13

I woke to a creepy sound. A slurping sound.

I managed to crack open my eyes, and almost lost what was left of my mind.

Four new Bagmen . . . drank me.

They’d bitten me. Had slashed at my clothes to get to my skin. They were greedily sucking my blood, jostling my limp body.

I strained to get away, to summon power . . . too weak. Couldn’t move my limbs. Couldn’t scream. Sol must’ve cracked my skull. Blood loss weakened me more.

The falcon tore at the Baggers’ faces, its beak plucking at their eyes.

Another nightmare? Real? Unreal? This couldn’t be happening. I wasn’t supposed to go out like this!

Sol looked on with his two favored Baggers, their thorn collars gone. He’d called my bluff. The Sun wasn’t gloating, didn’t look pleased or displeased. But he was still doing this to me.

Killing me.

I choked out a word: “Why?” Though I hadn’t trusted him, I hadn’t expected this.

“Already in an alliance.” He fiddled with that watch on his wrist. Then he raised his face to the night sky, and light flared from his eyes. Twin spotlights. A signal. He blinked, and the beams flickered in a rhythm.

To signal what?

I gasped, “Then just . . . kill me.” The falcon still fought, but the Bagmen barely seemed aware of it.

“That’s not the plan. I had them bite you because their mutation neutralizes an Arcana’s powers.” He intended to keep me alive? “At least, it did on the last player who attacked me.”

Who? Sol had been in the game for a while.

He was right, though. I wasn’t able to call forth a vine. Even my regeneration stopped working.

A Bagger above me released his bite, but only to sink his teeth into unbroken skin at my waist. I cried out, powerless to stop it. The falcon went crazy.

Would I join Jack and my mom and Mel on some other plane? Or would I become a Bagman myself, cursed to walk the earth? “You’ll keep me around . . . like Bea and Joe?”

Had Sol flinched?

Despite the risk of turning, I should be glad of even the chance to join my loved ones. But I couldn’t stop imagining Death’s reaction to my horrific murder.

Had Aric believed me when I’d told him I loved him too?

Over the falcon’s furious cries, I heard another sound: swoop swoop swoop. Familiar, but so unexpected; I needed a few moments to place it. A . . . helicopter?

Hadn’t I heard one the night of the massacre? That’s how Richter had escaped Circe!

Did the Emperor approach now? The Sun must have been working with him all along!

Spotlights flared as a copter came into view. The lettering read COAST GUARD RESCUE. It circled overhead, a metal buzzard. If Richter was in there, I needed to bring it to the ground!

But I was helpless, Baggers continuing to drain me. My body would soon be a husk like Tess’s.

The copter landed in the field not twenty feet away, kicking up ash. The wind gusts sent the falcon tumbling away from my attackers.

I turned my gaze toward Sol. He mouthed something to me. I couldn’t be sure what.

The four Bagmen abruptly stopped drinking. They stood and moved back, their lips coated with my blood.

The rotors slowed. Not Richter—a girl climbed from the pilot’s seat and stepped down. Long, jet-black hair curled from her helmet. Behind her mic, her lips were bright red. She wore a green jumpsuit and gloves, and had a pistol holstered to one thigh and a long blade strapped to her other. To take my head?

She strode over to us, yanking off her helmet. Her eyes were vivid hazel, her expression livid. A tableau flickered over her. I saw a wheel spinning in a night sky with a sphinx running on top of it and a winged dragon dancing along the bottom. Ancient clay dice rained down.

The Fortune Card!

Was Lark seeing this? The falcon had taken to the air, circling overhead.

“Que porra é essa?” Fortune snapped at Sol.

“Good to see you too, Zara,” he grated. “And one more time: I don’t understand your Portuguese.” They had known each other all along—Sol and Zara. “Dios mío, that accent!”

“What the fuck?” she said. “Why’d you summon a horde of Bagman freaks?”

Huh? There were only four besides Sol’s pets.

He shrugged. “I can’t help that they’re attracted to me.”

My head was splitting, my stomach churned, and those bites burned like acid. But I wanted answers. Why had Sol played along with me? He’d known who I was the instant my tableau had appeared in Olympus, maybe even sooner, if he could see through his Bagmen.

Sol asked her, “Where is Richter?”

“Kicked back, recharging for the big finale,” she said. “He doesn’t come out for B-team bullshit like her. Did you find out where Death’s lair is?”

Sol had used me to locate Aric’s? For the big finale.

How badly I needed to live, to warn Aric and Lark. But I’d lost so much blood, and the mutation weakened me even more.

Because I was already turning?

“The Empress seemed confident his place is somewhere around here,” Sol said. “Since we’re in the area, we should do a flyover.”

Zara shook her head. “Can’t. I’m on fuel reserves just to pick you up. My whirlybird’s stripped down.”

Sol rubbed the back of his neck. “We need to get airborne.” He pointed up at the falcon. “That’s one of Fauna’s scouts. She allies with the Empress.”