Finale

by Stephanie Garber

  Tella felt a flare of heat before the door slammed shut, leaving her blanketed in cold once more. She should have left, but apparently she was a masochist, because rather than turning around and saving herself from more torture, she braved the moat of thorny roses surrounding the house, sacrificing the helpless feathers of her skirt as she crouched beneath the closest cottage window to eavesdrop.

  If Legend was having a relationship with someone else, Tella wanted to know everything about it. Maybe this woman was the reason he’d walked away from her that night in front of the Temple of the Stars.

  Rubbing her hands together to keep herself from turning to ice, Tella lifted her head enough to peek through a frosted window. The cabin looked as warm as a handwritten love letter, with a stone fireplace that took up an entire wall and a forest of candles dangling from the ceiling.

  The hideaway seemed to be made for romantic rendezvous, but as Tella spied, she saw no kissing, no embracing. Esmeralda sat on the blazing fireplace hearth as if it were her throne, while Legend stood before her like a loyal subject.

  Interesting.

  Maybe the matching tattoos didn’t mean what Tella thought they meant. But Tella was still troubled. She always imagined that Legend answered to no one except himself, and no matter who this fascinating woman was, Tella didn’t like her. And she really didn’t like the way Legend stood, leaning toward her, head slightly bowed, as he said, “I need your help, Esmeralda. The Fates have broken free from the Deck of Destiny that you imprisoned them in.”

  Blood and saints.

  Tella ducked back down, sucking in cold gasps of air as her back slammed against the icy cottage wall. Suddenly she knew exactly who this young woman was. Before Legend had freed the Fates, they had been imprisoned in a Deck of Destiny by the same witch who’d given Legend his powers. The witch who Legend was speaking with now.

  No wonder he was treating this woman like a queen. Esmeralda was his creator. When she had cast the spell dooming the Fates to the cards, she’d taken half their powers and then given them to Legend when he’d sought her out, centuries later. Tella didn’t actually know much more about the witch. But she wasn’t supposed to be so young, or so tall and attractive.

  “I failed to destroy the Fates. I’m sorry. But I’m paying the price,” Legend said, his voice carrying down through the cracked window above. “My magic has grown much weaker since the moment they were freed. The Fates are still asleep for now, but I think they’ve already taken some of their powers back. I can barely do a simple illusion.”

  Tella resisted the urge to stand and steal another look. Was he telling the truth? If the Fates had somehow managed to steal his magic, then it would explain why he’d vanished so violently from her dreams the other night, and failed to appear last night. Yet she’d seen him use a glamour in the forest to change his clothes, and he’d seemed to have no trouble with it.

  Of course, that was a small illusion, and she hadn’t been close enough to touch it. In one of her earlier dreams with Legend, he had explained how his powers worked. He’d told Tella: Magic comes in two forms. Those with powers can usually either manipulate people or manipulate the world. But I can do both and create lifelike glamours that feel far more real than ordinary illusions. I can make it rain, and you wouldn’t just see the rain, you’d feel it soaking your clothes and your skin. You’d feel it all the way down to your bones if I wanted you to.

  It had started raining then, inside of her dream, and when she’d woken up hours later, her thin nightdress had been speckled with drops of wet and her curls had been soaked—letting her know that the dreams weren’t just her imaginings, but real rendezvous with Legend, and that his powers of illusion extended far beyond them.

  Perhaps Legend was telling the truth about the Fates taking some of his magic, but he wasn’t telling the entire truth. Maybe he could still create illusions, but they weren’t powerful enough to trick people into believing they were real.

  Tella thought back to the dead butterfly she’d found in her hand when she’d woken up the day before. Now that she really considered it, she’d seen the butterfly, but she hadn’t felt it. Its delicate wings hadn’t brushed her skin, and as soon as she’d set it on the nightstand, it had vanished.

  “The Fates shouldn’t have any of your magic,” the witch bit out, “not unless you released them from the cards.”

  “I would never do that. Do you think I’m a fool? I’ve been trying to destroy that deck since the day you made me.” Legend’s tone was clipped as if he were genuinely offended, but Tella knew that this was all a lie. A blatant lie to the woman who’d created him. He had wanted to destroy the cards, but when he’d been given the opportunity, he hadn’t. He’d freed the Fates instead, to save Tella.

  “I still want to stop the Fates,” Legend went on. “But to do it, I need to borrow your magic.”

  “You can’t stop the Fates with magic,” said the witch. “That’s why I told you to destroy the Deck of Destiny. They’re immortals, like you. If you kill a Fate, they will die, but then they’ll simply return to life.”

  “But they have to possess a weakness.” Legend’s voice took on that edge once again, a voice for unraveling and stealing. He wanted Esmeralda’s magic and he wanted to know the Fates’ fatal weakness.

  It should have given Tella relief that he was searching for a way to destroy them—she didn’t want the Fates alive either—but a horrible feeling came to life inside her as she heard the decisive click of Legend’s boots.

