Poison Princess

bundled in our sleeping bags for warmth. The fog was setting in, chilling me to my bones.

“You’ll see him again.” When I exhaled with relief, he said, “You think about him too much.”

Tell me something I don’t know, Matto. And that’d been before Jackson had called me ma belle.

To be Jackson Deveaux’s girlfriend . . . I was giddy from the possibility, too scared to hope.

Then I nibbled my lip as doubts crept in. What about the Arcana war, Selena, Death, the red witch?

“When Dee-vee-oh helps you, he hurts you.”

“You’ve told me that before, but not what that means.” No answer. “He did save my life—and yours. He’s protected us. He’s taught me about Bagmen and sourcing.” Nothing. “Matthew, I feel stronger around him.”

“Practice with your claws,” he said. “That will make you feel stronger.”

“I don’t know how to make them appear, because someone won’t tell me.” Right now they were emotion- based and uncontrollable.

“How does the red witch flex her claws?”

I glared. “And speaking of disgusting things that repel me, how long am I going to suffer those nightmares? Can you look into the future? Why do I see her?”

Though I had no interest in fighting Death, I was almost tempted to face the witch. Then the nightmares would end—one way or another. “Matthew?”

He began staring at one of his hands. Subject closed.

So I posed the same question I’d been asking for days, “Can you please just tell me if Jackson and Selena were together?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” he answered in a testy tone.

Baffling answers from the king of cryptic!

“You’re thinking of him, and you haven’t even heard the card,” Matthew said.

“What card?” I asked, beginning to prepare our lunch. In other words, I pulled out a squished energy bar from my pocket to halve with him. My stomach was already growling for it.

“Nearby. Don’t look at this hand. But you can’t hear him because of Dee-vee- oh.”

“Why would I want to hear the voices? I don’t know this new card, don’t feel an attachment to any of them but you. I hate the voices.”

“Then you’ll die, with their gloating whispers in your ear.”

“Matthew, that was . . . harsh.” And eerie. It was times like this when I realized how little I truly knew about this boy.

“Death is expecting you,” he said for the umpteenth time.

“Then he’ll have a damned long wait!” I snapped. The mere mention of that knight set me off. “Death schooled those other Arcana, and they were strong, united. Even committed to each other,” I added, remembering Joules’s howl of grief. “I will never face him. Get it out of your head, because it will never happen. Never.”

Silence groaned between us, cold seeping into the van.

Regretting my tone with him, I tamped down my irritation and changed the subject. “If we’re going to have this cold and fog, maybe we could actually get some rain, too.”

Matthew shot upright, eyes wild. “No, no, no! Never say that! Take it back!” He clasped my shoulder, squeezing hard.

“I take it back! You’re hurting me!”

“You don’t want rain!” His gaze darted, his expression horrified. “The rain is worse.”

“How can that be?”

He yelled, “WORSE!” His voice boomed in the confines of the van, paining my ears. “For you. For us! Can’t be stopped though.” He released me, looking wounded, his face leached of color. “Why would you hope for hell, Evie?”

“I-I’m sorry.” This was the first time he’d ever frightened me. I kept thinking of him as childlike, and he was in some ways. But he was also volatile, and as strong as a full-grown man. “What does the rain do, Matthew?” Was precipitation even possible anymore? Surely if there was fog . . .

“The game changes. Not in our favor,” he whispered. “We grow so weak. They grow so strong.”

“Who?”

“All our foes laugh now. But once the sun hides? You’ve never known terror, not like you will when the rains come.”

I shivered from cold—and fear. “I need more of an explanation. Matthew, I need you to clarify these things to me.”

“You’re not ready. You listen poorly. We sit inside this van—because you listen poorly! We are behind, with rain on the horizon.”

“Okay, okay, but I’m ready to listen better now. Tell me what we should be doing. What do you think we should do? I want to know.”

“Too late. Our capture starts soon.”

“C-capture?”

“We need the card in the cage.”

Glancing up through the windshield, I asked, “What are you talking . . .” My words trailed off, my heart dropping.

In the wafting mist, a ragtag group of militiamen—all armed to the teeth—stalked closer.

Like a hunting party.

“Matthew, you follow me now,” I whispered as I strapped on my bag and crawled to the back doors of the van. “Grab the machete. We’ve got to slip out, quietly.” I cracked open one door, wincing as the hinges groaned—

Three shotguns were pointed at my face.

* * *

“Looky what we found,” the leader of our captors announced as he shoved Matthew and me through the crowd in their camp.

On the long trek here, I’d determined that he was as dentally challenged as he was odor-enhanced. Apparently this entire encampment was.

These militiamen were what Jackson would call cou rouge.

Because they were seriously red of the neck.

During our capture, Matthew hadn’t fought whatsoever. In fact, as they’d snared my wrists with those plastic zip ties, he’d put his hands behind him, making it easier for them to bind.

I hadn’t wanted him to resist—we’d been surrounded by aimed rifles—but maybe he could have made a show of displeasure?

We’d been abducted, our van looted, my bag ransacked. The leader had stolen all my jewelry and whiskey bottles, tossing the rest.

Now as the head Cou Rouge maneuvered us through the camp, I kept my eyes open for Jackson and Selena —and tried to ignore the way men stood when I passed, ogling me with lecherous eyes.

They all seemed to have winter-weather gear, though many of their jackets sported what looked like bullet holes. I frowned. Bloody ones—often in the back.

My lips parted with realization. Bullet holes from where they’d gunned down their victims, then stripped their clothes.

“She smells good enough to eat,” one man said as he grabbed his crotch.

I shuddered with revulsion, so tempted to try my claws. They could easily slice through those ties. Matthew had once told me they could even cut through metal.

But then what? These men had guns. I was a slow runner, and I’d never leave Matthew behind.

I’d probably end up cutting myself anyway. And what would I do if dead grass sprouted green under my drops of blood?