Jack looked annoyed, no doubt thinking I should have stayed at the fort. He’d once told me that he kept his eye on me to monitor how I was doing because I never complained. But Aric was right; Jack could scarcely glance my way.

In contrast, I found Aric’s eyes on me again and again. And as much as he’d been watching me, he’d been studying Jack.

Earlier, when we’d been forced to slow on a washed-out mountain pass, Jack had finally snapped, “What the hell are you looking at?”

“Something about you is not right.”

“You got a lot of nerve to be saying that about me, Grim Reaper.”

There’d been a couple of other tense exchanges between the two. But for the most part, they’d behaved.

Jack spurred his mount forward over the corpses at a brisk pace. His horse’s hooves ruptured carcasses, sending slushy remains squelching into the air. Bones cracked.

Crack, squelch, crack.

“Just follow my lead, Empress.” Aric started across. Thanatos’s immense weight compacted bodies. Chest cavities and skulls disintegrated under its hooves.

Crack, squelch, crack.

Driving a car over a corpse was one thing, but this . . .

I rolled my head on my neck, then urged my mare forward to pick her way through Thanatos’s gory wake. I really needed to give this poor horse a name. She high-stepped, as if saying “ick, ick” with every hoof fall.

Ahead of me, Death suddenly gripped a sword hilt. Thanatos grew agitated, braided tail flicking.

“What is it?” I called. “Did you hear something?” Over the sounds of our headway?

Jack reined around. Crack, squelch, crack. “Why you slowing down, Reaper?”

“There’s a threat nearby.”

“What direction?” Jack swept his gaze, crossbow ready.

“Even with my uncanny senses, I can’t pinpoint it.” Death surveyed the area with a cool glance. “I doubt anyone could in this fog.”

“Probably just Baggers.” Jack slung his bow back over his shoulder. “Hell, maybe nothing’s out there, and you’re stalling us on purpose.”

“Again, feel free to move on.”

“For all I know, you could be allied with the Lovers, you. All the other Arcana worked together against them. But you showed up a day after.” Jack started forward.

Aric rode up beside him. Crack, squelch, crack. Our gruesome soundtrack seemed to be ratcheting up their tempers. “Perhaps I am merely vigilant when taking the Empress over corpses cloaked in preternatural fog. Do you not have any combat sense?”

“We’re on a clock.”

“Ah. So to rescue the girl you presently favor, you would risk the one you used to favor. You might have a spare female, but I’m intent on keeping the one I have.”

“You stirring up shit? It woan work.”

“To save your precious Archer, you’re leading the Empress of all Arcana on a treacherous journey directly to the Lovers—despite the fact that fate marked her. Still you press onward.”

“It was coo-yôn who told us to ride out together—in order to save Evie!”

“The Fool didn’t say to do it recklessly. He didn’t say to sacrifice one female for the other. I value the Empress above all things. Just as you do the Archer.”

Crack, squelch, crack.

“You doan know what you’re talking about.”

I muttered, “Back here, guys. Falling farther behind you.” I’d only made it about halfway through. Wait . . . Had the bodies beneath me just moved?

No, no. Of course not.

Aric kept at Jack. “You’ve made a life with Selena. Sharing meals, missions, victory celebrations. The king and queen of Fort Arcana, the hunter and his huntress.”

“Is this the kind of underhanded bullshit you been feeding Evangeline for months? You got into her head, sowing doubt about me?” Just past the line of exposed bodies, he slowed to a stop.

Aric intoned, “I’ve told her a great many truths.” He stopped as well, both turning to wait for me.

“So after you mentally tortured her for the better part of a year, you abducted her. Then I’ll bet you tortured her some more.”

Over the last couple of months, I’d blocked out how traumatic my capture had been. My gloved hands tightened on the reins. Or they would have—right now, they were numb. Yes, I’d wronged Aric. But that wasn’t me anymore. Which meant I hadn’t deserved to be tormented.

Jack gazed from Aric to me and back. “On the heels of all that, you fill her head with your truths?” His eyes met mine and lingered. His brows drew together—as if with realization. “Now I understand what’s goan on, me. Couldn’t figure it out before.” I thought a flash of pity crossed his expression—then came a hint of raw, blistering emotion.

“Thrall us, mortal.”

Ignoring him, Jack addressed me, “I’ll be scouting for a shelter to stop at for a spell, bébé. We’ll ease our pace. Just hang in there a while longer.”

Huh? Jack’s attitude had done a one-eighty. If I weren’t so exhausted and freezing, I could make sense of this situation.

The bodies roiled. No mistaking it now. “Uh, things might be shifting under me,” I called. “And it feels—I don’t know—kind of deeper in this spot.” Like I was on a pile of them.

“You’re likely over a clogged culvert of some sort,” Aric said. “Where the corpses circled a drain. Continue forward, Empress.”