Caraval Series, Book 1
Page 18
Julian made a strangled sound. “That’s not easy at the moment.” His lips were in her hair, and his hands were just below her hips, clinging to her curves.
“Oh,” Scarlett said. Her pulse kicked up again, and as it did, she could feel Julian’s heart rushing against her chest. A week ago she could never have relaxed in this situation; even now it was difficult. But despite his lies, somehow she knew that she was safe with him. He’d never hurt her. She forced herself to take a calming breath, and as she did the wall stopped moving.
Another breath.
The room grew slightly bigger.
Outside there were still no sounds of her father. No footsteps, no breathing. None of his noxious stench.
A moment later the walls against her back were warmer, a bright contrast to the now damp parts of her dress. As the room expanded, she could feel Julian relax as well. Most of Scarlett’s body still touched his, but not so closely as before. His chest moved in rhythm with hers, slow and even as the walls continued to scale back.
With every breath they took, the chamber heated. Soon there were tiny pinpricks of light, dotting the ceiling like dust from the moon and illuminating a glowing knob above Scarlett’s right hand.
“Wait—” Julian warned.
But Scarlett had already opened the door. The minute she did the room disappeared. Before and behind them, a low passageway stretched out, embedded with broken seashells that glowed like the stones had, the ground covered by a trail of petal-pink sand.
Julian cursed. “I hate this tunnel.”
“At least we lost my father,” she said. No footsteps sounded in any direction. All Scarlett could hear were crisp ocean waves colliding in the distance. Trisda didn’t have pink beaches, but the echoing push and pull of the water reminded her of home, along with something else.
“How did you know I could get you into the game?” Scarlett asked. “I didn’t receive my tickets until after you arrived on Trisda.”
Julian kicked up more sand with his boots as he walked a little faster. “Don’t you think it’s strange you don’t even know the name of the man you’re marrying?”
“You’re changing the subject,” Scarlett said.
“No, this is part of your answer.”
“All right.” She lowered her voice. She still didn’t detect any other footsteps, but she wanted to be safe. “It’s a secret because my father’s controlling.”
Julian toyed with the chain of his pocket watch. “What if there was more to it?”
“What are you getting at?”
“I think your father may have actually been trying to protect you. Before you get upset, just hear me out,” he rushed on. “I’m not saying your father is good. From what I’ve seen I’d call him a dirty bastard, but I can understand his reasons to be secretive.”
“Go on,” Scarlett said tightly.
Julian explained what Scarlett already knew, about Legend and her grandmother Annalise. Though Julian’s version of the story was different from her grandmother’s. In his tale, Legend started out with more talent and far more innocence. All he cared about was Annalise. She was the entire reason he transformed into Legend; it had nothing to do with a desire for fame. Then before his first performance, he found her in the arms of another, wealthier man, whom she’d planned to marry all along.
“After that, Legend went a little mad. He vowed to destroy Annalise, by hurting her family the way she’d wounded him. Since Annalise crushed his heart, Legend swore he would do the same to any daughters, or granddaughters, unfortunate enough to be a part of her line. He would ruin their chances at having happy marriages or finding love, and if they went mad in the process, even better.”
Julian tried to say the last part as if he weren’t altogether serious, but Scarlett could still clearly remember her dream. Legend didn’t just make women fall in love, he drove them mad with it, and she had no doubts he was doing the same thing to Tella right now.
“So, when my friends and I learned of your engagement,” Julian went on, “we knew it was only a matter of time before Legend invited you to Caraval so he could break it off.”
Again, he made it sound so much less harmful than it was. But Scarlett’s engagement was her entire future. Without this marriage, she’d be doomed to a life on Trisda with her father.
As the sandy path grew steeper, she struggled to walk up it, thinking back to the foolish letters she’d sent. She’d never signed her full name until the very last one, when she’d written about her wedding—the one Legend had chosen to respond to.
Scarlett could see Julian’s story making sense, but she wondered how a simple sailor would know all this. She narrowed her eyes at the dark-haired boy beside her, and asked the question that had visited her thoughts on more than one occasion. “Who are you really?”
“Let’s just say my family is well connected.” Julian flashed a smile that might have looked charming to some, yet Scarlett could see there was nothing remotely happy about it.
She recalled the gossip she’d overheard in her dream. Julian’s family had turned his sister away after learning of her illicit relationship with Legend. From what Scarlett knew of Julian she couldn’t imagine him to be so judgmental, but he must have felt the guilt all the same. It was an emotion Scarlett was far too familiar with.
For several beats they walked in silence, until she finally gained the courage to say, “It’s not your fault, you know, what happened to your sister.”
For a fragile moment, as thin and long as a stretched-out spiderweb, there was only the waves in the distance, and the crush of Julian’s boots in the sand. Then: “So you don’t blame yourself when your father beats your sister?” His words were whisper-soft, but Scarlett felt each one acutely, reminding her of every time she’d failed Tella.
