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I heard Dominija murmur something to her but didn’t catch the words. Her voice softened as she said, “This sounds important to you.”

Not just important. Critical. I would never rest until I discovered what those coordinates promised. This was the ultimate quest for a guy who’d dug at puzzles his entire life. “Text me a picture of Tee, and I’ll check back soon.”

“Okay, stay safe, Jack.”

“Hey, Evie?”

“Yeah?”

“Happy birthday, peekôn.”

The Empress

Jack had somehow remembered my birthday.

After I hung up, I told Aric, “I totally forgot. Wow, Tee and I share a birthday.” I gazed over at him snoozing in the crib.

“Which will make them easy to remember in the future.”

Will you be here for Tee’s first birthday? Will I?

Aric sat beside me on the bed and drew a felt-covered box from his pocket. “This can’t compete with what you gave us earlier”—Tee made a sweet baby sound in his sleep—“but perhaps it will bring another smile to your face.”

“You remembered too?” I opened it to find a beautiful golden locket with a rose filigree pattern. “A necklace?” He’d given me one in a past game, and it hadn’t gone over well. Why would he now?

Then I looked inside and saw a picture of Tee. While I’d slept, Aric had snapped and printed a photo of our son to place in this locket.

Eyes lively, Aric said, “I’ll put a lock of his hair in there once he has enough to spare.”

“I want a picture of you too.”

“As you wish.”

I pressed the gold against my cheek, warming it. “I will always keep you two close.”

“There’s something else.” He crossed to his closet and returned with a weighty book. “For you and for Tee.”

On the cover was a handwritten title.

Death XIII

Chronicles of Aric Dominija, the Endless Knight

My lips parted.

25

The Empress

Day 791 A.F.

Kneeling in the pantry with Lark, clipboard at the ready, I rubbed my hand over my nape with a frown. I swore I was picking up on another’s presence in the castle.

But no one could have breached my green brigade outside. Over the last two months since Tee’s birth, menacing briars continued to guard the castle.

“Something up?” Lark asked. She and I were inventorying supplies while Tee napped.

I often bundled him against me with a body-vine carrier, but today’s work was dusty, so I’d put him down in his crib. Outside, Aric trained with Titan in the spotlit arena.

No one could have sneaked past him either. Still . . . “I don’t know.” Just to be safe, I checked in remotely with Tee’s baby monitor: a soft leaf in his onesie. Through the monitor, I could sense if his heartbeat sped up.

Slow and steady. Still snoozing away. I pictured my chubby wittle guy snuggled in his Goth crib and found myself grinning. “It’s all good.” Was I overprotective? Yes. But nothing compared to Aric. He was hypervigilant of his mini-me.

Earlier I’d watched Death from the window as he ran his mount through its paces in the snow. Something about his demeanor was even more ruthless than usual. My armored knight worked to protect not only me and our home, but our child too.

Against a backdrop of a lightning-slivered sky, he’d been magnificent.

“What about this one?” I handed Lark a package of cornstarch.

She sniffed it, shrugged, and let it pass quality control. I marked it on my clipboard list.

“So Jack and the guys are closing in on Kos’s coordinates?”

I nodded. “He texted earlier today.” Having miraculously avoided the plague, they’d been out in the Ash for weeks, struggling against storms. My worry had been as nonstop as their journey.

What if they encountered Richter out on the road? Or more cannibals? Jack had texted that they saw signs of them everywhere.

In other words, picked-clean remains. “Can you imagine being out there right now? The earth couldn’t be more messed up.”

“At least adventuring out on a mission with friends would be exciting—sniffing out new territory and living by your wits. Being cooped up here is for the birds.”

I had to grin at her animal phrasing.

“Do you think the guys’ll find that hangar?”

“Maybe.” If it existed and if they located it, they might come across more information about the game—such as a clue about how to stop it.

Aric’s completed translation had failed to provide one. He hadn’t come out and told me he didn’t believe the game could be stopped, but we were running out of avenues to investigate.

“Hey, they might run into the Fool out there,” Lark said. “I mean, aren’t we supposed to converge?”

“Yeah. Unless Matthew doesn’t want to.” Possible. “I just wish I knew where he was.” Was he alone and scared? I hadn’t seen him in person in more than a year, not since we’d left Fort Arcana to save Selena from the Lovers. He’d been in such pain, reeling from his godlike abilities.