthew. Some said he’d been traveling with a wandering group of women known as the Wise Mothers, also known as the Stix—or the Wands. The last suit of Minor Arcana protected women and girls, their numbers expanding.
For whatever reason, they’d left the Major Arcana alone, allowing us to live our lives. With Matthew’s guidance? I didn’t yet know.
I talked to that falcon so much that people thought I was nuts. But unlike my regular visits with Circe’s water form, I couldn’t hear Lark’s responses. The falcon’s piercing cry might be a communication, yet I never got the sense that Lark was tuned in. Probably too busy.
Travelers who passed through Haven brought accounts of her whereabouts. Some claimed they’d seen a wild-eyed young woman with a pack of giant wolves in the Canadian Rockies. Others swore Yosemite.
I thought it was both. The Mistress of Fauna couldn’t be contained to one area. She needed to be free.
Jack caught up to me before I’d made the porch. “Hey, we need to talk.”
“About what?”
His brows drew together. “Bébé, Taka . . . passed late last night.”
“That’s impossible.” She was one of Lark’s familiars, which meant the falcon couldn’t die until she did. “Taka’s just up in that oak again.”
He shook his head. “I’m so sorry, Evie. I talked to Circe earlier. She doesn’t have the icon. Matthew must’ve been closest to Lark. I was goan to tell you once I got the kids settled down.”
Jack was . . . serious? Lark had died somewhere out in the wilderness? Had she been scared at the end? Alone?
She longed to live past her teens. She’d barely made it.
I had a flash memory of another game—when the Magician had kissed her on a warm summer night while her lions’ tails looped over each other to make an infinity symbol. Was Lark with Finn again?
Tears welled and streamed down my face. “Give me a little time, okay?”
“Ouais, of course.”
I hurried upstairs so the kids couldn’t see. But Tee must have.
I heard him tell Jack, “Mama really loved that falcon.”
“She did, son,” Jack said, his voice thick. “She really did.”
50
The Empress
Year 16 N.D.
“More showed up last night,” Clo said, her eyes excited. “A village’s worth of pilgrims. Boy pilgrims too.”
She and I had just sat down for lunch with Jack, Tee, and Kent.
“More hearts to break, cher? Go easy on ’em, huh?” Jack ruffled her hair affectionately, and she laughed.
Tee grinned over at me. “It’s not our birthday without pilgrims.”
Our yearly tradition was a barbecue by the river so Circe could attend in her water form. Yet groups of Arcana-worshipping pilgrims kept making the journey to Acadiana, to see the birthplace of the Empress and perhaps steal a glimpse of her, on what they considered a holy day.
Word of the players had spread from one ragtag settlement to another, our tales as popular as TV had once been.
Kent’s expression lit up. “They might have books to trade! Tired of reading the same ones over and over.”
“Let’s hope,” Jack said with a proud smile. “Else our bookworm will mutiny.”
While Tee resembled Aric so closely, Kent and Clo both had Jack’s gray eyes, black hair, and tanned skin. Our two youngest, Hélène and Karena, named after their grandmothers, took after me in looks, but temperament-wise, they were hellions. As usual, when I’d called them in for lunch, they’d hidden, giggling out in the cane.
I often worried about that pair, but as Jack would remind me, “Peekôn, those wildlings’ll wander in once they get hungry enough.”
As we ate, I admitted to the table, “I always feel obligated to give the pilgrims a show after they ride all the way here.”
I supposed we should be happy that so many people revered the players. It made it easy to say things like Arcana have forever outlawed cannibalism!
If only our decrees worked on everyone. The tales trickling out of the Eastern Seaboard north of Port Edwin were harrowing. Unfortunately, in this New Dawn era, gangs, militias, and cannibals still reared their ugly heads.
Though we enjoyed unlimited natural resources, I believed our society felt the lack of women. Jack had once said we were a civilizing influence. I couldn’t argue with that.
Here, he was the de facto sheriff and mayor, keeping order and even setting up a postal service with Circe. He and his Potentials allies were putting plans into action to govern and unite large swaths of territories.
Jack slanted me a look. “No more dog and pony shows for the tourists, bébé. It’s not worth it.”
Tell me about it. Over the last few years whenever I used my plant abilities, I’d begun to feel the pain of old injuries.
My bicep amputation. The Alchemist’s acid splashed across my skin. Bagmen bites. Zara’s three bullets to my heart. Richter’s scalding palms around my neck.
We didn’t know why. So I’d trained myself not to use my powers. Well, all but the involuntary one. I’d worried my regeneration would keep me eternally young-looking, but it seemed to be aging me. I finally appeared to be in my late twenties. On my last pregnancy, I’d retained my duly earned stretch marks.
Like me, Circe and Sol aged and even sickened when using their gifts. Her take: “We are human, imbued with inhuman power, and we were never meant to be on this earth for so long.”
Unlike me, she and Sol hadn’t stopped using them. He continued putting on the world’s greatest light show for his followers, and she orchestrated the tides of her great port.
I told Jack, “Agreed. No more shows from me.”