"I did. Thank you for helping to save my life."
"Yeah, well, you owe me." Her smile faded. "I don't suppose you saw Finn anywhere?"
I shook my head. "I'm sorry. I thought he'd be at Fort Arcana, but the place was abandoned. I saw . . . part of Cyclops." Hadn't the wolf come to see me? Or had I dreamed that? "What happened at the fort?"
"After the big attack, Fortune flew over it with Richter. She was just carting him around, like they were on a fun date or something. He must've been outta Emperor juice, 'cause he started gunning up the place."
As long as I was alive, Richter's days were numbered. I'm coming for you, Richter. I would replace his laughter with screams.
Lark continued, "Finn couldn't run with his bum leg, barely got to an outbound truck. I leapt up to fang the chopper to buy time."
So strange to hear her talk like this, as if she'd been there. Which she kind of had been. In the form of Cyclops. Red of tooth and claw. And later she'd attacked Fortune through Scarface--saving me.
"Those choppers drive me--I mean, my wolves--batty. Anyway, Richter shot up Cyclops until I couldn't hold on. I dropped right in the middle of the freaking minefield. And ouch. Needless to say, I couldn't keep up with Finn's truck." Her eyes flickered animal red as she said, "When we take care of Richter, save Fortune for me. That bitch and I have a date."
"Noted. Did your falcon survive?"
"Yeah. She's one of the scouts I've got searching for Finn." Lark shuffled her feet. "Death told me you'd been riding out to meet Jack, to leave with him."
And yet Aric had come for me and saved my life.
"Eves, I'm really sorry about the Cajun."
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. My recovery seemed to have loosened my tourniquet. Tighten it!
A sudden thought occurred. "Lark, where are the clothes I was wearing?"
"Dunno. Paul probably burned them. They looked like you got dunked in Ragu or something--"
"There was a ribbon in my pocket." My last physical tie to Jack. "Please find it! Please!"
"I'll try." Cocking her head, she muttered, "I hear your grandmother coming. Gotta scram. I'll check back in later."
I had so many more questions, but Lark slipped out.
Aric entered with Gran, helping her along with his gloved hands.
She looked so different from the last time I'd seen her. Her face was worn, and her hair had grayed even more. She'd lost a lot of weight, and her dark brown eyes no longer twinkled.
"Evie!" she cried, limping to my bed. She wrapped her thin arms around me.
I returned her hug. "Gran." Her scent cast my mind back to my childhood, bringing on a rush of memories: Her pushing me on the swing at Haven. . . . Gran and Mom laughing when a duckling chased me. . . . Gran teaching me how to tend her beloved rose garden; the soil had been so warm. . . .
I'd waited through nine years and an apocalypse to see her again.
Over her shoulder, I caught Aric's gaze. He stood in the doorway, his bearing tense. Hadn't I heard strained exchanges between them? I couldn't remember. I mouthed Thank you to him.
Curt nod.
Gran drew back and sat on the bed. "Look at you! You're all grown up. And so beautiful." Her words did sound slurred. "I was so worried when I first saw you." Was one corner of her lips turned down?
"Are you okay, Gran?"
"I'll be fine. We need to focus on you. We have so much to catch up on."
When I thought of all the things we needed to talk about--Mom's death, the destruction of Haven, my relationship with Death--exhaustion swept over me.
I looked to Aric for support, but he was gone.
"Lord, you can barely keep your eyes open." She clucked her tongue and tucked the blanket around me. "I'm here, watching over you. We'll figure everything out. For now, you've got to regain your strength. Get some sleep, Evie."
I needed to be doing so many things other than sleeping. Such as plotting the Emperor's grisly death.
Still, my lids slid closed. "Just for a minute. . . ."
18
Day 424 A.F.
Gran sat on the edge of the bed, brushing my hair. She chattered about the food here and the worsening weather--any topic except those we needed to speak about.
When I'd awakened around dinnertime, she had been beside me--not Aric. But, as promised, he'd filled the room with plants and sunlamps, and moved my clothes to the closet.
Gran had brought me a tray with soup, then she'd helped me take a bath and get dressed. She'd murmured, "Such pretty clothes Death has provided for you." But she hadn't sounded approving.
Now she laid aside the brush with a labored breath. "I'm plumb wore out."
I turned to face her. "Tell me what's wrong."
