Poison Princess

Death narrowed those glittering eyes. “I’ve waited endless years to battle you again. Will you not face me?”

Face him? What was I supposed to “battle” him with?

Behind him, that field might as well have been a lunar landscape for all the plants that grew. Should I attack an armored knight with my thorn claws?

Just as he’d once said, I did have life in my blood. But even if I had time to grow seeds, garden plants couldn’t withstand those swords.

How much blood would it take to grow an acorn into a formidable ally?

“Remember, Empress,” he said. “Death always defeats life. It might take time, but I will always win.” As he mounted that mighty steed, he pinned me with his hypnotic gaze. “When your blood bathes my sword, I’ll drink it just to mock you. . . .”

I woke with a gasp, back at the McMansion.

Matthew looked groggy, slow to come out of his vision.

“What the hell, kid?!” We’d not only witnessed a murder, we’d talked with the killer! “Wake up.” I shook his shoulder. He seemed a hundred times more exhausted than before he’d slept. “Why does Death expect me to face him?”

He ran his hand over his forehead. “The ancient battles must be fought, the markings earned, the bad cards defeated.”

My senses were on high alert after that disturbing vision, my patience at an all-time low. Striving for an even tone, I said, “Why must they be fought? Maybe we have—oh, I don’t know—enough on our plates after the Flash!”

“The battles begin at the End,” he said yet again.

“The Flash marked the beginning?” Right when the voices kicked up. Had the apocalypse awakened the Arcana? I swallowed. Or vice versa? “What caused the Flash, Matthew?”

“Sun.”

I exhaled in relief. Okay, a solar flare made sense. Then I remembered . . . “Isn’t there a Sun Card?”

Shrug.

Patience, Evie. “Is the Sun good or bad?”

“The sun is a star.”

And wasn’t there a Star Card too? Moving on . . . “How did Death see us?”

“Old. Knows my glimpse.”

“How old is he?”

“Really.”

“Matthew!” I rose, pacing.

“Twenty-one centuries or so.”

“Twenty-one! Is he immortal?”

Another shrug. “Just hasn’t been killed in a while.”

Back and forth I paced. “But he knows you. Are you . . . his age?”

With a roll of his eyes, Matthew informed me, “I’m sixteen.”

Patience! “Then tell me when you two met.”

“Twenty-one centuries ago.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “You’re killing me, kid.”

He shot to his feet, clamping my shoulders. “Never kill you!”

“It’s just a figure of speech, Matthew.” I eased out of his grip.

“Oh.” He sank back on the bed. “I’ve seen the games, the past. I’ve seen Death. In some ways, I’m wise,” he said, looking anything but.

“Crazy like a fox,” I murmured. “Okay, so say I have to fight in some kind of supernatural ‘ancient battle.’ What’s the purpose? What do we get if we win?”

My mind raced as I imagined what kind of prize might be equal to the risk. Maybe there was a protected haven on earth, one that still had rain and greenery?

Death was some kind of otherworldly knight; did he possess an untouched fortress somewhere? Then I remembered his plane of unbroken black, cluttered with ruins. Not precisely where I’d choose to live.

Maybe there was some way to go back in time and stop the apocalypse! Hadn’t Gran believed I was going to save the world? I needed to know the stakes.

My heart dropped when Matthew said, “If you win, you get to . . . live.”

“So there’s no way to improve our lot? Just more danger and worry heaped on my shoulders?”

“Danger! And worry!”

“No. I refuse this. I didn’t sign up for this shit! I never opted in. But I sure as hell can opt out.”

“No refusal. You are Arcana. Learn your powers. Use them.”

“Nuh-uh, I’m a girl with no dog in this fight,” I assured him. “I’ll raise a white flag, seek a truce. You can help me with Death, since you know him.”

“I’m in his pocket, so he’s in my eyes.”

“And that means what?”

Matthew nodded. “No truce. No peace. He is Death. He knows one thing— killing.”

“Then I’ll run.” Was that what my life would be like from now on? Fleeing from an armored serial killer, always looking over my shoulder, dreading his approach? How long could I keep that up?

With a shiver, I thought of Matthew’s eulogy for Calanthe.

She fears him no more. . . .

33

DAY 242 A.F.

TENNESSEE-ALABAMA BORDER

“I doan like the feel of this,” Jackson muttered, clenching the van’s steering wheel, squinting to see the road. Only now he wasn’t peering through an ash storm . . .

Fog blanketed us. The mountains flanking the interstate were bathed in it.

I hadn’t seen fog since before the Flash. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only weather change we were contending with. Over the last six days since we’d rescued Matthew, the temperatures had dropped to nearly freezing.

The windstorms had grown less frequent, but when they hit, they were fierce.

Biting winds in the Deep South—in May? Seeing our breaths smoke put all of us on edge. For all we knew, the entire earth was about to freeze over in a new ice age.

I had only my hoodie, Jackson a thin leather jacket, and Matthew? A sleeping bag. Selena, of course, had her all-weather-performance clothes.

From her position in shotgun, she studied our map. “We’re going the right way, J.D. Maybe the fog’s throwing you.”

Each day, Jackson and Selena took the front seats, sticking Matthew and me in the back with their motorcycles. Like luggage.

Matthew was currently lying on a sleeping bag on the floor, whistling the Star Wars theme song, completely oblivious to our disquiet.

“The tank’s teetering on E,” Jackson said. “That map doan show any towns for miles. It was rural here.”

“The map’s old,” Selena said. “There could be strip malls just ahead. And I guarantee you that we’ll find more gas than we did in the places we’ve already passed.”