The Arcana Chronicles 3: Dead of Winter

He shook his head.

“Come on! It gets worse than that?”

Slow nod. “That wasn’t even a fraction, Empress.”

“Seriously?” As quickly as the heat of battle had risen, it dissipated. Light-headedness overwhelmed me. “My glyphs could’ve lit up a small Midwestern town. And I went all Little Shop of Horrors with those vines.” Selena’s nickname for me.

“Indeed. Still not more than a fraction.”

Jack swiped his hand over his face. “Where’d you learn how to do that, peekôn? Baggers thought they were in the sun! How many vines can you make at a time?”

At least he was impressed. “I don’t know. It’s a new bag of tricks.”

Jack turned to Aric. “At every second I thought you’d drop my Cajun ass. But you didn’t.”

“I suppose it wasn’t your time yet.” Aric donned his helmet.

“In any case, thanks for not making it my time.”

Seeming uneasy with the gratitude, Aric knelt beside me. “You cut your scalp?”

My surge of adrenaline dwindled, making way for the excruciating pain in my body and an onslaught of nausea.

Aric parted my hair. “Not just a cut. You cracked your very skull. And your side was pierced through.”

“I’ll heal.”

Jack watched us with narrowed eyes.

I narrowed mine in turn. “What were you thinking? It made no sense for you to face off against Bagmen, with limited weapons—and no armor.” My worry morphed into anger. “Just like it made no sense to rush into a horde of them the other night! Even though you’d promised me.”

Jack’s expression: busted.

“Another time for this, perhaps,” Aric said. “There’s movement in the stairwell.” A green EXIT sign gleamed not far away, below it an open door.

“Out of ammo, me.” Jack ran his sleeve over his sweating brow. “More Baggers?”

“We won’t be so fortunate.”

A chorus of voices sounded from that doorway: “We will love you ever so much.”

38

Carnates spilled into the room, so many that my woozy mind couldn’t reconcile what I was seeing.

Faultless duplicates. Paper cutout dolls stretched side by side forever, except these carried swords.

Death unsheathed his own and marched into the fray. Right beside him, Jack snagged a fire extinguisher as his only weapon.

When I tried to rise, I heaved. Turning to one side, I vomited into that pool of my blood.

“Just stay back, Empress!” Aric’s swords sliced out.

“We got this!” Jack bashed in a Vincent head.

I tottered to my feet, propping myself up against a wall. Once my strength returned, I’d call for a flood of green from the elevator shaft—

A hand covered my mouth!

The ground seemed to move under my feet—no, we were moving. A false wall rotated us into a hidden area. Would Jack and Aric even know I’d been taken?

“If you want to see Selena alive,” a male whispered, “you’ll be a good girl.”

Vincent. I sensed he was the real one.

His idea of a good girl was something I’d never be. When he looped an arm around my neck, I grew my thorns, about to inject him with poison. One half of an icon was about to be mine!

“Recognize this?” He raised a pressure sensor in front of my face. “Selena wears the collar now.”

But . . . but the Lovers’ icon . . .

No, no, Selena was my friend. She’d lost the Archer’s arrow meant for me.

I inhaled for calm. Vincent might take me to her—and to Violet—guiding me through the Shrine. I raised my hands in surrender.

“I’m amazed, Empress. You do care for another card.” He dragged me into a smaller secreted elevator, not much larger than a dumbwaiter. “Vi and I debated if this threat would curb your bloodlust.”

He and I ascended—couldn’t tell how many floors before we stopped. He hauled me out into a hallway with that same industrial look, those same orange words spray painted.

SMITE STRUCK FALL MAD

His tableau appeared over him, upside down, but crystal clear.

At last, I faced one of the source twins.

Vincent was a far cry from his tall, flawless carnates. His real body was somehow both scrawny and pudgy, his skin jaundiced and slicked with oil. His black hair was matted, his sleeveless T-shirt and jeans bloodstained. Scars and new slices covered his arms—from his bloodletting.

He’d created carnates with his idealized appearance. Vain? Oh yeah.

I couldn’t wait to see the real Violet. “Admit it: you Photoshopped your carnates.”

“Do you really want to go there about appearances?” Even his voice was higher pitched than his carnates’. “You’re covered in blood. Surprisingly it’s your own this time.”

That was fair. “Where are your sister and Selena?”

“I’m taking you to them.” He motioned for me to walk with him.

I did, deciding to play along while I recharged and healed. I would come up with a plan to get that sensor, take out the twins, and get back to Aric and Jack.

Vincent and I strolled side by side down the hall, like we were heading to class. As if I wouldn’t kill him at the first opportunity. As if he wasn’t imagining how he’d first make me scream.

As if Baggers hadn’t just eaten his father.

The calm before the storm. Both Vincent and I knew it.

“Why paint those particular words?” My voice was thick from throwing up and screaming.

“So Violet and I never forget the power we wield.”

“And that is?”

“We control the most destructive force in the universe.”

I was done hearing that. “I was wrong when I said that about love.”

He scowled. “Of course it’s the most destructive force—it’s our power. Love begets violence, murder, and war. Why else would mortals equate it with such horrible things?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Sunstruck, moonstruck, and lovestruck all mean maddened. We fear storm breaks and heart breaks. We fall blind, fall into a trap, fall sick, fall madly in love. Why not rise in love?”

I had no answer for that. I didn’t know exactly how to describe love—just knew his idea of it was perverse.

“If shot through the heart with an arrow, you get lovesick. Sounds painful, doesn’t it?” With his free hand, he pulled the collar of his shirt higher, rolling his head on his neck. “And smitten? One touch of the dart, and an invisible affliction smites you down.”