But first she needed to locate her friend.
The carriage made a rocky landing, or perhaps it was Tella’s heart as she heard the last of twelve bells ringing in the midnight hour.
She slipped the luckless coin from her pocket to her hand, praying it would let her friend know she’d arrived to Idyllwild Castle just in time.
Holding the coin tight, she scanned the grounds for her friend, but she didn’t know anything about his appearance. All she saw were crackling torches circling a raised castle that looked trapped somewhere between a ruin and a fantasy. The crumbling white sandstone gleamed beneath Legend’s temporary constellations, showing off ancient battlements, crumbling parapet walks, and fanciful towers lined in vines of black-tipped red roses.
The gleaming fortress could have been borrowed from a young girl’s dream, yet Tella noticed the moat surrounding it contained waters so dark they didn’t reflect any of Legend’s stars. She wondered if it was because the fanciful exterior of the castle was merely a magical glamour, or if the stars were one of Legend’s illusions and Tella had been tricked by them.
Only minutes into the game, and already Tella was questioning what was real and what wasn’t.
She peered back toward the water, looking for her friend again, or for a boat to reach the castle, but it seemed there was only one path to the fortress—a highly arched, narrow bridge of interlocking diamond-shaped stones.
“Searching for your fiancé?” Dante asked.
“Careful,” Tella warned, “you sound jealous.”
“I’m hoping you’ll come to your senses,” Dante said. “This is your last chance to turn around. Our host doesn’t like to make it easy for people to come or go.”
“Then it’s a good thing I enjoy a challenge.”
“It seems we finally agree on something.” Dante tucked Tella’s arm into the solid crook of his elbow, as if silently accepting a dare.
“I thought you didn’t like wearing the same girl to a party twice.” Tella boldly met his eyes.
Dante’s coal-dark gaze shined with something wicked as he leaned down, warm lips brushing her hair and making other traitorous parts of her jealous as he said, “I do whatever my job requires.”
Cocky son of a witch.
Tella should have pulled away, but up close the bridge was even narrower than it appeared from afar and without any rails—exactly like the balcony she’d leaped from during Caraval. The fall that had killed her.
Her fingers dug deeper into Dante’s arm. She hoped he’d think of it as part of the little games they played. That he wouldn’t detect any lingering terror as she asked him a question, in need of a distraction before her legs ceased working, or her lungs stopped breathing. “So what does Legend want with me now?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“But you can say that he tasked you to follow me?”
“I didn’t say that, only that he might have. Maybe you were right in the carriage, and I want to spend the evening with you. Maybe I think you were lying to your sister about our kisses in the forest, and I plan to prove it.”
Dante gave her a smile so dissolute and devastating, Tella swore it made the bridge a little weak. But she couldn’t let it make her weak. Too much was at stake tonight, and she’d already kissed him once.
“Even if I chose to believe you, I’d have to remind you that I have a fiancé and I’m not inclined to cheat.”
Dante’s glorious smile vanished the instant she said “fiancé.”
Tella grinned and patted him on his arm, about to finally pull away when they reached the top of the bridge.
Holy saints. Her breath caught, trapped like a bird inside of her throat. The bridge had narrowed and she swore they were higher up than she had ever been in her life, with no rails or net or anything but merciless waters to capture her if she slipped and fell. She fought to take another step, but everything she saw made her faint, light-headed, dizzy.
And was it just her, or did the torches around Idyllwild Castle now reek of sulfur, as if Death himself had decided to stoke their flames, another reminder he was always watching, waiting to take her back?
“Don’t think about it,” Dante warned.
“I’m not going to jump,” Tella said.
“That’s not what I was saying.” His lips moved to her ear. “I’ve died more times than I can remember. Every time, I used to fear I wouldn’t come back, until I learned that it’s the fear that feeds him. It’s the same way hopes and dreams give Legend so much power during Caraval.”
“I’m not afraid of death.” But even as she said the words, Tella looked down and, to her horror, found her arm clinging much tighter to Dante’s.
He pet her arm once, mocking and indulgent.
But Tella wasn’t about to let him win whatever competition they were playing.
“I’m just not fond of cages,” she said, “and this places looks like one giant dungeon.”
He laughed, quietly. Different from the rich sound he’d made in the carriage. Tella wasn’t sure why, but she sensed she’d find out the reason for his subtle amusement as soon as they entered the party.
12
Tella thought she knew what to expect inside of Idyllwild Castle.
She’d been to Caraval before; finding Tella had been the entire purpose of the last game. But while that sounded exciting, in truth Tella had been forced to spend most of her time sitting like a trapped princess in a tower, waiting to be found. She’d snuck out on occasion. But slipping into the back doors of Caraval’s gaming rooms and spying on her sister from the shadows was not nearly the same as being one of the real players and entering Legend’s decadent world with the intent of getting swept away.
Tella had no intentions of being swept away now. It was past midnight, and she needed to find her friend before he left. But, with every step she took inside the castle, Tella had to fight the urge to forget why she was there and just enjoy the game.
