The Dark Calling (The Arcana Chronicles #5)(9)

“But not me?”

The plume seemed to shrug. “We’re still not allies, even if I’m your child’s godmother.”

A gust rocked the castle. Boards groaned, and grit dusted down from the ceiling. Were we headed into an ice age? “Is it cold in the abyss?” Circe had once told me she lived at the bottom of the sea in the Bermuda Triangle. She’d shown me her torchlit temple through a water window.

“Yes, compared to the sultry breezes and bright rays I was always used to. To the north of the castle, the temperature has dropped even more sharply. No matter how much I churn my rivers and streams, they’re icing over. Without them, I can’t see or hear Richter’s approach. Without flowing water around the castle, I won’t be able to ward him off.”

If the Emperor found our home, we would be under fire. Literally. “Wouldn’t Richter melt any ice?”

“I’ll be able to put out the flames, but I won’t be able to prevent them. By then the damage would be done. Without advance warning, well, as Fauna would say: you’re all sitting ducks.”

“Maybe the temperature is weakening him as well.”

“Yes, now he’ll have the impact of one atomic bomb instead of two. All of the players who defeated him in the past did so before he grew too strong.”

Like Death. Two games ago, he’d strategized to get the enraged Emperor to blow all his power before striking him down.

Aric had said he would teach me how to fight an Arcana like Richter as soon as I’d reclaimed my powers and invoked the red witch as never before.

I didn’t see that happening anytime soon.

Circe murmured, “I should have drowned the Emperor before this cold came.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“After the Flash, I thought I wasn’t yet strong enough, was greedy for the rain.” She sighed. “Perhaps I was never meant to flourish in this game. Certain catastrophes affect some cards more. This seems designed to harm me—and you.”

Because I needed sun? I’d perked right up when bathed in Sol’s light. “When do you think Richter will come for us?”

“Sooner, now that we have company in the neighborhood. His high-value targets are the Centurion, the Tower, the Angel. The latter two have set up camp on the next mountain over, just beyond your line of thorn trees and my diminishing reach.” I’d noticed that her river had receded since we’d left to retrieve Finn.

Yesterday, Lark had said, “Finally, she’s not breathing down my neck. What to do with all this elbow room? Maybe practice my faunagenesis?” That’s what she called her animal regeneration.

In theory, her blood could reanimate all creatures, not just her three wolves and falcon familiars. She’d never tried it before.

I asked Circe, “Richter wants to take down those three Arcana even more than me?”

“All of them can strike from afar. After Fortune’s encounter with you, I doubt he considers you a threat.”

Zara had sneered to me, “The great Empress? You’re just a weak little girl.” Without my powers, I wasn’t a threat. No wonder Aric hesitated to teach me about the Emperor. If I ever faced Richter, I’d get myself killed.

I scowled at my stomach. Not helping things, kid.

“Soon the Tower and the Angel will no longer be a worry for anyone either,” Circe said. “They’re starving. I suppose you could say they’re at Death’s door.”

I couldn’t stand the thought of them going hungry. “There’s got to be food out there somewhere.”

“Such as Olympus, the Sun’s bountiful lair? The last I saw, the prisoners you freed were rioting. Chaos was the only thing you left growing there.”

Not my best moment. “What about the Lovers’ shrine?”

“Raided by the other half of the hunter’s army.” Jack’s Azey army. “Without leadership, they’ve scattered to the winds. There were government facilities and stocked bomb shelters, but Richter keeps sending lava underground, incinerating them.”

Hell on earth. We were going to need every Arcana to fight against him. I would talk to Aric about giving my friends food. Maybe I could pay Gabe and Joules to do a search for Jack and Matthew! As soon as the storm broke, I’d contact them. “Are you going hungry, Circe? What do you even eat?” I’d never asked her before.

“Whatever I can drag down.”

“Like a tiger?” Lark had suspected the witch of tiger theft.

“What? Me? I would never!”

If Circe’s rivers froze over, what could she drag down? “Do you need us to send you food? We could try to waterproof a barrel or something.”

“It’s much easier if I come to land in my true form and eat.”

“Not the water-girl form you use to sneak through the castle?” I’d seen her liquid body skulking around before the snow had come. We’d found wet footprints in the pool house.

“Such aspersions!” she cried, but I could hear the humor in her tone. “You’re not the only one struggling with powers these days. My water form is difficult to maintain. Materializing is simpler.”

“I thought we all agreed that your body wasn’t coming to land as long as the game continued.” Or until Aric and I died, and she came to claim our kid.