“And that wouldn’t bother you?”
His shoulders tensed, but he didn’t slow his step. “There’s a horde of zombies back there.” Bag dare. “Bigger than last night, holed up in a warehouse about six miles down the road.” He turned to address the others with a cruel look on his face. “As slow as Evie is, that ought to put y’all right in their midst by sunset.”
I couldn’t say anything about my slowness. Wasn’t like I could back-handspring my escape.
“Mountains. Or Bagger bait,” Jackson said. “That’s between you and your god. Me? I’m heading away from the closest danger.”
There were other things to be said, other questions to be asked—
“Have fun, Empress.” He sneered the word.
“Why are you so angry with me?” I knew anger was his go-to emotion, but he was shaking with it.
He whipped around and stalked toward me. “You. Ain’t. Right. None of you.”
I gasped, rocked to the core. “I-I can’t help the way I am.”
“Doan mean I got to deal with it. You doan need me to babysit you anymore.” He pulled up his hoodie, turned and trudged onward.
“Are you madder about what I am, or that I kept it from you?”
“Split it down the middle. Call it a day.”
“You—you made a promise to my mother to get me to Gran’s!”
He cast a narrow-eyed glance over his shoulder. “You’re goan to pull that shit with me? Fine. Try to keep up, ’cause I’m goan that way.” He pointed to the mountains, as if daring me to follow.
As if hoping I wouldn’t.
While I stood there in shock, Matthew drew up beside me.
“Should we follow Jack?” I asked him.
“I’ll lead you on the correct path. Let you know when you step off it.” He trotted past me, following the Cajun.
That was the correct path? The others looked at me, again like I was their leader.
“We’ll skate close to the edge,” I assured Finn and Selena. “Head south to the end of the range, then cut back for North Carolina. We won’t go deep into the mountains.”
“And if we lose our way?” Finn asked. “There are tons of mines up there. Each one’s filled with cannibals, like ants in a hill. I told you I’d never cross the Appalachians again.”
“I follow Matthew.” Jackson had nothing to do with my choice. Bullshit, Eves.
Selena almost disguised her relief that we’d stick with Jack for now. Finn almost hid his dread. Ahead, Matthew’s steps swerved as he caught rain on his tongue.
“Let’s go. . . .”
For the next half hour, we meandered through the burned-out ghost town, seeing no one, expecting no one. We did pass piles of bodies left over from the Flash, though. Stripped of clothes, they looked like stacked mannequins.
I gazed up at the mountains we were heading toward. The lower parts of the rise had once been covered with forest. The Flash had scorched the trees into charred trunks, resembling power-line poles without the lines. The ground was covered with ash.
Ash. The Flash-fried remains of trees, animals, and people. I shivered, phobic about it. Since the apocalypse, it’d swirled in the windstorms and settled in drifts against the face of that incline.
A low bank of fog poured down the nearest mountain, slinking around the base of it. When it closed in on us, that ominous feeling from earlier thickened till I thought I would choke on it.
Just when I was about to tell the others that I was rethinking this plan, a Bagman wailed behind us. Onward, Evie.
What awaited us in those dark hills?
6
We were being watched.
After trudging uphill in the mud for what seemed like hours, we hadn’t gotten anywhere near the center of this range, so it couldn’t be cannibals. Nor Arcana—none of their calls sounded close by. Nor was it Bagmen; we could hear them baying in the valley below us, held in check by the diluted sun.
For now.
As the afternoon wore on, my foreboding feeling grew and grew. I was dragging ass, huffing and puffing, the acrid scent of burned wood stinging my nose. I’d trained as a dancer for years, but compared to the boys and Selena, my stamina was laughable. The ongoing drizzle provided enough moisture for the ash and mud to congeal like glue.
I’d toppled over so many times, my hands were coated with globs of it, my hair as well. Remains. In my hair.
