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“Courage, friends,” she said to the others. “This is where we die.”

43

The Empress

“It doesn’t have to hurt,” I told the three Arcana. “You’ll just go to sleep.” My vines shot around them, entangling them as if in a web.

“Evie, you’re still in there.” Fauna struggled against my hold, a fly for a hungry spider. “Think about what you’re doing!”

“There’s no shame in surrender.”

She muttered, “Circe, do something. Hit her with a wave.”

The Priestess’s fists clenched as she strained to control what remained of the river.

I laughed when puddles sloshed the banks.

She told Fauna and the Sun, “Nothing can stop her now.”

“Nothing,” I agreed. “Nothing in existence—”

Movement to my side. The Chariot had roused! His anguished gaze took in the scene.

My prisoners and new look. The Emperor’s body in a cage of thorns.

Before my vines caught the Chariot, he’d teleported.

I shrieked with frustration, tightening my hold on the others. Now I’d have to hunt down both him and the Fool.

No matter. Though it’s not my way, I can hunt. Like Demeter, I would scour the earth for them—and for my child. I gazed back at the three Arcana. “Where were we?” Ah, yes, icons up for grabs. Yet a sense of déjà vu struck me, as if I’d been in this very position before.

The Priestess raised her chin. “This wasn’t what Death wanted.”

Fauna added, “He told you to find your way back! You gotta bring Evie back.”

Hardly. If even I felt the loss of Death this keenly, Evie would never recover. She couldn’t survive this hellscape or protect Tee. I was best suited for the apocalypse.

It had always been awaiting me. Mother Nature had an ax to grind, would withhold viciously—

The Chariot returned; he wasn’t alone. He’d teleported to the hangar to fetch Jack and Tee.

“Evangeline?” Jack hugged the baby tighter, his gaze flicking from my face to my crown to all the destruction around us. He did a double take at Aric’s armor. “What the hell’s goan on?”

My vines shot out to the Chariot once more. Before I seized him, he collapsed.

His lids slid closed, his wife’s name on his lips. “Issa . . .” He had no hands, yet he still reached for her as he died.

“Kentarch!” Hugging Tee close, Jack bent down to take the man’s pulse. “He’s . . . gone.”

I hadn’t killed him, but I now wore his murderer’s icon, so the Chariot’s also belonged to me. Sure enough, a new symbol shivered across my hand: the proud head of a horse.

“Gabe and Joules, too? Dominija?” The grief in Jack’s expression called to Evie’s, so I buried her deeper. Instead of grief, I gloried in my collection of icons.

Jack rose and told me, “You’ve got to rein this in, Evie.”

“She’s about to kill us.” The Priestess struggled against the vines. “Betraying us yet again.”

“Peekôn, you’re not a murderer. You’re loyal to your friends, always have been. You’re goan to snap out of this.”

When Tee started sniffling, I reached out my clawed fingers toward Jack. “Give me my son.”

“Okay, mais yeah, but just hold on now. Kentarch used the last of his strength to teleport me here, and I’m goan to bring you back.”

“Oh, there’s no hope of that.”

“There’s always hope. You said I was your reminder that you want to be good. Your link to humanity.”

“That was before—when I wanted to go back. I don’t anymore. In the choice between good and evil, I’ll choose evil.”

“You doan mean that. Let me pull you to safety.”

“I don’t want safety. Or humanity, for that matter. The monsters will just keep coming. I have to protect my son from them.”

“There’s more left than that! I used to think that way, but I was wrong. Good still exists.”

My vines shot toward Jack and pried my son loose. Tee began crying in earnest, which added to my agitation.

Jack fought me. “Stop this! You stop it right now.” He was no match for my vines. None of them were.

I shoved Jack away and cradled my son to me. “Come here, little love.”

When I blocked Jack from getting closer, he yelled, “You’re not evil! I’ll never believe that, Evie. Jamais.”

My son’s cries quieted as he stared up at me in shocked fear. I saw myself reflected in his eyes: leaf-strewn hair, glyphs glowing across my pale skin, gaze burning with malice. Clearly, I was evil. “Oh, I am, Jack. And I have been for so long.”

Tee would grow used to me. He’d have to. Because when I was done with the world, it’d be drenched in poison. Only we two could thrive.

Even now black vines were covering everywhere soil had dared to dream. They strangled mountains and licked at the Priestess’s domain.

Poison. Misery. Suffering.

Yet Tee flinched from me. From me? His mother! His face scrunched up, and he burst into tears again.

“Evie, doan you hurt that boy! We can’t ever come back from that.”