Kresley Cole: Endless Knight

To touch me.

And it is then that I know: this boy will win the entire game. . . .

DAY 247 A.F.

—I’m coming for you, Empress.—

I woke, shooting upright. Death was in my dreams and in my mind. It was as if I could sense his presence in my head, a heavy feeling.

Like being possessed.

That dream with him had been so vivid, I pressed my hands to my stomach, expecting to feel a sword.

The details of his handsome face floated at the edges of my memory. He’d looked younger in the dream than he was now, and his black armor had been different, appearing ancient. Was this some kind of vision from another, even earlier game?

Just as Death’s presence faded, a draft ghosted over me. I raised my head, gazing around with unease. I was alone in the lab? With the moldering corpse? Were my surroundings or my nightmare to blame for this ominous feeling I had—

“Get dressed, Evie,” Selena yelled as she bounded down the cellar steps, lobbing a waterproof pack to land right at my feet. “Quickly!”

“What’s going on?” I knelt beside the pack, digging in to find a navy parka, jeans, thick socks, T-shirts, even a supply of undergarments. Leather lace-up boots too. They looked to be about my size.

Under the clothes were Mayday bars, MREs, and energy gel packs—an apocalyptic lunchbox.

As I yanked off my ragged shirt, Selena filled me in. “Baggers are gone for the day, but Matthew foresaw Arcana company approaching. Cards following a kill, as I predicted,” she added in a superior tone.

“Which ones?”

“The Tower, Judgment, and the World.”

I’d seen the first two in battle in a vision Matthew had shown me. Even if I were eager to play the game, I wouldn’t want to tangle with them, especially when I was still so weakened from yesterday. “Have you heard their calls?” Had I slept right through them?

“Not yet. Think they’re still too far away. We were ransacking the Alchemist’s supplies—bastard had everything—when Matt started muttering about jamming the frequencies. Does that mean anything to you?”

I shook my head.

“He said these cards are coming in fast, that we have less than an hour.”

“So we can slip away?” I wondered if I would have time to drain the oaks, or would they be my parting gift to Requiem? At Selena’s nod, I said, “Why are you so keen to avoid a fight?”

She stared me down. “Because today we’d lose.”

Good reason.

She held up a laminated map of the Southeast, dappled with burnout holes. “I’m going to plan our exit out of this valley.” Like a gazelle, she bounded back up the steps.

I drew off what was left of my pants, relieved to see my skin had healed. After I yanked on the new jeans—too long in the legs, too tight in the ass: story o’ my life—I laced up the boots. At least those fit.

With one last glance around, I shouldered the pack and hurried upstairs. Even in the midst of this crisis, I realized I was nervous about seeing Jackson, wondering how he would act today. I wished I’d dreamed of him instead of Death.

In the morning’s dim light, the house looked even stranger, with Bagman slime everywhere and furniture tossed. Drizzle misted my hair through the gaping roof. Wispy clouds sped across the muted sun. After months of either blue skies or brutal dust storms, this gray haze was freaky.

Not to mention Matthew’s prediction that we’d be weak in the rain while our enemies grew stronger.

As Selena pored over the map, Finn helped Matthew stuff supplies into a pack. I noticed Matthew had on a new coat. A relief—he’d been in sore need of something warm to wear. Like most clothing we’d been seeing A.F., it had dark-ringed bullet holes in it, from the previous owner’s demise.

I suspected Finn had sourced it for him. Was the Magician being helpful to make up for his trick? Though pissed at him for his illusion, I did think the boy had a decent heart.

But where was Jackson? I had a moment of panic, wondering if he’d bailed. Surely, he wouldn’t leave me without a word. Not after all we’d been through. It’s you for me, peekôn.

Still, I was about to ask when Selena announced, “We’re in a valley with mountains on three sides. Two sides are too high to scale. The third leads to cannibal country.”

Finn swallowed hard. He’d seen the cannibals when he’d crossed the mountains in the past.

Sensing Finn’s distress, Matthew patted him on his head. “There, there.”

Selena continued, “The only road out of here is a bottleneck. If we can squeeze out before the other Arcana show, I say we head south back to Finn’s cabin. Lure Death to our foxhole, fight him on our home turf. Evie’s powers work best when she can dig in and prepare.”

Finn wiped mist from his face. “You assume I’m inviting you back to my pad, Selena? I’m not leaving this town with you. We’ll be fine on our own.”

She shoved the map into her pack. “Listen, you deceptive little shit, Evie’s the linchpin. I go where she goes—”

“The linchpin’s still going to find her grandmother,” I interrupted. “Like I said, I’m heading to the Outer Banks.” I gazed around. “Where’s Jackson?”

Finn zipped Matthew’s pack closed. “Um, Jack bugged out before we woke up,” he said, his demeanor guilty. “He’s gone, Evie.”

“Not a card,” Matthew said. He’d never felt comfortable with Jackson, a non-Arcana, around.

“ Gone gone?” No, I refused to believe he would abandon me without so much as a look back. Like you abandoned him? my conscience whispered.

Selena rolled her eyes. “What’d you expect? J.D. witnessed you go full-on Empress, all Little Shop of Horrors . I think he got the message: we’re—not—human. Not to mention what he heard in the cellar, about us being in Death’s crosshairs. If I were him, I’d be sprinting away from us as fast as I could.”

That was . . . fair. “I’m surprised you didn’t chase after him.”

“If he’d liked me back, I might’ve asked him to run with me,” Selena admitted. “Even though I’ve accepted that an alliance with you is the single thing that might keep me alive.”

I asked Matthew, “I don’t suppose he’s coming back?”

Matthew gazed at the cloudy sky. “He should’ve said good-bye.”

I surveyed the yard, seeing the Bagmen bodies from the night before. Jackson had collected his arrows from those corpses—on his way out. Ever practical, Cajun.

My eyes watered, but I forced a blank expression on my face. “It’s for the best anyway.” I hated that he’d left! “He didn’t belong with us.” He belonged with me.

Never to see him again? The idea hurt me worse than a sword to the stomach. I asked Matthew, “If Jack is still nearby, will he be safe from other cards?”

Matthew nodded. “Not Arcana.”

Yet we were, which meant we were all in danger. I couldn’t afford to think about Jack right now—I needed to figure out how to survive the next hour!

“All right, Evie, what do we do?” Finn checked a new watch. “We’ve got company in less than forty-five minutes.” He looked at me like I was his leader, like he’d listen to whatever a girl like me had to say.

In the past, no one had consulted me about anything. And I’d been okay with that.

“We run out of the valley, threading the needle,” I said. “But if you want to go with me, then we make a pact not to harm each other, and we make it fast.”

Selena and Finn scowled at each other.

“What are our options?” I demanded. “Say we go back to Finn’s, and Death comes. Say we somehow defeat him. Do we even take a fiver to celebrate our team’s victory—or do we start wiping each other out directly?”