Chapter 12
Emilia stands in a chamber where three tunnels converge. Two lanterns flank a ladder descending from the entrance above. The light casts her face in a harsh relief, emphasizing the deep lines of worry on her brow. Her hand rests on the pommel of a sword at her hip.
“I know you’re there, Clara.” Her voice is steady now. “I can feel you. I can fucking smell the blood on you.”
The Five of Cups is chill against my fingertips.
The cold must be sweeping over her because she begins to frantically look around.
The card calls upon the subject’s greatest doubts.
Her brow furrows, and I suspect she’s trying to rationalize her sudden and overwhelming need to second-guess her abilities.
“You know you’re no match for me.” There’s a murderous edge to my voice. I step into the light, wearing nothing but rags and blood and a crazed expression. “Hello, Emilia.”
“Traitor,” she snarls, nearly spits. “To think, I once considered you an ally.”
“And now you hunt me like an animal.” I circle her slowly. She watches my every step, ready to lunge. “On whose orders? Ravin’s? Or your mother’s?”
To her credit, she doesn’t flinch. But her voice is far more composed than her posture. “Turn yourself in.”
“You know I never will. And you’re not in any position to negotiate.” My fingers tighten on the hilt of the dagger in my palm; blood from all those I’ve slain drips from its blade. The weapon thrums faintly, as if purring, pleased with the carnage I’ve offered it.
“Neither are you, by the looks of it,” she counters, eyes flicking to the bruises and wounds across my body.
“You’re exhausted, Clara, held together by magic alone.
But after picking off my knights…just how much do you have left to give?
How much time do you have before your enhancements run out?
Do you have enough cards in whatever decks you’ve stolen to keep going? ”
I ignore her, not allowing weakness to show. “Tell me what you know about my mother’s death, and maybe I’ll let you live.”
Her lip curls into a snarl. “There is no world in which I negotiate with a traitor.” Her hands continue to rest on her weapons, but no card is drawn, and her blade remains sheathed.
She has an opening and she’s not attacking. She’s probably waiting for reinforcements. But the Emilia I knew would attack first and ask questions later—Eza was proof of that. Which means…
She must be under orders to bring me in alive. It’s the only explanation for why I’m still standing. She’d need a lot more muscle to overpower me without killing me.
“This isn’t a negotiation…think of it more like an order,” I say to goad her.
“Your mother’s choices led to her end—just like yours will.” It’s a nonanswer. As I’m figuring out her game, she’s figuring out mine. She knows that I want this information more than I want to attack her.
However much we want to kill each other, we’re holding back blades and cards, seeing who breaks first.
“Her choices?” I take a step forward, waving the dagger nonchalantly as the sound of footsteps growing closer echoes down the tunnels.
“You mean the choices she was forced to make because of the precious king you defend so ardently and thoughtlessly? You’re no better than a dog.
You would turn on your own family if your king commanded you to. ”
Emilia’s control snaps, her face flushing as her voice pitches higher. “Better a bitch than a whore.”
“Excuse me?” My tone sharpens in kind. The knuckles of the fist around the dagger turn white.
“Lies and deceit…you’re so much like her,” Emilia almost growls. “Seducing your way into the arms of powerful men.”
The accusation stings more than it should. Memories of Kaelis’s touch flash through my mind—his hands in my hair, his lips on my neck, the weight of him pressing me into his bed. The way he looked at me like I was something to be worshiped and destroyed all at once.
“You don’t know anything about me,” I caution her.
“I know enough,” she sneers.
My eyes narrow. This is about more than me. What does she know about my mother?
“Why aren’t you killing me?” For the first time, there’s no venom, just genuine curiosity in my words.
Her panic flashes in her eyes. Something that she’s more afraid of than me—of not capturing me.
Whatever it is, it doesn’t linger. With a grunt and the speed of a whip, she lunges, card and steel both at the ready.
I sidestep her first swing, my dagger deflecting a second attack. There’s a burst of fire—Ace of Wands—and I dart back, parrying the blaze with the cool ice of an Ace of Cups.
“Still fast with your blades,” I say, voice surprisingly steady despite my racing heart.
“To think I once used them to defend you,” she snaps, slashing again, faster this time.
I duck low and use the Ace of Coins to shift the rock beneath her boots.
She recovers quickly as I lunge. Our weapons lock, the clash of metal ringing sharp throughout the tunnels.
The few remaining Stellis must be nearly upon us.
Gregor and Jura can only keep them busy for so long.
I’ve already used a lot of energy and magic.
I’m not going to be able to take them on all alone.
But I don’t dare hope my friends enter the fray, either.
“How will you ever survive the shame?” I say, our faces close as we each struggle to get the upper hand.
“Capturing your head might be enough of a balm.” She throws me back just as the last of the living Stellis arrive, emerging from an attached passage. They stop right in the entry.
“Captain!” the leader of the three calls, drawing both of our attention.
My heart sinks, and my whole body freezes.
Jura struggles against his grasp. A dagger is at her throat. The man at his right has her deck in his palm. She’s bloody, but alive. For now.
Gregor is nowhere to be seen.
“Looks like these tunnels are infested with quite a few rats.” Emilia looks from Jura to me.
“I don’t know her,” Jura says, struggling futilely against the knight’s grip. “I was just trying to escape Halazar.”
“You don’t look like a prisoner to me…But if you are an escaped criminal, there’s only one thing for you.” Emilia’s attention shifts to the knight holding Jura. “Kill her.”