Finn was just ahead, Matthew at my side like a pilot fish. Selena and Jackson were staggered, far in the lead as we headed for the next valley to the south. She’d mentioned seeing a town there on her map; I supposed we were heading toward it. Jackson must have been as well.
So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours, I struggled to process it all. Arthur’s defeat, the return of some of my memories, the showdown with Joules, the dream of Death.
Jackson admitting what he thought of me.
Selena had been bang-on when she’d said he was disgusted. I would have given anything to talk to him, to explain that I might not be right, but it wasn’t a choice I’d made to hurt him. It wasn’t a choice whatsoever.
“You okay back there, Evie?” Finn asked with a worried look. “Maybe we ought to stop for a minute.”
“I’m fine.” I’m dying! “Got to keep moving.” I would chop off my right, marked hand to stop. We’d never had to contend with mud before. I hoped it would slow down any zombies—or Arcana—who decided to pursue us.
“Okay. Cool.” He carried on ahead as if I’d told him the truth or something.
I could barely talk, but questions were swirling in my head. Under my ragged breath, I said, “Matthew, last night I dreamed of a time when Death stabbed a past Empress with a sword. Did you send me that dream?”
“Yep.”
“Why now? I’ve already learned about my abilities.” I’d used most of them yesterday and today.
“Learn to defeat Death. You will fight him with your powers.”
That Empress in my dream hadn’t been able to use any powers for me to learn from. “All of those dreams have seemed familiar, but in this one, I could feel Death’s sword entering my body.”
“You felt it.”
“Yeah, that’s what I just said.”
He nodded, effortlessly meandering beside me. “You felt it in a past life.”
I turned on him, gritting out the words: “Past life?” He’d never told me that the nightmares I’d had were in fact about me. “You never said that we were reincarnates.”
Of course, he’d never said we weren’t reincarnates. Hadn’t I suspected? From the visions Matthew had revealed, I’d witnessed a past Empress so horrific, I’d dubbed her the red witch.
But hadn’t her deeds felt like memories?
“The Empress has a sense of humor this time,” Matthew said, repeating a comment he’d made weeks ago.
This time. Because I was the same card, just a different version. Hundreds of years ago, she’d been a vicious killer.
I hadn’t been anything less with Arthur.
I pressed my hand to my stomach. In a past life, I’d suffered that blow. Was that what awaited me in my present one? “The Empress from last night’s dream seemed different from the one I’ve been seeing since before the Flash.” The one who’d used sea plants to destroy whole galleons and spores to murder entire villages.
“Going back farther, farther,” Matthew said. “Two games before. You were the May Queen then. Red witch was Phyta. You are Poison Princess. You are all of them: Lady Lotus, Mistress of Flora, Queen of Thorns.”
He’d told me these names before, but I hadn’t thought they’d referred to individual Empresses. “Why go back to another game? I’ve already hit my limit with dreams—with memories—of the red witch.” Or Phyta, or whoever.
“This Death first met you then.”
“You mean Death in this reincarnation?” His present life had started thousands of years ago. I might have come back as three different Empresses since then, but he’d simply endured and survived year after year, game after game. “Okay, fine, so you want me to have these memories. Then why are you piecemealing this information, Matthew? Why not just give me all the memories?”
“I did. Two games’ worth. Your mind resists. Dreams relent. Safety valve.”
“Wait . . .” I was struggling to keep up physically—and topic-wise. “So I have all the memories from two games, I just have to dream them? Why can’t I see them all at once?”
He gave me an indulgent look. “Then you’d be like me. Crazy. You are Death’s weakness.”
“So you keep telling me. Does he happen to know my weaknesses?”
“As well as his face in the mirror. Pay attention to your dreams. I’m in his pocket, so he’s in my eyes.”
It wasn’t the first time Matthew had told me that, but I hadn’t understood him. Now I did. Death could see me through Matthew’s eyes, so he always knew what was happening with me. And though I didn’t understand how, Death could drop in on my thoughts at will. Our last exchange had been during this morning’s harried climb:
—You deserve every second of this misery and fear, creature.—
And you know where you can shove your scythe.
