Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Don’t go anywhere,” Amara ordered La Croix as they were leaving the room, and half an hour later, she snagged him by the sleeve and dragged him to the indoor cave.
“What in all the worlds—”
“In.”
“Amara, what is—”
“In, in.”
“Very well, don’t shove.” La Croix stumbled, caught himself, and nearly fell into Gray’s lap.
“What’s up, La Choy?” Gray held up a small tray. “Don’t worry, I brought snacks.”
“That is not what I was worrying about; thank you all the same.” La Croix glanced around the cave and shivered. “Shouldn’t you be packing?”
Gray’s response was muffled by a mouthful of szarlotka. “’Course not. It was a bluff . . . my God, these are good. Amara wouldn’t abandon this mess, no matter how much they deserve it.”
“Oh.” La Croix loomed over Gray, perhaps by accident, as he pondered. “I hadn’t considered that.”
“Have a seat,” Amara said, settling beside Gray. She couldn’t remember wanting a drink so badly in her life, which is why she didn’t dare fix herself one or five.
“No, Amara, thank you.”
“You can’t want to stand like that, all hunched over,” Gray pointed out. “What if we’re in here for an hour?”
“I shall cope. Everything in here is chilly and damp and I only just got this jacket back from the cleaners.”
“I’m not sitting here craning my neck up to talk to you while you lurk over us like a beautifully dressed gargoyle,” Amara snapped. “Have a seat already.”
With a put-upon sigh, La Croix fussed about and carefully, gingerly, finally sat across from them, as far from the tiny waterfall as possible.
“Thank you.”
“I’m already damp and sad.”
“Sure, but only one of those is our fault,” Gray said cheerfully.
“Not just for meeting us here,” Amara continued after digging her elbow into Gray’s side. “Thank you for declining to join Team Scheme.”
“I cannot.” La Croix rested his forehead on his knees, then straightened. “I cannot believe Hilly would so deceive me.”
“And all the others,” Amara prompted. “Who also deceived you.”
“Cahooting like crazy and leaving you out,” Gray added.
“Yes, yes, death gods can be treacherous, it’s in our nature, all our natures, but Hilly? Unfathomable.” La Croix sighed and studied his palms. “I must now reexamine all I thought I knew about your lady mother.”
“Sure, sure. Perfect timing. You’ve got all the time in the world to brood and ponder my mother’s motivations. Only maybe do something else first?”
“Such as?”
“Tell me about the people who disappeared,” she replied. “You told me you had urgent business with your followers. You said you had to address their concerns about recent events.”
“You do pay attention. How nice to discover new facts about old friends.”
Amara gritted her teeth but kept a pleasant expression on her face. “You told me you thought some had gone missing.”
“And you think this has to do with what’s been done to your father?”
“With what else has been done to my father. Remember, he was all in for the first part of the plan. Things didn’t go to hell until he couldn’t fight an ‘attack’ that wasn’t sanctioned by the group.”
“I still cannot believe—”
“La Croix, we don’t have time for you to come around on this. Please, please stay focused. When Death succumbed to a coma,” she continued, “you were nowhere around. Everyone else—except Chernobog, for obvious reasons—stayed. But you did a fade right after breakfast.”
“I remember. You already interrogated me about this. Ah! And that’s why you did such a thing,” he tsked, and actually shook a finger at her. “You thought I was in on it.”
“Yes. But since you probably aren’t—”
“How dare you!”
“—what have you been doing?”
“Soothing my followers. Some of the ones who relocated to this frozen wasteland had lost loved ones, but their death rituals weren’t working. It was as if—”
“They disappeared,” Gray put in.
Amara nodded. “The same thing happened to me. People who are supposed to die can’t be found. Which is impossible. Right?”
La Croix’s elegant brow furrowed. “You believe it’s connected.”
“You don’t?” she replied.
“I had not thought—” La Croix cut himself off and fumed in the gloom. Finally, he looked up. “What is happening?”
“Something worse than Death not being able to wake up.”
“How vague and horrifying.”
“One way to put it.”
“So what’s next?” Gray asked.
“I have to interrogate my mother.”
“Okay. Bring back more snacks.”