“Don’t!” I can’t stop myself. The word tears from my throat before I can think.
Emilia has a wide, triumphant grin. “Quite the reaction for someone you ‘don’t know.’ ” I glare at her, saying nothing. “Let’s make a trade. I’ll let her go free, and you’ll come with me. A life for a life, Clara. A fairer deal than you deserve.”
“Don’t do it,” Jura says, though I barely hear her over the blood racing through my ears. “You know they’ll just follow me and—”
“Shut her up,” Emilia commands calmly.
The Stellis tightens his arm around Jura’s throat, reducing her words to wheezes, and anger flashes through me. But I do nothing. One wrong move and it’s over for Jura. I don’t want to see any more people I love hurt.
“So, Clara, what will it be? Run and she dies. Fight and she dies. Surrender and she lives.”
A thousand thoughts race through my mind. A thousand possibilities. Like a deck shuffling. If Emilia so much as senses magic from me, Jura is dead. I can’t cast anything. I can’t move.
“You know you’re in no position to keep up this fight.” Emilia’s voice has fallen eerily quiet. She can see how weary I am. My time of numbed pain is almost up. “Make your choice.”
What can I do? I look to Jura hopelessly. She merely smiles back at me. But the expression is all sorrow and resignation.
I want to scream, but emotion chokes me.
“Can I say goodbye?” I try to make the question one of pure surrender.
“No.” Emilia’s too smart for that. She’s not going to let me get close. “Dismiss your weapon, deck on the ground, and then two steps back.”
I do as she says, releasing my blade. It vanishes into the air, the magic that formed it unspooling. Then I reach for my deck.
“Clara, don’t!” Jura urges. “You can’t.”
“You’ll let her go? Alive?” I focus only on Emilia as I remove the pouch that holds the remnants of Glavstone’s and Kaelis’s decks.
“I will; I swear it,” Emilia vows.
“Don’t believe her!” Jura’s voice is thin. I scan for any signs of Gregor but find none. Where is he? Did they already get him?
Despite Jura’s warnings, I do believe Emilia. She has honor, in her own way. Slowly, with all their eyes watching me, I place the deck on the ground and step away. Emilia stands taller with triumph.
“Clara, you must keep fighting,” Jura says, drawing my attention back to her.
A card is in her hand, down by her pocket.
They missed it. She didn’t shuffle it into her deck because it wasn’t hers to begin with.
It’s the Queen of Cups, inked by Glavstone.
The card I tried to use to heal Arina in the boat.
She must have pocketed it when it fell in the boat.
“No…” The card is too powerful for her. Jura is tenacious, and strong. But she’s not the best Arcanist among us.
We both know she can’t cast above a five, and I can’t reach my deck. The Ten of Cups is beyond my reach.
Jura meets my eyes, and all the sorrow in the world is contained within them.
It’s unbearable—the way it fills the space between us with everything we never had a chance to say, all the secrets we missed the opportunity to share and never knew it.
The air is as thick as our bond. As heavy as the loss that I already know is coming.
In that instant, we wordlessly share a thousand memories.
The first time I saw her, standing in the doorway of the Starcrossed Club, eyes hollow from weeks upon weeks of seeing Marked Arcanists shipped to mills on the riverboats.
Her hands shaking as she clenched a deck one gifted her.
“He couldn’t use this any longer, but he told me to. How do I help them?”
The first job we did. How she pretended she wasn’t afraid. How I told her she didn’t have to be because she wasn’t alone.
The late nights of drinking Bristara’s wine on the rooftop, swapping fantasies about the futures we’d steal for ourselves if the cards never deigned to give them to us.
The family we found in each other in the wreckage of all we’d lost.
“Don’t,” I breathe. But the sound is too small. Too fragile. And too late.
Her smile is steady and her resolve unwavering, even as her fingers tremble.
“The coffin is full. Have a glass of mulled wine for me,” she says softly, eyes shining with unshed tears.
My stomach drops.
“Stop her!” Emilia has noticed the card.
But it’s too late. The Queen of Cups is cast. It hovers in the air, shining blue. For a moment, I feel its power wash over me, sinking into my joints, mending my wounds. But the second passes in a blink, souring.
The magic begins to shine so bright it’s nearly blinding. Power swells almost like a bulging pustule behind the card. It’s too much for her. The Queen of Cups twists and turns upside down.
Reversed.
A sob claws its way up my throat. “Jura, no!”
“Go, Clara!” she shouts, but I can’t move. I’m stuck. “Don’t let me die for nothing!”
They’re trying to stop her, but it’s too late.
With Emilia and the Stellis distracted, I grab my deck and turn, and a sob escapes, as uncontrolled and frantic as my steps. Jura’s scream chases me—raw agony—splitting my ears as the magic swells.
There’s a snap. Unbearable. A crack of power that I imagine is what it would sound like if reality split in two.
A twisting fissure breaks across the earth. Emilia and the Stellis are shouting. Rock falls, blocking the path between us as a cerulean explosion knocks me back.
There’s a rush of water that quickly freezes into ice. I tumble down a sloped tunnel, gasping for air, catching my balance, losing it, finding it again. My screams mirror hers as the magic reverses; it twists and contorts Jura into something inhuman.
She’s dying.
She’s dying, and I’m running.
Tears stream down my cheeks as the earth implodes. Fractures race beneath my feet. The tunnel collapses behind me. But I keep running.
I keep running, even as the chorus of her screams and the groans of the earth turn to silence.
Just like that, my friend is gone.