“Let’s? As in let us?” Death peeled his hand away “You don’t understand. You were never to be risked in this endeavor. Never. We wouldn’t be facing mere Bagmen or mortals, and you still haven’t learned to invoke the red witch fully.”
Jack scowled at me. “You told him about the red witch?”
I breezed past that, facing both of them. “There could be more danger out here. An army of carnates could be lying in wait around the mountain. Besides, the twins don’t want to kill me right away. So as long as I’m near, you’ll be safer. Not to mention that we have their father. Maybe they’ll be protective of him.”
“Oh, ouais, we’ll just use you as a human shield.” Jack raised his brows. “Not having it.”
“We’ve come this far, and we will save her. Aric, you’re going to blow the door, and Jack, I’m coming with. If you two try to leave me behind, then you better shackle me.”
“We would be walking eight icons into their lair,” Aric grated. “They will be ruthless.”
I pleaded with my eyes, telling him, Selena’s being punished for things I did. You know better than anyone what I was like back then. If we don’t save her, I won’t be able to live with myself.
When he still wouldn’t relent, I raised my hands again, claws extended. “How much blood do you think it’ll take to bore a hole through a mountain?”
He muttered something in Latvian.
“I know that look.” Jack shook his head ruefully. “Doan worry; she’ll give you your balls back as soon as she’s done getting her way.”
I lowered my hands and squared my shoulders. “Getting my way— or leading the way?”
Jack raised his own hands in surrender. “Lead on, peekôn.”
To Aric, I said, “What are you packing?”
“It seems I can deny you nothing.” With another foreign phrase, he crossed to Thanatos, took a small cloth bundle out of his saddlebag, then returned.
Jack’s curiosity was blazing. My own as well.
Aric gingerly unfolded the edges of the black material (because of course it was black). His eyes sparked as he revealed . . . a shimmering silver baton.
I gasped. “That’s one of Joules’s!” Engraved metal gleamed. “How did you get it?”
“I caught it from the Tower, long before he was Joules.” In a dry tone, Aric said, “He shouldn’t have minded, since he threw it away.”
I found my lips curling. “Why didn’t it explode in your hand? You could have lost your entire arm!”
“I took it out of the air, catching it as one would an egg. Loss was possible. But so was gain.” Aric gazed down at me. “Without risk, life grows stilted, no?”
Jack watched our interplay keenly.
“You’ve seen this baton before, Empress, on one of the shelves in my study. Next to the crowns of the many monarchs I have felled,” he added, no doubt for Jack’s benefit.
Aric had safeguarded all of those treasures in his home for eons. But now he’d taken one off his shelf, out into the world—because he was out in the world.
He was no mere observer. The Endless Knight was interacting with us—living. Aric was right; he did evolve.
“It’s priceless, yet you’ll still use it for this?”
He inclined his head. “For you.”
Was he willing to part with one of his possessions because he thought he would have a life with me? If I didn’t choose him, would he go back to stasis? To misery? “Why did you bring it?”
As if a switch had been flipped off, Aric’s gaze went cold. “Lest we ran afoul of the Emperor.”
Once we’d rescued Selena, I would get to the bottom of Death’s animosity toward that card.
“Is that goan to have enough juice?” Jack eyed the baton, then the bunker door, and back.
“From what I understand,” Aric said, “the firepower is dependent on how hard it’s thrown—and I’m far stronger than Joules.”
Jack cast me a look: I can’t even with this guy.
“In any case, I’ll aim for your explosives on the door.”
Dragging Milo with us, we took cover behind a rise of rock about a hundred feet away. Aric manipulated the javelin until it extended to its full length.
Milo must’ve realized what Death held. He went buggy-eyed, yelling into his gag.
“Ready?” Aric surveyed us. “When I throw, I’ll cover the Empress. Because—armor.”
“Just do it, Reaper!”
He took aim, exhaled a breath. Lips thinned, he launched the javelin, unleashing that harnessed aggression of his.
The spear’s trajectory didn’t arc, just sped in one line. Like a bullet.
He hunched down, covering me right before it hit. The blast reverberated from the door.
The mountain quaked, the ground rumbling. Gravel rained from the ridge shielding us. As the percussion subsided, smoke billowed.
Had we succeeded?
The air began to clear . . . revealing the warped door. Metal had melted, leaving a huge hole.
Aric had done it! I wanted to hug him, but I quashed my excitement. This was only step one.
Besides, he looked anything but celebratory. “Don’t make me regret that, Empress.”
We approached the entrance with caution. Foreboding red emergency bulbs flashed from the interior, the only source of light.
Jack had his bow at the ready in one hand, Milo’s jacket collar in his other. Aric had unsheathed both swords. My claws dripped.