The Arcana Chronicles 3: Dead of Winter

“The resident doc patched you up. Everything’s going to be okay.”

“And you’re watching over me? Ma belle infirmière.” My pretty nurse. He’d always loved when I’d fussed over him.

“Before I forget . . .” I drew his rosary from my pocket.

He spared it a brief glance, gaze returning to me. With a hint of his heartbreaking grin, he said, “My prayers already got answered, non?”

I didn’t address that. “Selena found it.” I leaned over and clasped it around his neck.

“Merci.” He peered up at me. “Christ, I missed those blue eyes of yours. Ma fille aux yeux bleus.” My blue-eyed girl. “Didn’t think I’d ever see them again.”

You almost didn’t.

Then he stared at some point past me. “What the hell?”

Cyclops had nosed his head inside the tent flap. “Oh. One of Lark’s wolves is protecting me. Long story. He won’t hurt you.”

Jack looked even more confused.

To distract him, I said, “Hey, when you get back on your feet, you can show me all around this place. Not many guys have their own forts.”

“You can’t leave from here.” His muscles tensed, making him wince. “Promise me you woan leave.”

I had nowhere to go. No home whatsoever. I wanted one though. Fresh from viewing Haven’s ruins, I felt the agonizing lack. “I won’t leave.”

As if that one burst of energy had sapped his remaining strength, his lids grew heavy. “I know . . . what they did . . . to Clotile.”

Curiosity preyed on me. “What, Jack? And what did they do to you?”

He seemed to struggle against sleep with everything in him—“Doan want to take my eyes off you”—but he lost in the end.

Selena had entered the tent and heard the last. I couldn’t read her reaction. Despite Jack’s words, something could’ve happened between him and Selena. I might be the interloper here.

She set Jack’s trusty crossbow on his desk. Since I’d last seen it, he’d modified the weapon, adding a flashlight and painting the auto-loading arrow cartridge.

“Has Joules calmed down yet?” I asked her. “Did he find the culprit?”

“The Tower’s latest farfetched theory? Nanoseconds before his lightning hit, the Priestess somehow swooped in and ‘insta-drowned’ the twins, shoving water into their lungs. He’s furious and plans to go ‘spearfishing’ for her.” Selena frowned. “I wonder if she can be electrocuted.” We could hope. “Matthew’s outside, said he needs to talk to you.”

“Will you stay?”

“Duh.”

Though exhausted, I forced myself to stand, then shrugged into my poncho. Maybe Matthew would reveal what Jack had been through. Clotile . . .

Or how about a rundown of my history with the Lovers?

While I was out, I’d make some fruit for Tess. Nothing said “sorry I became a witch from nightmares and almost killed you” like a gift basket of fruit.

I stepped out into the biting air and drizzle. Cyclops loped beside me, barking a couple of times, as if to tell me something. Slaver’s got Timmy!

“Empress.” Matthew looked as bad as I felt—his face wan, his shoulders slumped with fatigue.

“What’s happened?” Did he feel guilty because of how things had gone down?

He gazed at me with those woebegone brown eyes. “Tredici nears.”

“I don’t know what that is, sweetheart. Hey, aren’t you happy that we rescued Jack?”

“I couldn’t see.” He hugged his arms around his torso, batting his fists against his parka. “The Lovers!” The lowest hum came from him.

I reached forward to pry his arms away. “We won the day. We lived through it.”

He stared down at me. “The twins—inseparable. Never parted.”

“I get that now.” In life—and in death—they were together. “Matthew, I need to know what they did to Jack.”

“A path. You won’t like where it leads.”

I’d gone months without decoder-ring talk. Now I was back in the thick of it. Though I was about to pass out, I asked, “What does that mean?”

“I can’t steer, can’t change. Before there were waves or eddies; now stone. Our enemies laugh.”

“Honey, you’re scaring me. And I’m so tired. Can we do this later?”

He raised his palm. “Hold, please.”

“Are you talking to someone else?” Matthew was the Arcana switchboard, a medium. “To . . . Aric? Is he in your eyes?” Watching me through Matthew?

Now that Jack was safe, my traitorous mind turned to Death. I missed Aric—or, at least, the man I’d thought he was. I missed his dry wit. I missed reading with him and dancing before his rapt gaze.

Some part of me had been on the verge of loving him. Even the twins had seen that. Yet that time with him had been canceled out by his actions. “Will he come for me?” I gazed at the walls of the fort. Would the minefield be enough to keep him out? I couldn’t hide here forever.

“Meeting!” Matthew took my hand, leading me away from the tent.

“I need to grow some food and then get back to Jack.”

He pulled with more insistence. He’d gotten even stronger, was almost as broad-shouldered as Jack.

At the front of the fort, Matthew gave a nod, and soldiers opened the gates. Before Cyclops could follow, they closed behind us.

“I told Jack I wouldn’t leave. Matthew?”

He didn’t answer, just continued leading me down a rocky trail, lower and lower as the mist thickened.

“Um, we’re getting close to the shore.”

“Still surface.”

The trail had opened up into a beach area, similar to the one across the river. “Is it safe here?” Wary, I gazed around. I’d bet kids had once come here, drinking beer and swimming on hot, sunny days.

I missed those days so bitterly I could weep.

—TERROR FROM THE ABYSS!—

The call boomed in my head. “What is this, Matthew?” I wrested my hand from his.

At the beach’s edge, a section of water rose.

“I’m introducing you to . . . the High Priestess.”

15

When the Priestess had said we’d meet again, I thought she’d meant far in the future—some distant clash.

Not later the same night!

That rising water morphed, taking on shape. The details grew finer and finer until the outline of a girl emerged.