Julian stopped walking and slowly turned to face her. His steady gaze was even softer than his voice. It reached out to the broken parts of her like a caress. The type of touch that moves through damaged flesh, past fractured bones and into a person’s wounded soul. Scarlett felt her blood go hot as he watched her. She could have been wearing a dress that covered every inch of her skin and she would have still felt exposed to Julian’s eyes. It was as if all her shame, her guilt, the awful secret memories she tried to bury, were laid bare for him to see.
“Your father is the one to blame,” he said. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”
“You don’t know that,” Scarlett argued. “Whenever my father hurts my sister it is because I have done something wrong. Because I failed—”
“Help!” A scream tore through their conversation like a gust of wind. “Please!” A familiar shriek followed.
“Tella?” Scarlett started running, kicking up a flurry of pink sand.
“Don’t!” Julian warned. “That’s not your sister.”
But Scarlett ignored him. She knew her sister’s voice. It sounded only a few feet away; she could feel it vibrating. Louder and louder, it echoed off the sandstone walls until—
“Stop!” Julian’s arm snaked around Scarlett’s waist, pulling her back as the sandy path abruptly ended. A few unfortunate grains skittered off the edge, falling into foamy blue-and-green waters churning more than fifty feet below.
All the air rushed out from Scarlett’s lungs.
Julian’s cheeks were flushed with color, hands shaking as he continued to steady her. “Are you all—”
But the end of his words were sliced off by evil laughter. A sour sound of nightmares and other foul things. It poured out of the walls as pieces of it twisted into tiny mouths.
It was another trick of the maddening tunnels.
“Crimson, we should keep moving.” Julian gently touched the edge of her hip, guiding her back to a safer path, while the tunnels continued cackling, a warped version of her sister’s precious laugh.
For a moment Scarlett had felt so close to finding Tella. But what if she was already too late to save her sister? What if Tella had fallen so madly in love with Lege
nd, given herself to him so completely, that once the game ended she would want her life to end as well? Tella loved danger the same way candlewicks loved to burn. It never seemed to scare her that some of the things she lusted for might consume her like a flame.
As a girl, Scarlett had been drawn to the idea of Legend’s magic. But Tella always wanted to hear about the master of Caraval’s darker side. A part of Scarlett couldn’t deny there was something seductive about winning the heart of someone who’d vowed to never love again.
But Legend wasn’t just jaded; he was demented, adept at making people fall not only in love but also into madness. Who knew what sort of twisted things he was leading Tella to believe? If Julian hadn’t stopped Scarlett just now, she might have run straight off that cliff, and crashed to her death before she even realized her mistake. And Tella leaped forward without thinking far more often than Scarlett.
Tella had been only twelve the first time she’d tried to run off with a boy. Thankfully Scarlett had found her before their father noticed her absence, but ever since then Scarlett had feared that one day her sister would run into trouble that Scarlett could not rescue her from.
Why couldn’t it be enough for him to ruin Scarlett’s engagement?
“We’ll find her,” Julian said. “What happened to Rosa won’t happen to your sister.”
Scarlett wanted to believe him. After everything that had just occurred, she ached to break down and fold into him, to trust him again like before. But the words he meant as reassuring forced to the surface a question she’d been too afraid to think about since he had made his earlier confession as to why he was there.
She peeled away from Julian’s hand, forcing herself to create distance. “Did you know when you brought us to Caraval that Legend would take Tella the way he took your sister?”
Julian hesitated. “I knew there was a chance.”
In other words, yes.
“How much of a chance?” Scarlett choked out.
Julian’s caramel eyes filled with something like regret. “I never said I was a good person, Crimson.”
“I don’t believe that.” Scarlett’s thoughts raced back to Nigel, the fortune-teller, how he’d told her a person’s future could shift based on what he wanted most. “I believe you could be good if you wanted to be.”
“You only believe that because you’re so good. Decent people like you always believe other people can be virtuous, but I’m not.” He cut off. Something painful crossed his face. “I knew what would happen when I brought you and your sister here. I didn’t know Legend would kidnap Tella, but I knew that he would take one of you.”
25
Scarlett’s legs were boneless, thin skin wrapped around useless muscles. Her lungs ached with the pressure of unshed tears. Even her gown looked tired and dead. The black fabric had dulled to gray, as if it no longer had the strength to hold color. She didn’t remember ripping the lace, but the hem of her bizarre mourning-nightdress hung in tatters around her calves. She didn’t know if its magic had stopped working or if it just reflected how exhausted and unraveled she felt. She’d left Julian at the base of the mahogany stairs, asking him not to follow.
When she returned to her guestroom with its roaring fire and massive bed, all she wanted was to lose herself underneath the covers. To tumble into oblivious sleep until she was able to forget the horrors of the day. But she couldn’t afford sleep.
When she’d first arrived on the isle she’d only been concerned about making it home in time for her wedding. But now that Legend had killed Dante and her father was here, the game had changed. Scarlett felt the press of time, heavier than the crush of all the red beads in Castillo Maldito’s hourglasses; she had to get to Tella before her father found her, or Legend consumed her like a flame burning a candle. If Scarlett failed, her sister would die.
In less than two hours, the sun would set, and Scarlett would need to be ready to start searching again.
