Poison Princess

He nodded gravely. “I am a lifesaver.”

“But I couldn’t have been one. I mean, I couldn’t have prevented the Flash, right?”

He gave a bark of laughter. “That’s just crazy talk.”

Guilt easing . . . “Matthew, exactly how psychic are you?”

“So psychic that other psychics should be called Mattics.”

I smiled, excitement coursing through me. “What all can you see?”

He gazed up at the ceiling, his eyes going vacant. “The last two monarch butterflies are thousands of miles apart and flying away from each other. A boy is skateboarding across old Lake Michigan. The next card is close. Don’t look at this hand . . .”

“Look at that one,” I finished. “I know it. When you hear the voices, do they go quiet whenever you make contact?”

“Don’t want them quiet. Dee-vee-oh makes them quiet for you. Whenever he helps, he hurts.”

“Do you want to elaborate on that?” He gave me a wide grin. Apparently not. “So you can send your visions to anyone? And you can spread them through touch?”

His hair was drying, now flopped charmingly over his forehead. “Messages.”

“Did you send them to other Arcana?”

He looked insulted. As if I’d accused him of cheating on me. “You are my friend and ally.”

“So why’d you send me visions of Selena? What did that one in the woods mean?”

“Mean?” he asked in a baffled tone. “Is it bedtime?”

“Um, not quite. Tell me this, is Selena good like us or bad . . . like Death?”

“She’s the Moon,” he said matter-of-factly.

Obviously this subject was a dead end. I raised a new one. “Can you see my grandmother?”

“Tarasova,” Matthew murmured.

Just as she’d described herself to me. “Is she okay?” Nothing. “We’re on our way to find her. She has all the answers.”

“You have matching questions.”

Surely he’d tell me if she hadn’t survived—since we were going there? “If you’re psychic, and I can control plants, what are some of the other Arcana powers?”

“Vast.”

“Are we genetically altered or something? How did we get our powers?”

“We are born.”

Okay. “Does Selena have other abilities besides her archery?” Other than always looking perfect, bike racing, and cooking like Top Chef? “Does she know what we are? Is she literally the Bringer of Doubt? And how many Arcana are there? Why was that vision of Death more lifelike than all the others?”

Instead of replying to any of my questions, Matthew yawned widely, his eyes less clairvoyant-y—more a sleepy, childlike brown.

Though I burned for answers, I sensed that pushing him on any subject would help as much as pushing my own memories had. In other words, not at all.

Sometimes you have to let things unfold. But I had to know one thing. “When you were knocked out earlier, I saw a vision of you today. You didn’t look surprised when your mom locked you in. You saw your future?”

“Not my own. Never my own. Hers.”

He could only see others’ futures? “You didn’t want to, um, intervene with her?” Maybe to keep her from attempting to murder her son and committing suicide?

Had she snapped under the stress? Or had she wanted to spare him a ghastly Bagman death—with a drowning instead? Why wouldn’t she just take him with her in the car?

Then I remembered; Matthew had already told me. She’d known he wouldn’t stay in the car.

“Wouldn’t have mattered with her. Not for long.” With glinting eyes, he whispered, “I see far, Evie.”

So she would have died soon after? Or maybe her fate would have been worse?

Even as I debated whether there was a fate worse than death, I wondered how Matthew handled making these excruciating decisions for others.

You poor boy. I reached forward to smooth his hair from his forehead, as my own mother used to do to me. How could I feel this much affection for him so quickly?

But then, we had known each other for months.

He blinked up at me with endless trust. “I believed you’d make it in time.” Another yawn.

Watching him yawn was equivalent to watching a puppy dozing off—about the cutest thing I’d ever seen. Will I ever see a puppy again? “Why don’t you try to go to sleep? We’ll have hours tomorrow to talk.”

“Don’t leave me.”

“I won’t, I promise.”

His lids grew heavier. “It begins with me . . . and ends with him.”

“Ends with who, Matthew?”

He’d already drifted to sleep.

I headed toward the other twin bed, lying down, reflecting on the hectic day. Of course Selena had wanted to come with us: “Hell, J.D., I could use some adventure.” She’d had her survival gear, high-performance clothes, and high-energy food packed in minutes. Bitch.

At least she had let us rummage for sleeping bags and portable food of our own.

And she was certainly equal to the journey, handling her own bike like a professional stuntwoman. In fact, she’d wanted me to ride with her—no doubt to prevent me from clinging to Jackson like a dryer sheet.

But in a tone that had brooked no argument, Jackson had said, “Evie’s with me.”

Had I reclaimed his attention from Selena? I couldn’t decide! At times, as we’d sped north, my thoughts had turned to the night before, but then I’d remember that Matthew’s life was at stake, and I’d feel ashamed.

Now I could mull it all I wanted to. Facts: Last night, Jackson had been drunk and pissed off at me. She’d been all over him. This morning, when Jackson had shepherded me back to the mansion, Selena had acted indignant, like a spurned girlfriend.

Three possibilities. One, they’d been at it like minks and would be again tonight. Two, they’d gotten together, but now Jackson regretted it. Or, three, he’d kept his hands to himself, and Selena was psycho-jealous over nothing.

I had to know. Yet while nothing they’d done or said convinced me they were a couple, they’d also done nothing that would allow me to rule that out.

“Empress?” Matthew said, waking.

“Did you have a bad dream, kid? Are you hungry? We have food.”

Gazing at me intently, he rose—then climbed onto the bed with me.

“Whoa! What are you doing?”

He took my hand, covered it with both of his own. At once, I relaxed.

Being with him like this felt normal, natural. Familiar.

“They play, Evie.”

“Who?” I grew warm, unable to keep my eyes open.

The last thing I heard: “The Arcana.”

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