The House of Cards

The House that Does Not Exist

The House that Does Not Exist

"Where am I going?" I ask, rocketing down the highway.

My mother glances in the rearview mirror as she wraps gauze around her cut hand, looking for any cars tailing us. The bloodstained sword lies across the backseat, soaking the red stuff into my fabric seats. My backpack sits on the floor, looking a bit worse for wear.

"Head south," she says, reading an exit sign as we fly by it. She dabs at the cut on her cheek, mopping up the blood on her neck before examining the bruise of her temple. She pokes it gently, wincing. "This situation has gotten entirely out of hand. I need to make a call."

"My cell phone is in my backpack," I inform her, gesturing to the backseat. She stretches back, digging around in the bag before popping up, phone clenched in her fist.

She dials the number she needs, pressing the phone to her ear. "Elizabeth?" She asks. "It's Grace." There is agitated jabbering from the other end of the line, and my mother rubs her left hand against her leg, thumbing her black spade tattoo. "We need help, Lizzie. Greg turned us over to the Huntress. We aren't being tailed yet, but I give her about forty minutes to hunt us down." The woman on the other end says something. My mother nods. "Alright. See you soon. Bye."

She hangs up, placing my phone in a cup holder.

"Who are we meeting?" I ask, glancing in my side mirror and changing lanes.

"A member of my House," she tells me. "We need to change cars. It won't be long before the Huntress is onto us. They don't call her that for no reason."

I chew my lip, and then press down harder on the gas, watching as the needle on the speedometer creeps higher.

My mother does not speak for a while after that, only to giving me directions every once in a while. Eventually, she makes me pull off the highway, onto an empty exit. The road is dark, lined with nothing but trees until a mile away from the exit, where there is a single gas station on one side of the road and a twenty-four hour fast food restaurant on the other. Both are empty except for a single car in the parking lot of the fast food restaurant.

My mother orders me to pull into the parking lot, right next to the other car. I park, just as a man climbs out of the car, dressed in dark clothing, his platinum blond hair brushing past his shoulders. Even though it is the middle of the night, he wears a dark pair of sun glasses, obscuring his eyes.

He tugs his dark glove off his left hand, holding it palm up for us to see the tattoo on his flesh: a black spade, like the one my mother has on her palm, but where she has an eight tattooed beneath it, he has the letter "K".

The King of Swords.

My mother visibly relaxes, and then opens the car door, sliding out.

"Grace?" The man questions. My mother nods. "I am Daniel Feir, the Ki-"

"Hira's son?" my mother interrupts, her eyes going wide. "By the Goddess, it's been too long." She steps forward, pulling him into a hug. It is a strange sight; my mother is not a large woman, and is dwarfed by this man. Although he is only a few inches taller that I am, he is far broader than I, more muscled. Daniel pats my mother on the back, staring over her shoulder at me.

"My Lady Universe," he says, extricating himself from my mother's embrace, and bowing low. "It is an honor."

I shake my head and lay a hand on his broad shoulder. "Do not bow to me, King of Swords," I whisper, "I do not deserve such respect. Please, just call me Maeve."

 I know what Arcana propriety demands, but I do not wish to be given such reverence.

He immediately straightens, pushing his sunglasses up his face to rest on the crown of his head, pulling his hair away from his face. And it is a face that I know-the strong jaw, the smooth skin, the Grecian nose. So familiar, but impossible to place. He fixes me with shockingly blue eyes, the color of the Caribbean, flecked with specks of sea foam green, freckled with gold. They are framed by thick blond eyelashes, almost too light to see.