“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 b.i.t.c.h 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 ent.i.ty. A red witch.”
“He told you that?” How embarra.s.sing! 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 trespa.s.sed in my thoughts for so long.”
“Not constantly. I did have my own life to go about. Such as it was.”
My chest squeezed at his words. I drank to cover my dismay. “I don’t remember her all that well. Sometimes my memories contradict each other.”
“How so?”
“I’ll see her as kind and affectionate. In the next instance, I’ll recall her wanting me to become ‘vicious.’” What if she tried to convince me to take out other cards? My friends?
Aric, even.
Maybe Arcana weren’t inherently evil. Maybe our chroniclers or relatives molded us. “In any case, I swore to my mom I’d find her. So I will.”
“And I will help you. You know sourcing is a talent of mine—doesn’t matter if I’m looking for ballet shoes or my wife’s grandmother.”
“Yeah, I don’t see that working out too well. She was furious at me when I mooned over your card.”
“You forget how charming I can be.”
Never. “I once asked Matthew if you would prevent me from reaching Gran. He told me the subject bored you, that you don’t believe in her as I do. So why would you help me?” I finished my beer.
Like a blur, Aric had another round on the table. “As a Tarasova, she knows a great many things.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“I don’t have to believe that she holds the key to the game’s end. You do—and I believe in you.”
Smooth, tricksy knight. “What’s the difference between a Tarasova and a chronicler?” How did Gran differ from Gabriel’s people?
“Chroniclers are historians and guides. Some say each Tarasova is gifted with the sight. Others say she must be a minor Arcana.”
The last time I’d seen Gran, her brown eyes had twinkled as she’d told me, “You’re going to kill them all.”