Finn’s illusions flashed all around the courtyard. Waves . . . a sunset . . . a middle-aged woman with a stern expression . . . how Lark had looked the first time we’d all met her.
Those animal screams rang out louder and louder. I was about to howl right beside them.
“Shut them up so I can think!” I concentrated, trying to sense if some plant-based toxin was inside him. Sensing . . . Not a plant. I couldn’t produce an antidote. But some toxin was killing him. Think! Our only hope was for him to vomit whatever he’d ingested. He needed an emetic!
I yanked off my gloves, then flared my thorn claws. In my chronicles, I’d learned that I could deliver more than poison through them.
“You’re going to claw him?” Lark bared her fangs, hovering protectively over Finn. “Oh, hell no!”
“I’m going to give him something to make him throw up. Let me try to save him.”
She finally relented. “If he doesn’t pull through . . .”
I sank my claws into his neck, injecting him. Please let this work. Withdrawing them, I waited, gaze flitting over his face for any sign.
Yet Finn’s wide eyes grew sightless.
Lark cried, “I don’t hear his heartbeat!”
I turned to Aric. “You know CPR!”
He knelt beside Finn, beginning chest compressions with his gloved hands. One compression after another after another.
Teardrops spilled down Lark’s cheeks. “Finn can’t be gone. He can’t be. I-I just got him back.”
Aric was sweating by the time he drew back. “The Magician’s passed on. There’s nothing I can do.”
Finn was . . . dead.
Tears blinded me. Shock numbed my brain. There was something I needed to remember, but all I could do was stare at my friend’s terrified face.
Lark wailed, a bloodcurdling sound. “Who did this to my Finn?” Would she still not believe it was Paul?
I didn’t know how he’d gotten out of a locked room to poison Finn, but I knew why he’d done it.
The Magician had been on to him.
I barely noticed when Aric stood. “Do you feel that, sievā?” He surveyed the area. “Something is coming.”
“Richter?” Was the end here for all of us?
Aric shook his head. “This is more like what the Moon Card might’ve done—a feeling. An ominous feeling. Some power is amongst us.”
My gaze darted. “Where? How do we fight it?” The air shimmered, and a dome of hazy yellow light appeared above.
When it enveloped us, Aric’s eyes glittered. “A pall falls over us.”
Pall. Paul. Where was the medic?
The ice in the river cracked more loudly than usual, the sound echoing over the mountain like cannon blasts.
Lark rose up from Finn’s body, her eyes turning an even darker red, her fangs sharp. “I know what happened here.” Her tableau wavered over her. Then the image began to rotate until it had turned upside down. Reversed. Her animal gaze landed on me, her expression promising revenge. “You killed Finn. You poisoned him.”
I gawked. “Me? Paul did this!”
“You made the ham. Finn was the only one who ate it, to be polite to you. And you touched him right before he got sick. You clawed him, and he died.”
“Are you high?” How could she doubt me after all I’d done to reunite them? “Why would I ever hurt Finn?”
“You murdered him in the past!” I hated that she had a point. She stalked closer, her movements predatory. “My creatures will fang you apart.”
“Easy, Lark, think about what you’re doing.” Unable to manage so much as a vine, I hurried to Aric’s side. “She’s losing it!” I glanced up at him.
His Grim Reaper tableau appeared as well, turning, reversing. Just before it locked into an upside-down position, he held my gaze and bit out, “Run to the castle.” Seeming to fight some inner battle, he drew his swords. “Run—from me.”
9
Reacting purely by reflex, I leapt away and raced across the snow.
The fortress was on lockdown, only the front door open. I careened through the entrance, then slammed the blast-proof door closed. I turned the lock, but even this weighty barrier wouldn’t keep Aric out for long.
“There’s nowhere for you to go, Empress,” he said outside the door. “For the first time since I met you, my thoughts are clear. I know I can never have peace while you live.”
“WHAT???”
“You mesmerized me. Made me believe you loved me. Just as you’ve done before.”
“Have you lost your mind—I do love you!”
“Lies!” He pounded on the door with his unnatural strength.
What was I going to do? “Something is happening to you! Your tableau is turned upside-down.”
“Everything you say is a lie. Nothing changes. You killed the Magician—another of your allies—just as you do in each game! We trust; you betray.” He kept pounding on the door: boom . . . boom . . . boom.
I was trapped on this mountain with two Arcana who wanted to murder me. I had dead vines climbing the ceilings, but even if I managed to revive them, Aric would easily slice them away. My only real hope was to get to the nursery, to the sunlamps—
A spine-tingling growl sounded from behind me. I slowly turned; Cyclops crouched in the foyer, saliva dripping from his knifelike fangs. More animals filed into the chamber beyond. The creatures I passed by every day now looked rabid. Under Lark’s control, they were all predators.
“No, Cyclops. Don’t do this.” I raised my palms in front of me, struggling to revive nearby vines. Would Lark truly make him attack? “I didn’t hurt Finn!”
From outside, she screamed, “You poisoned him! Cyclops, disembowel her!”
The giant war wolf sprang for me. I squeezed my eyes shut. Vines shot from the ceiling, jabbing like wooden spears, out of my control.
YELP. When I looked again, the beast was skewered throughout his body, pinned to the floor. Unable to move, he cast me a heartbreaking look of confusion—my onetime bedmate and favorite pet.
“Cyclops, I’m so sorry.” Reminding myself that he’d heal, I edged around the whimpering wolf.
A trio of badgers, a Komodo dragon, and two snarling hyenas blocked my way to the nursery. As they advanced on me, I screamed, “Stop this, Lark!” I revived more vines to knock the beasts out of my way, but twice as many took their place. My powers were already sputtering.
BOOM . . . BOOM . . . BOOM.
I’d never reach the nursery before Aric leveled that door. Lark’s arsenal was preventing me from reaching mine.
No choice but to flee up the stairs. I’d barely made two steps when a wave of small forest creatures descended. I booted a couple, dodging the worst of the onslaught.
Racing upward, I tripped on two foxes. Falling forward . . . My forehead banged the edge of a step. “Ah!” Blood streamed into my eyes. Sprouts shot from the crimson drops, coiling around the creatures.
Gritting my teeth, I pushed on, managing to reach the second-floor landing. I drew up short, swiping my eyes. Paul stood off to the side, guarded by Scarface and Maneater.
“How in the hell did you get inside?”