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“Speed freeze!” Gabe yelled from the bunkroom.
Ting . . . ting . . . ting . . . ting ting ting!
33
Death
Day 882 A.F.
My greed can no longer be borne.
As I silently paced our room, waiting for Tee’s customary 2 a.m. awakening, realization hit me with perfect clarity.
My end had come. I’d found no way out of this box.
I passed by the sleeping form of my wife and crossed to the crib, gazing down at my son as my thoughts raced.
I’d tried to justify my continued existence over the five months since he’d been born. Didn’t I deserve the happiness I’d found with my new family? Hadn’t I suffered enough to have earned a respite?
Tee had just grown his bottom teeth. He was even crawling! In another few months, he’d walk. I longed to see that.
I wanted him to call me “Father.” As every parent should do, I wanted to teach him to be better than I had been.
But above all, I wanted him to live in a world where he could thrive. After the first speed freeze, Evie had absently admitted, “He needs more than sunlamps and loving aunts. He needs other kids, and school, and sunny days with ice cream.”
Yes. Though I couldn’t give him those things, I could start the world on that path.
I called to Matthew, Help me, Fool. As you have in the past. Silence continued to greet me.
The rules of the game were clear. I’d failed to change them; now I must abide by them. All must perish but one.
I gazed back at Evie. She slept on, reaching toward my side of the bed. The two of us only grew closer. The longer I lived, the more she would grieve.
So immersed in my role of husband and father, I’d forgotten my role over eternity: assassin. I would ride out and hunt my enemies as I had so many times before. Now that I was ready to end the game, fate would lead me to them; it always did.
And then . . . I wouldn’t stop at my enemies. Like the Reaper I’d been, I would harvest all the Arcana, including myself. For Evie. For our son. For humankind.
The time was now. The weather would continue to worsen. We’d closed all the shutters, living as if in a giant coffin.
The threat of the freezes meant Tee couldn’t go outside to play in the snow, or ride with me atop Titan. He loved horses, but we dared not risk the short walk to the stables.
Circe had informed us just today that she’d cast the memory spell for all of those in our alliance. Our every preparation was in place.
The only reason I hadn’t ridden out already was because I feared leaving Evie and the baby alone. I’d left her before and had narrowly returned in time to dispatch Ogen. What if Fortune and the Emperor found the castle? Despite the freezes, vines and trees continued to spread around our stronghold, like a green beacon in the desolate landscape.
Their growth puzzled Evie. Not I. Like so many Arcana before her, the Empress was deploying lures for her prey.
The red witch craved her due, acting without Evie even realizing it. . . .
Today I would demand that Kentarch and Jack come to the castle to protect my family, and then I would set out.
Right on schedule, Tee blinked open his amber eyes, grinning to see me in the firelight. I used to pace this castle alone; no longer. Each night I haunted the halls with him, relishing his every sigh and twitch.
I sometimes wondered if he woke on purpose, just to enjoy dozing back off cradled in my arms. When he raised his hands to me, I lifted him from the crib and whispered, “You are supposed to be asleep, my little one.”
Tee flashed his new teeth, then laid his head against me. My heart went aloft with the stars. “I will miss you so much, son.” Aching, I said, “Shall we make our rounds then?”
By the time I reached the study, his eyes were closed, his chest rising and falling with even breaths. Now he would slumber soundly till what used to be dawn.
So trusting. So loving.
I quietly added a log to the embers in the fireplace and lit a candelabra.
Circe glided into the room moments later. She smiled fondly at Tee, then raised her gaze to me. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“No. Nor you?”
She shook her head and took a seat. “My thoughts are much consumed with the future for a woman who doesn’t have one.”
“Any conclusions?” I sat behind the desk and switched my sleeping son to my other arm.
“I’m glad you have a plan to save the Empress, Jack, and Tee.”
Evie believed we would double-cross Jack and leave him at the hangar with Tee. Jack believed we would double-cross Evie. I planned to trick both of them. “I take it you heard my conversation with the Chariot?”