So, she only gave herself one minute. One minute to cry for Dante and sob for her sister and rage because Julian was not who she thought he was. To fall on the bed and whine and moan over all the things that had churned out of her control. To pick up Legend’s stupid vase of roses and dash them against the mantel of the fireplace.
“Crimson—are you all right in there?” Julian knocked and burst through the door in the same moment.
“What are you doing here?” She fought back her tears as she scowled at him. She could not bear having him see her cry, though she was fairly certain it was too late for that.
Julian fumbled for words as he cast around for a threat that wasn’t there, clearly distressed to find her sobbing and no other danger to deal with. “I thought I heard something.”
“What did you think you heard? You can’t just burst in here! Go! I need to finish changing.”
Instead of leaving, Julian quietly shut the door. His eyes took in the shattered vase and the puddle on the floor before returning to her tearstained face. “Crimson, don’t cry because of me.”
“You think too highly of yourself. My sister’s missing, my father has found us, and Dante’s dead. These tears are not for you.”
Julian at least had the decency to look ashamed. But he stayed in the room. He sat gingerly on the bed, making the mattress dip beneath his weight as more drops fell down her cheeks. Hot and wet and salty. Scarlett’s outburst had purged some of her pain, but now the tears wouldn’t stop, and maybe Julian was right: maybe a few were because of him.
Julian leaned closer and brushed them away with his fingertips.
“Don’t.” Scarlett pulled back.
“I deserve that.” He dropped his hand and edged farther away, until they were on opposite sides of the bed. “I shouldn’t have lied, or brought you here against your will.”
“You shouldn’t have brought us here at all,” Scarlett snapped.
“Your sister would have found a way, with or without me.”
“Is this supposed to be an apology? If it is, it’s not very good.”
Julian answered cautiously. “I’m not sorry for doing what your sister wanted: I believe people should have the freedom to make their own decisions. But I am sorry for every time I’ve lied to you.” He paused, and when he looked at her his warm brown eyes were softer than she’d ever seen them, and open, as if he wanted her to view something he usually kept hidden.
“I know I don’t deserve another chance, but earlier you said you think I can be good. I’m not, Crimson, or at least I haven’t been. I’m a liar and I’m bitter and sometimes I make terrible choices. I come from a prideful family that’s always playing games with one another, and after Rosa”—he hesitated, his voice taking on the rough, strangled, hard-to-speak edge that came whenever he mentioned his sister—“after she died, I lost faith in everything. Not that it’s an excuse. But if you give me another chance, I swear, I’ll make it up to you.”
Across from them the fire crackled, its heat shrinking the puddle of water on the floor. Soon it would just be the roses and shattered glass. Scarlett thought of Julian’s rose tattoo. She wished he really had been just a sailor who’d happened by her isle, and she hated that he’d lied to her for so long. But she could understand devotion to a sister. Scarlett knew what it was like to love someone so irrevocably, no matter the cost.
Julian leaned against the bedpost, all kinds of tragic and lovely, dark hair hanging over tired eyes, his wicked mouth turned down, and rips marring his once pristine shirt.
Scarlett had made mistakes because of this game as well. But Julian had never held those against her, and she didn’t want to punish him, either.
“I forgive you,” she said. “Just promise me, no more lies.”
With a heavy breath, Julian closed his eyes, forehead knotted into a look somewhere between gratitude and pain. He spoke hoarsely, “I promise.”
“Hullo?” A knock on the door startled them both.
Julian jumped up before Scarlett could move. Hide, he mouthed.
“I have a delivery,” said a feminine voice.
“For who?” asked Julian.
“It’s for the sister of Donatella Dragna.”
Scarlett gripped the poker tighter, her heart hitting an extra beat.
Tell her to leave it at the door, Scarlett mouthed. She wanted to hope it was a clue. But all she kept thinking of was Dante’s severed hand. With a shudder, she imagined Legend chopping off Tella’s hand and delivering it to her room.
After the messenger girl’s footsteps faded, she let Julian open the door.
The box on the other side was flat black, the color of failure and funerals. It stretched in front of her doorway, long, and almost as wide across as Scarlett. Next to it rested a vase with two red roses.
More flowers!
Scarlett kicked over the vase, spilling the flowers across the threshold of her room before pulling the box inside. She couldn’t tell if it felt heavy or light.
“You want me to open it?” Julian asked.
Scarlett shook her head. She didn’t want to open the black box either, but every second she wasted was a second they could be searching for Tella. Carefully she lifted the lid.
“What is that?” Julian’s brows formed a sharp V.
“It’s my other dress from the shop.” Scarlett released a relieved laugh as she pulled the gown from the box. The girl had said it would be delivered in two days.
But something about the dress was off. It looked different from how Scarlett remembered. The color was much lighter, almost pure white—wedding-gown white.
26
The dress seemed to mock her. With sleeves that were nonexistent, and a deep, heart-shaped neckline that looked far from sweet, this piece of clothing was more scandalous than the one Scarlett had chosen in the shop.
The creamy buttons gleamed like ivory in the room’s warm light. At the bottom of the box Scarlett found a small note, attached to a broken pin. “It must have fallen off the gown.”