She smoothed her gray hair, the length caught up in a careless bun. "Worry's kept me from sleeping. But you're on the mend now."
Slowly. "And you?"
"I'll be right as rain soon enough." Had she averted her eyes?
"Gran, how did you survive the Flash?"
"My facility was old, so there was an actual bomb shelter. I sensed something coming and headed down. I was the only one to make it, which meant I had food and supplies aplenty."
Everyone had told me she would never survive this long, but I'd believed. "I tried to reach you."
"I knew you would, which is why I stayed put," she said. "I figured the one thing stronger than my desire to return to Haven would be Karen's strength of will to reunite with me--once she realized I'd been right." Gran's dark eyes glinted. "Death told me she . . . died a few months ago."
Gran already knew; she wouldn't have rested until she'd found out Mom's fate. "She regretted not believing you. It tore at her."
"I hate that she was hurting from it."
I took her hand. Her grip felt weak, her bones brittle. "About Haven . . ."
"Was the house hurt on Day Zero? I thought for sure the oaks would protect it."
"They did." Those twelve mighty oaks had given their lives. "Months after the Flash, the Lovers closed in with an army. I didn't want them to have our home. So we, uh . . . we burned it down."
"H-Haven's . . . gone?"
"I'm so sorry."
She shook her head. "No. Don't be. From what I've heard, the Lovers were as evil as they'd ever been. I'd rather you destroy our home than let them have it." She frowned. "You said we burned it."
"Jack and I." Just saying his name tested my tourniquet. "He was a bayou boy I met in school. He saved me from the Lovers, and about a dozen other times."
Her perceptive gaze flicked over my face. "You're in love with him?"
I nodded. "But he . . . died in the Emperor's attack."
"I heard Death and Fauna talking about a massacre." Gran tucked a curl behind my ear. "Jack was a human? A regular man?"
Regular? Not in any way. "He was an extraordinary non-Arcana." I found myself recounting a fraction of the brave, incredible things he'd done. Through the stories, Gran learned about the past several months of my life and some of my encounters with other Arcana.
I left out the part when Aric had abducted me, mentally and physically torturing me.
She gave me another hug, saying, "I'm so sorry Jack has passed on. I would've liked to see you with a boy from the Basin." She'd had friends there, visiting all the time. She drew back. "Did you speak Cajun French with him?"
Twist, tighten, constrict. "He loved that I could. Thank you for teaching me."
"Ah, Evie, you lost your love young, didn't you? Just like your mother."
When my dad had gone missing in the Basin, Mom had searched more than a million acres of swamp trying to recover him. I'd tried to reverse time to recover Jack.
In the end, Mom had been forced to just . . . accept her loss. I understood bravery in battle and dying; I now understood true pain. But I couldn't wrap my mind around . . . enduring.
Acceptance seemed out of the realm of my abilities. "The Emperor took Jack from me forever. I need to kill Richter. It's all I can think about." I'd had more nightmares about Jack burning. My mind seemed to be filled with fog, but I clearly recalled those dreams. They bubbled up like lava.
"You will have your vengeance in time," she assured me. "But the most important thing is the overarching game. You've done a great job setting this one up." She finally smiled. "We can't ruin all your work by acting rashly."
"Pardon?"
"Death walks around without his armor--because you have disarmed him. Well done, sweetheart. He's already defeated."
The dinner I'd managed to get down now threatened to come back up.
She patted my hand. "Look at those icons. You've already made two kills, and you've teed up two more. And if I'm not mistaken, the Priestess lingers nearby. Soon she'll be within reach. You always lure her out of her murky hiding places."
I had feared my grandmother would be hardcore about the game, about killing all Arcana. But to see and hear her . . . "I don't look at the people here as enemies. I will never hurt any of them," I said firmly. Aric had brought her to me; shouldn't gratitude or decency have softened her stance? At least in regard to him?
She winked at me and whispered, "You don't have to act. They're down at dinner. They can't hear us."
Oh, God. No wonder Aric hadn't trusted me for so long. Aside from my history of stabbing him in the back, he'd believed I would think like Gran.
And I might have--if Mom hadn't sent her away.
How could I tell my grandmother that I hadn't turned out as she'd hoped? Would the shock hurt her worse? I needed to know what was going on with her health before I dropped this bombshell on her.