The air tasted like wonder. Like candied butterfly wings caught in sugared spiderwebs, and drunken peaches coated in luck.
Again, she wondered if Elantine’s heir wasn’t so bad. Perhaps only the rumors about him were terrible, started by people jealous of his position. His ball looked like a celebration she would have put together. Though Tella had no idea if that actually said something about her or her host.
She continued to grip her luckless coin, hoping her friend was still at the party. But even as Tella searched for him, she couldn’t help noticing every surface of the celebration was a riot of indulgent activity.
From the grand ballroom’s arched entrance it looked as if another Fate had come to life in bursts of furry and feathered colors. The Menagerie—a card that represented the start of a new story or adventure.
Women and men with bodies covered in feathers and heads crowned with tiny curved horns dangled from the ceiling, twirling and spinning around thick sheets of gold or magenta silk that hung like massive party ribbons. Below them, performers in costumes made of fur, more feathers, and paint slathered over skin prowled and crawled as if they were wild chimeras escaped from another world. Tella saw performers dressed to look like tigers with dragon wings, horses with forked tails, snakes with lion manes, and wolves with ram horns, who growled and nipped and sometimes licked at the heels of guests. There were a few low balconies where shirtless men with wings as large as angels’ and fallen stars pushed grinning couples back and forth on giant swings hanging from canopies of thorns and flowers.
Tella heard Dante snort by her side.
She might have spent a little too long eyeing the beautiful men who looked like fallen stars and angels, futilely hoping one might be the friend she sought. The rest of her just wanted to take it all in. She’d dreamed of parties like this. She knew she didn’t have time to waste. But her eyes strained to see every glistening inch as her fingers longed to touch, and her mouth strained to take a bite, not just of the food, but of the party itself. Of the dragon wings, and the careless laug
At the top of the ballroom stairs she tilted her head to look up at Dante, who could have been her shadow with all the sharp points of his inky tattoos peeking out from his shadow-dark suit. “Why aren’t you dressed like a leopard with butterfly wings, or a unicorn?”
A sliver of a grin. “Not even Legend could make me dress like a unicorn.”
“But unicorns are magical, and then all the ladies would want to pet you.”
This time Dante’s snort sounded more like a laugh he was trying to hold back.
Tella couldn’t help smiling; she might not have liked him, but she enjoyed that he found her funny. She also appreciated that he seemed uninterested in all the ladies who looked his way and appeared as if they really would be willing to pet him, even though he wasn’t dressed like a unicorn.
“Greetings!” Jovan, one of Legend’s friendliest performers, dropped in front of Tella and Dante like a marionette. Thick ribbons were attached to her dark brown arms and legs, keeping her feet just off the ground as they happily kicked, ringing the silver bells on her shoes.
Jovan was the first face people saw when they entered Caraval, but she really did so much more than welcome players into the game. She was often a walking clue card disguised as a friendly face, pointing guests in the direction they needed to go. Her amiable disposition was an invaluable skill, also used to reassure those in danger of going mad that it was really only a game.
Unlike most of the other performers, Jovan was not costumed like a chimera. She was dressed like Jester Mad—another Fate from the Deck of Destiny.
A patchwork mask concealed half of Jovan’s face with bright rainbow colors that matched the right side of her cape. The garment’s other side was entirely black, exactly like the hood that cloaked the left half of her face. A mercurial Fate, Jester Mad symbolized happiness destined not to last.
“Welcome, welcome to Caraval, the grandest show by land or by sea. Inside you may come face-to-face with a Fate, or steal bits of destiny—”
“It’s all right,” Tella cut in. She genuinely liked Jovan. During the last game she’d helped Tella sneak out from her tower room more than once. But Tella didn’t need to hear Jovan’s speech right now. As enticing as Caraval was, there was little point in playing the game if Tella’s bargain with her friend fell through; he was her only solid link to her mother, and saving her was more important than anything. “I’ve already heard it. You can skip it and hand us the first clue.”
“Maybe you just think you’ve heard it.” Jovan jingled the bells on her shoes. “This greeting is a little different from last time.” She cleared her throat before reciting the rest from memory.
“As fantastical as Caraval might feel, the next five nights are very real.
Elantine has invited us here to save the Empire from her greatest fear.
For centuries the Fates were locked away, but now they wish to come out and play.
If they regain their magic the world will never be the same, but you can help stop them by winning the game.
To do this you must be clever and follow the clues to find the dark object that can destroy them forever.
Once you have it, Legend will give you a prize so rare I’m not allowed to utter it here.”
Jovan kicked her feet when she finished, ringing the bells on her shoes once more as the ribbons on her arms and legs lifted her up, up, up into the frosted fog covering the ceiling. As she ascended, a red card with charred edges dropped from above like a singed chimera feather.
Tella picked it up; the exact same words Jovan just spoke covered the tiny page. “That’s it? When Scarlett played, I thought she signed a contract in blood.”
“Every performance is different. When your sister played, we had to work at making everything seem more dangerous than it was, because it was only a game.”
