The Arcana Chronicles 3: Dead of Winter

“Each second I go back drains me of life. I don’t know how to prevent that. It c-could destroy me.”

Merciless, I tightened my claws in her flesh. “Then we’d better hurry.”

10

I stared into Tess’s dark blue eyes as her power began to manifest.

Her skin heated beneath my hands, and a dull buzz sounded. A breeze blew in a circle around us. From my thorns? No, the current of air flowed clockwise.

Her power stoked, the heat from her body increasing till it scalded me. But I refused to release my hold. The buzz grew in volume. Louder. Louder.

Our hair was dragged straight upward. When her body started levitating, I sank my claws deeper. If I hadn’t been here to anchor her, would she have floated away?

The noise had gotten so loud her ears bled. Wet warmth slicked down my neck as well.

Suddenly Tess threw back her head and screamed. I could perceive the earth—or our existence or reality or something—stilling for one airless instant . . . before grinding into motion. The wrong way.

We were rotating backward! The World Card, Quintessence herself, was making time flow in reverse.

First rotation. Below us came a splash as the Priestess first attacked. The leftover arsenal I’d used against her began to vanish—but within Tess’s circle, I remained the same, wet and bloodied.

Tess met my gaze. Her skin paled, her cheeks thinning.

Second rotation. Previous versions of me and Tess fled from the soldiers through the rock gully.

Beneath my claws, she was shedding weight at an alarming rate. “Please, Empress.” The whites of her eyes were red, vessels blown. From pressure?

Jack’s own eyes were gone. Brutally stolen. So I clawed her harder.

Third rotation. The soldiers had just begun giving chase.

Tess’s breathing grew labored. Her face was haggard, her cheekbones jutting sharply. Patches of her raised mane of hair came out, long sections plucked away into the ether.

Fourth rotation. Four disguised Arcana meandered through the camp, almost at the twins’ tent.

Tess’s sunken red eyes pleaded. She looked like one of my famine victims from a past game. Brittle. Dying.

Her arms deflated in my grip, my bloody claws scraping over bone.

Scrape, scrape . . .

Would I kill this girl to save Jack’s sight? “Not yet, Tess! Not yet!”

Fifth rotation. Still disguised, Gabriel and an earlier version of Tess landed on this bluff, meeting up with Selena and the earlier version of me. The beginning of our mission.

“No more!” I screamed.

As if at the end of a car wreck, the spinning abruptly . . . stopped. Tess’s head lolled, the remains of her hair hanging over her face.

The earth righted itself in fitful movements, seeming to gasp from exertion. With a shudder, the rotation ground forward once more.

Those earlier versions of me and Tess disappeared—leaving us, two girls aware of the near future, but physically changed. I’d been drained of power, with no arsenal to show for it.

And Tess . . . I released her arms, catching her as she collapsed, unconscious. Her now baggy clothing swallowed her emaciated body. Her teeth chattered, and she shivered for warmth. Would she survive?

“What the hell, Evie?” Selena cried.

She and Gabriel would have no idea why Tess was in this condition. For them, only an instant had passed.

“She used her power?” Gabriel demanded, his disguise faltering.

“Just take her back! Get her warm, and help her. Make sure she survives.”

“I go anon.” He cradled her slight weight and took to the sky.

As her illusion faded to nothing, Selena narrowed her gaze. “You and Tess don’t have disguises. You’re bleeding and soaking wet. Portal to another dimension? Or did you go back in time?”

“Violet is here. We have to save Jack in the next few minutes or he loses his eyes—”

“How many minutes?” Selena was already hastening toward the camp. She fiddled with a hi-tech sports watch on her sling arm.

I scrambled to catch up. “Enough time for Tess and me to run to the water’s edge, then fight off the Priestess.”

Selena raised her brows at that. Then she returned her concentration to the mission. “We’ll say four minutes of running. How long did you and the Priestess tussle?”

Tussle? “I have no idea. Three minutes? Thirty?”

“I’m giving us eleven minutes total.” Selena clicked the timer on. “Which tent is J.D. in? Without Gabriel—”

“I know which one.”

“We don’t have disguises!”

“No soldiers are out.” I led Selena into the ghost-town camp.

When we passed the hobbled woman, I pressed my forefinger to my lips. After a heartbeat’s hesitation, she nodded.

Selena and I continued on, picking up speed as we turned the corner.

“That’s the tent.”

She slowed. “The one heavily guarded by guys in gas masks?”

“Just keep running!” I passed her.

“This is suicide!” But she sped up.

“Do you want to save Jack or not?” I asked when we were side by side.

“Damn it, Evie!”

“Take off your sling and go all-out Arcana. Even without your bow, you can still look weird. Like you once told me: sell it, sister, or we are dead.” I acted on that advice, calling forth my body vine.

It budded from the shimmering glyph over my nape. No more delicate ivy; this time I made it into a thornless rose stalk. Recalling Matthew’s mention of a crown, I let it coil around my head, oversize leaves pointing up like arches. In lieu of a dozen stars, I fashioned twelve blooms to garnish it.

Roses were the red witch’s flower.

My flower.

Selena tore off her sling and tossed it away. Her every footfall jostled that arm, but she gritted her teeth and withstood the agony.

For Jack, Selena Lua could do anything.

She began to glow, her skin the luminous red of a hunter’s moon. Her silvery hair danced all around her head like gossamer moonbeams, an awing sight.

“Okay, Archer, how about hammering these guys with some doubt?” One of her powers as the Moon Card.

“It’s not that easy.” Her eyes darted. “I can’t laser-focus it.”

Another power secret? “Oh, that reminds me. I think the twins can teleport.”

“Son of a bitch!” She glanced at my face. “Your glyphs are dim. Can you fumigate their tent?”

“I might’ve blown my wad against the Priestess.” So much for conserving.