Book 3 - Page 49 (2/2)

“Like who my sworn enemies are?”

His grin deepened. “Am I to get away with nothing, little wife?”

“Jack was a prisoner of the Lovers, just days ago. I still have no idea what they did to him—but it’s safe to say he’s been through enough without your jabs.”

Aric’s amus.e.m.e.nt faded. “I give as good as I get.”

“Put yourself in Jack’s position. A man with a deadly touch singled out his girlfriend to torment, and she had no clue why. Then the man took her away. Violently. What would you do if someone else treated me like that?”

His expression told me everything.

“In any case, you’re so much older, so shouldn’t you be more mature?”

“Mature? You know I don’t age physically between games, but I probably don’t mentally either.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I go into a kind of stasis.” Staring past me, he said, “The centuries between feel like one long dream. The games are like briefly waking in the night—to an awareness of threat and peril—only to slip back into slumber once the game ends.”

My G.o.d, his existence had been horrific. And then I would come along every few hundred years to crash his life. I took a deep drink.

But I couldn’t feel guilty any longer for misdeeds committed by another incarnation. I wouldn’t. “I’m sorry for your past, Aric. I wish it had been different. I wish I had been. But I refuse to keep paying for what I did in past games.”

He seemed to shake away a haze. “Do you, then?”

“In our first meeting, you skewered me with your sword. In other words: you started it. You didn’t ask me to marry you, just ordered it. I played the hand I was dealt.”

“I take your point.”

Hadn’t really expected him to say that.

“Let’s begin anew, Empress.”

Over the rim of my bottle, I said, “I haven’t decided anything.”

He made a sound of frustration. “The mortal can’t provide for you like I can. I offer you a home. Does he think you’ll live in that muddy outpost?”

Defensive, I said, “Jack plans to rebuild Haven House for me.”

Anger flashed across Aric’s face. He schooled his reactions as quickly as he did everything else, leaving his emotions to seethe beneath the surface. “If you desire something, all you have to do is tell me. It will shortly be yours. You’ll see soon enough.”

I swallowed. Was he referencing the gift he’d spoken of? The trick up his sleeve? I almost dreaded learning what it was.

What if Aric could straight-up end the game? Blow up the machine?

“Deveaux will never understand you as I do. As only another Arcana can.” Aric replaced my beer. Because I’d finished it.

“Maybe not. But we have other ties.” I thought of the ribbon he’d kept all this time, the one now in my pocket. I thought of our mutual longing for our home.

“As do we. We are wed.” Aric set down his bottle, moving in front of me. “I think of you as mine. You don’t see the countless times a day I have to stop myself from touching my wife.” His eyes were just on the verge of glowing. Like this, his gaze reminded me less of stars, and more of a sunrise.

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