Tella snorted. “If you’re trying to tell me it’s real this time, it’s not going to work. I’ve already heard the whole speech about not being swept too far away.”
“But have you heard it tonight?” Dante’s voice dropped as he brushed closer, fingers grazing the petals on her dress.
Tella’s eyes fell to the singed welcome card in her hands. As Dante had said, it didn’t contain any warnings about being swept too far away. In fact it mentioned the opposite: As fantastical as Caraval might feel, the next five nights are very real.
Tella didn’t believe it for a heartbeat, and yet she couldn’t resist looking up at Dante and asking, “If the game is real, does that mean everything between us is real?”
“You’ll have to be more specific than that.” He plucked a petal from her skirt, rubbing it between his fingers as he started down the stairs without her.
In other words, no.
Nothing between them was real, because Caraval wasn’t real. People loved Caraval because it was a fantasy come to life; no matter how twisted the game became at the end of it all, it was still only a game. Tella could not let herself be swept away by it.
At the bottom of the steps Tella squeezed her coin once again and scanned the crowd for anyone who might look a bit like a criminal, hoping to find her friend. Though a part of her had begun to fear he’d already left. It was well past midnight now and his last letter had warned that he wouldn’t wait.
But Tella wasn’t ready to give up. Her searching gaze wove past actors on stilts, covered in cream and chestnut fur, and men decorated to look like swans with fangs, rowing upside-down polka-dot umbrellas through the flower-covered streams that led toward the center of the ballroom.
“I don’t think you want to go that way.”
Tella turned and nearly smacked into Dante’s chest. He was right behind her once more, standing taller than any boy had the right to. She had to strain her neck to watch his line of vision travel past a woman wrestling with a wolfman and a young gentleman playing fetch with a handsome half-tiger, until finally Dante’s vision landed on the massive silver cage in the center of the ballroom.
Tella stiffened.
She had glimpsed the cage’s thick iron bars upon entering, but she’d not realized all the dancers on the ballroom’s dance floor were inside it. From afar they looked more like captive animals. Her shoulders shuddered. No wonder Dante had been laughing earlier.
“You really weren’t joking about hating cages?” Dante asked.
“Who enjoys cages?” Though from where Tella stood, it appeared half of the ball did.
“They’re fools,” she went on. “This is Caraval—Legend might trap all of them in there and tell them they can’t get the first clue unless one person agrees to stay inside forever.”
This earned her another deep laugh. “Is that what you think Legend does?”
“He tried to keep me trapped up in a balcony during the last game.”
“But you snuck out. If Legend had really wanted to hold you captive, he wouldn’t have let that happen.”
“Perhaps I’m just an excellent sneak.”
“Or maybe you only think you are.” Dante’s fingers skimmed the nape of Tella’s neck, just a gentle touch, but Tella had a vivid flashback to the way his hands had felt right before she’d left him in the forest that morning.
He’d let her go. He’d pretended not to care or notice, yet he’d found her shortly after. He’d teased her about the cursing, and been kind enough to return her coin with just a little more teasing.
“You know,” Tella mused, “if I didn’t hate you, I might actually enjoy your company.”
All hints of Dante’s smile vanished. “We should leave.”
“What—”
He grabbed Tella’s hand, swifter and tighter than any of the times he’d taken hold of her before. It all seemed to happen at once, giving Tella only a moment to realize that his eyes were no longer on her. They were narrowed on something—or someone—standing behind her.
“Trying to run off with my fiancée?”
The superior drawl skimmed the back of Tella’s shoulders, as cool and polished as a freshly sharpened sword.
Elantine’s heir.
13
“Now this is an interesting surprise.” Genuine amusement lit a pair of silver-blue eyes, as dazzling as crashing waves, shadowed by untamed hair so gold it could have been turned into coins.
“It’s you.” All the air escaped Tella’s lungs.
The boy from the sky carriage—the same indolent young nobleman who’d threatened to toss her from a coach and dropped a half-eaten apple onto her slippers—flashed a delinquent smile. “You can call me Jacks.”
In a move far more gentlemanly than anything she’d seen him do the other night, he took her free hand to brush a kiss across her knuckles. His narrow lips were soft and cold, bringing a fresh chill that tripped all the way up Tella’s arm as he spoke low words against her hand. “I didn’t actually think you’d be brave enough to wear the dress.”
“I hate to see a good gown go to waste,” she said, flippant, as if his presence had not completely unhinged her. Elantine’s heir wasn’t supposed to find her so quickly. He wasn’t really supposed to find her at all. And he wasn’t supposed to be the reckless boy from the carriage—that didn’t fit with the image she’d had.
The heir—Jacks—had sounded ruthless and far from lazy. Yet this young man with his bloodshot eyes and untamed hair appeared to be the epitome of careless. The bone-white breeches clinging to his lean legs were clean, but his scuffed sable boots looked as if they were meant for a stable rather than a party. He didn’t even bother with a tailcoat. His bronze cravat was tied all wrong, crooked against the throat of a pale shirt that could have done with quite a bit of ironing.
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