The Dark Calling (The Arcana Chronicles #5)(10)

“It’s awfully quiet down here in this lonely abyss. You four sat together this morning to share breakfast.” Her voice grew absent as she admitted, “I felt a scalding envy.”

“I’m sorry.”

Making her tone brisk, she said, “While you were unconscious, I officially met Lark and Finn.”

Apparently, the lovebirds had been bonding like crazy, whenever Lark had time off. The blizzard meant she was getting a break from her Richter-watch duties. Even if her falcon could negotiate the arctic wind gusts, visibility was nil.

“Finn wanted to share magic secrets with me.” Circe chuckled. “How adorable. He’s only an illusionist, able to create lifelike scenes and fool the senses, but not much more. An entertainer versus a practitioner.” At my raised eyebrows, she said, “He can’t seal blood invocations to stretch over centuries or brew esoteric potions. He doesn’t control a spell book that’s as old as the oceans. While Finn can mimic the look of a tide, I can steer them. I explained all this to him.” Circe wasn’t one to sugarcoat.

“What was Lark’s reaction?”

“Sharpened fangs and claws. Even her ears seemed to point. In her mind, he’s one of the greats. They’re already so in love, picking up right where they left off in the last game. Just before you murdered them.”

I can deny nothing. But her comment made me wonder what my relationship with Aric would be like if we’d had no animosity between us in the past. Maybe he would believe me about Paul.

Earlier, Aric had told me, “I informed him that he will be exiled once the weather breaks. Sievā, I will not reverse myself on this.” His gaze had gone distant. “We’re giving him no mercy with this course. Exile equals execution.”

True. I’d often pictured the castle as a spaceship on a barren moon, with the only life support around: crops and livestock, clean water, sunlamps, and tankers of fuel. But I still wasn’t satisfied with only a banishment, much less a belated one.

I asked Circe, “Have you noticed anything off with Paul? Ever heard him say something suspicious?”

“Not a single time. In light of current events, I suppose you no longer want to set me up with him?”

I might have once mentioned that. “I got conned. We all did.” But Lark and Aric still seemed to be under the influence. The jury was out on Finn. “What would you do about Paul if you were me?”

“In the past, you would already have stabbed him with your poisonous claws, then desecrated his corpse with your plants. In this life, you’ve agreed to wait for an exile, with the added mercy of a storm break. Perhaps you are different from before.”

That was about the nicest thing Circe had ever said to me. Great. Now I’d have to go along with the exile plan just to stay in her favor. Don’t want to piss off the watery godmother. “So, speaking of sealing blood invocations across centuries . . .”

“I told Death that I would look into a memory spell as a gift to honor my alliance—with him.” Was I never to be forgiven for betraying her in the past? I’d keep working on her. “Such a spell would tax me greatly.”

Making my tone light, I teased, “Ah, but you’re a great practitioner. Unless you think I should ask Finn to do it?”

“You push your luck, Evie Greene.” But she sounded amused.

“So you’re freezing, and I’m knocked up. Ain’t we a pair?”

“Worse things could have happened.”

“Really?” I was having a difficult time seeing this pregnancy as anything other than a parasitic invasion—probably not a tidbit I should share with the kid-loving Ruler of the Deep. “One of the last entries my grandmother made in my chronicles was She can never be with him. She has no idea what Life and Death become. Sounds pretty dire to me.”

“Perhaps you two become the End and the Beginning. The end of the game and the beginning of a new era.”

“Gran said the earth won’t come back until there’s an Arcana victor.” Until all were dead but one.

“Though that was true in the past, do you not feel as if destiny had a hand in this pregnancy? Life and Death uniting for the first time? Maybe the arrival of your baby will bring about the rejuvenation of the earth. I told you the Fool’s powers were unfathomable, but Mother Earth also has powers of birth and rebirth that we can’t know.”

“Mother Earth, huh? So I pop out a kid, and the sun rises?”

In a wistful tone, she said, “I can imagine an infant’s cry clearing the skies for the sun to shine. I see tiny balled fists flailing in time with grass poking up from the soil.”

I blinked at the water plume. And everyone thought I was loopy? “When Aric and I first slept together, the weather freaked out. Apocalyptic hail, winds, and lightning. We both had the feeling we were crossing a line that maybe we shouldn’t.”

“Hmm. Do you think the gods were protesting?”

“Sounds insane when you put it that way. But Matthew specifically told Finn that the gods mark us all.”

“Perhaps he meant that they were listening to us. A pregnancy like this would be a huge statement, a message that we Arcana won’t be defined by our histories.”

Yet all the other cards kept defining me by mine. Everyone knows the Empress breaks her vows each game . . . . The Empress is a treacherous betrayer . . . . Creature, you folded first . . . .