At length, he backed away. “The mortal has another he cares for, would risk his life for.” He took a seat at the table.
“Jack doesn’t love Selena.”
“Maybe he could if you gave him cause to. Let him go, then give them your blessing.”
My heart hurt just to think about it. If another of Jack’s opportunities came up, would he take it? At least, in time?
“Things will be different when you come home with me. I’ll teach you about the game. We’ll investigate the histories and chronicles I’ve collected. I’ll teach you more about your powers.”
“But you won’t simply tell me about them?”
He pointed to his swords. “I can tell you how to wield a sword, but you won’t have built up the strength to hold it yet. You won’t have practiced. How much success will you have brandishing it in a conflict?”
“You’re not my only resource. I can get help from my grandmother. Not to mention Matthew. And he doesn’t require anything in return.”
A troubled expression crossed Aric’s face. “Empress, let him rest.” His tone left me with a sense of unease—
The timer went off, startling me.
Before I could blink, Aric was in front of me, reaching for my hand. He expected me to fend off bloodthirsty zombies by myself, yet offered assistance down from a counter?
“What can I do to help?”
“Find some plates and forks.”
Once we’d sat down to our meal, I said, “It’s not as fancy as you generally like things.”
“The company is so exquisite, she makes everything so.”
“You can be smooth—I give you that.”
“Labu apetīti. Good appetite.” He took a bite. “This is surprisingly delicious.”
“You’re just saying that.” I sampled mine, my eyes going wide. “It’s really good.”
Between his slow grins, the hot food, and the cold beer, I started to relax. By the time I’d finished my plate, my belly was full, my mind buzzed.
“I sense questions simmering in you.” He appeared as relaxed as I felt. “Ask them.”
He’d once told me I’d asked more questions in this life than in the ones before combined.
“Why did Matthew call you Tredici? Is that your last name?” I didn’t even know Aric’s surname. Of course, it’d taken me three months just to get his first.
“Tredici is Italian for thirteen, my card number. I believe the Fool hailed from Italy once.”
Matthew had introduced himself as “Matthew Mat Zero Matto.” Il Matto meant The Fool in Italian.
As I turned over this new information, Aric said, “My last name—and yours as well—is Domīnija.”
Before I could stop myself, I’d tried it out in my head: Evangeline Greene Domīnija. That’d be a bitch to bubble in on a test.
I didn’t bother to argue the point with him. “Will you tell me why Matthew owed you a debt?”
“I kept a secret for him.”
Was I finally going to discover this connection between the two? “And that would be. . . ?”
“. . . not a secret if I told you.”
“But he reneged.”
Aric’s lips curled. “And yet I do not.”
Dead end.
When he rose to get more beers, I asked, “What were my given names in the past?”
He hesitated on his way back. “I’ve uttered those names . . . I felt . . .” At length, he said, “I’d rather not discuss this.” Still so affected after all this time?
He sat once more, opening the bottles.
I gazed at his right hand, at the four miniature icons that represented his kills: a white star, navy-blue weighing scales, two black horns, and a gold chalice. “Do you ever feel the heat of battle?”
“I did. I learned to control it when I met you.” He peered at my own icons: a lantern and a pair of raised fingers. “The Fool told me you consider your Empress nature to be a separate entity. A red witch.”
“He told you that?” How embarrassing! It made me sound like a psycho. Jack knew about it, but only because he’d listened to my story on tape.
Aric shrugged his armored shoulders. “After the Flash, I saw you restrain your Empress nature again and again. I was curious how.”
“Jack helps with that.”
Aric’s lips thinned. “When you stabbed me with your claws, but withheld your poison, he wasn’t near. Did this ‘red witch’ not whisper for you to end me when I was defenseless before you? Yet you protected me instead.”
“That’s true,” I admitted. “She’s icon crazy, but I controlled her. When I told Matthew that, he wanted to know if I could invoke her.”
“You’ve reined in your red witch—because you’ve never truly unleashed her. You must learn how.”
“Pardon? I didn’t hear you correctly. I poisoned a mine full of cannibals. My vines cracked the Alchemist’s house like an egg.”
“And still you drew on only a fraction of your power.”
For so long, I’d feared going full-on Empress—and never turning back to Evie. Just when I was starting to feel more in control, Aric and Matthew wanted to amp up the red witch. “Say I could free her more. What if she wanted to kill you?”
“I wouldn’t fight you. So you’d have to figure out how to rein her in at any time.”
“It’s too dangerous.” In my first combat against Death, I’d embraced her. I remembered telling myself, I am the red witch! . . . I’m going to win the entire game! Which would mean that all my friends would be dead. “I’ve been doing okay.”
“Some of the remaining Arcana have unspeakable powers. You’ll need to invoke your witch to survive—just as those Bagmen summoned their strength to rise.”
“Unless I stop the game.”
“There are some who’ll keep coming, even if they don’t have to.”
“Like the Emperor.”
At the mere mention of that card, Aric’s demeanor changed, his irises darkening to cold amber once more.
“What happened with him?”
“It’s a matter too wearisome for our night together.” He drank deep. “Tell me about your grandmother.”
His expression was so stark that I let him change the subject. For now. “Don’t you already know as much as I do? Since you trespassed in my thoughts for so long.”