It was one thing to have the others broadcasting in there, or to have silent conversations with Matthew. But Death poking around unnerved the hell out of me. “How can Death hear my thoughts?”
“Through the switchboard.”
Recalling Selena’s comments about Matthew jamming frequencies, I asked, “Do you consider our calls and thoughts frequencies?” I’d termed it Arcana Radio. Maybe it was really Arcana Switchboard. With a nervous laugh, I said, “You’re not the switchboard operator, are you?”
As if talking to a child, he said, “I’m the Fool.”
“Then how are we connected?”
“Through me. The switchboard operator. The Fool is the Gamekeeper.”
I sputtered, “But you told me that you weren’t . . .” I trailed off. He hadn’t actually denied it, had he? “So that’s one of your abilities?” No wonder he was so often confused.
“Responsibility.”
“You need to disconnect this circuit, Matthew!” I’d thought mind reading was simply one of Death’s powers. Then I recalled the Reaper once telling me, “Matto remembers his debts. He’ll show you to me. . . .”
“Inside voices are important,” Matthew insisted.
“Why would you allow him in my head?” I couldn’t comprehend this. “A couple of weeks ago, he said something about you paying your debts?” Nothing. “Do you let him hear everyone’s thoughts?”
“Death only wants yours. Death possessing Life. I’m in his pocket.”
“So let me get this straight. You connect the Arcana calls. You let Death communicate with us all. And you allow him access to my brain alone—because of some debt?”
Matthew offered me a charred pinecone.
Patience! “You do understand that Death will always know what we’re planning.”
“Doesn’t care about what we plan. No more than you would care what cannibal ants in mines plan. He laughs at our plans.”
“I don’t want a killer like him in my head!”
Matthew slowed, looking down at me with an expression that seemed far wiser than his years. “I do things for reasons.”
Gaze darting, I said, “I’ve got to tell the others. This is a huge weakness! I can’t form an alliance against an enemy when he knows all our moves in advance.”
“You feel his presence. Learn when he’s home. Death knew my gaze. Learn his.”
“I can learn to tell when he’s snooping?” When Matthew had showed me that last vision of Death battling Joules and his friends, the Reaper had sensed us. And didn’t I perceive a heaviness whenever he was about? “Until then, how do I know Death won’t try to prevent me from reaching Gran?” I asked, hoping that Matthew might confirm she was even alive.
“Bores Death. He doesn’t believe in her as you do.”
“Can you please tell me if she’s safe?”
“Define safe,” Matthew said with a look at his hand. Subject done.
She had to be alive. I had to believe Matthew cared about me enough not to let me go on a wild-goose chase.
“Why does Death have such an interest in me, anyway? There are other cards to terrorize.”
Shrug.
“You know, but you’re not telling me.”
Smile. “Crazy like a fox!”
“Matthew, come on—” A branch snapped some distance to my right. I jerked around but saw nothing. A clammy feeling crawled over my nape. “Are we being watched?”
He blinked at me. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
“Are we in danger?”
He chuckled, shaking his forefinger at me. “Sense of humor.”
Yeah, I guessed we never got out of danger. I kept walking. “Is Jackson going to leave us?” As soon as I’d asked this, I regretted the expenditure of breath. I knew the answer to that question.
He’d been taking point, trudging onward, with his hoodie pulled up. All day his expression had varied between enraged and more enraged. Like he was getting pissed off anew every few minutes.
He wasn’t talking to me, but he also ignored Selena and Finn. Yep, he’d checked out mentally. I figured he’d get ghost as soon as we made the next town.
“Should’ve said good-bye. Arcana and non-Arcana mix poorly.” Matthew sighed. “Dee-vee-oh stares at you when you don’t see. Hunter. Watching. You’re the angel atop the Christmas tree that he can never reach. Gift beneath that he can’t unwrap.”
You’d have thought I’d be used to Matthew’s ramblings. I wasn’t.