  Tella pictured him moving closer to Esmeralda.

  She clamped her frozen hands into fists, fighting the growing urge to peek through the window, to see if he was doing more than closing the distance in order to get the information he wanted. Was he touching the witch? Was he wrapping his arms around her cinched waist, or looking at her the way he sometimes looked at Tella?

  When Esmeralda spoke once more, her voice had turned seductive again. “The Fates that were imprisoned do have one disadvantage. Their immortality is linked to the Fate who created them: the Fallen Star. If you kill the Fallen Star, the Fates he made will change from immortal to ageless, similar to your performers. They will still have their magic, and they will never grow old, but unlike your performers, they will not have Caraval to bring them back to life if they die. If you wish to destroy all the Fates, you must first slay the Fallen Star.”

  “How do I do that?” Legend asked.

  “I think you already know. The Fallen Star shares the same weakness as you.”

  The pause that followed was so quiet and still that Tella swore she could hear the snowflakes falling on the roses around her. Twice in a row the witch had just likened Legend to the Fallen Star. First, when she’d mentioned the Fallen Star’s Fates and Legend’s performers. And now she’d just said that Legend shared the same weakness as the Fallen Star.

  Did that mean Legend was a Fate?

  Tella flashed back to something her nana Anna used to say when she told the story about how Legend came to be. “Some would probably call him a villain. Others would say his magic makes him closer to a god.”

  People had also called the Fates gods at one point in time—cruel, capricious, and terrible gods, which was why the witch had trapped them in the cards.

  Tella shuddered at the thought that Legend might be like them. During the last Caraval, her interactions with Fates like the Undead Queen, Her Handmaidens, and the Prince of Hearts had almost left her dead. She didn’t want Legend to be in the same category. But she couldn’t deny the fact that Legend was immortal and magical—and that made him something more akin to a Fate than it did to a human.

  Tella desperately tried to hear what the weakness was. But Legend didn’t reveal it with his response.

  “There has to be another way,” he said.

  “If there is, you’ll have to find it out on your own. Or, you could remain here with me. The Fates don’t know I’ve come to this world. If you stay, it will be like it was when I taught you how
to master your powers.” She purred. Actually purred.

  Tella really did hate her.

  Black thorns ripped the freezing feathers from her skirt as she lost her battle with restraint and rose from her crouch to peek through the window once again. And this time she wished she hadn’t.

  Legend was on his knees before the witch and she was running her fingers through his dark hair, moving them possessively down his scalp to his neck, as if he belonged to her.

  “I didn’t know you were so sentimental,” said Legend.

  “Only when it comes to you.” Her fingers knotted in his cravat as she tilted his chin toward her.

  “I wish I could stay, Esmeralda. But I can’t. I need to go back and destroy the Fates, and I need your powers to do that.” He pushed up from his knees just as the witch had been leaning into what looked like a kiss. “I only want to borrow them.”

  “No one ever wants to just borrow powers.” The witch’s voice turned biting again, but whether it was because of his request or because he’d denied the kiss, Tella couldn’t tell.

  Legend must have imagined she’d be vexed by his denial; he took a step closer, picked up her hand, and brushed a chaste kiss to her knuckles. “You made me who I am, Esmeralda. If you can’t trust me, no one else can.”

  “No one else should trust you,” she said. But her rich red lips had finally curved into a smile. The smile of a woman who was saying yes to a man she couldn’t resist.

  Tella knew the smile because she’d given the same one to him before.

  The witch was giving Legend her powers.

  Tella should have turned away, should have returned back to her world before Legend caught her there and he saw her trembling from the cold, and from all the feelings that she wished she still didn’t have for him. But she remained, transfixed.

  The witch uttered words in a language Tella had never heard as Legend drank blood straight from her wrist. He drank and drank and drank. Took and took and took.

  Legend’s cheeks flushed and his bronze skin began to glow, while the witch’s harsh beauty diminished. Her fiery hair dulled to orange; the black ink of her tattoos faded to gray. By the time Legend lifted his lips from her wrist, Esmeralda sagged against him as if her limbs had lost their bones.

  “That took more out of me than I expected,” she said softly. “Can you carry me up to the bedroom?”

  “I’m sorry,” Legend said—but he didn’t sound sorry at all. His voice was cruel without the sensuousness to temper it. Then he spoke words too quietly for Tella to hear.

  The witch lost even more color, her already pale skin turning parchment-white. “You’re joking.…”

  “Have you ever known me to have a sense of humor?” he asked. Then he picked up the witch and slung her over his shoulder with the ease of a young man checking an item off a list.

  Tella stumbled backward on half-numb limbs, leaving a small riot of ripped-up feathers in her wake. She knew that he’d meant it every time he’d told her that he wasn’t the hero, but a part of her kept hoping that he’d prove her wrong. Tella wanted to believe that Legend really cared about her and that she was his exception. Although she couldn’t help but fear that all that belief really meant was that Legend was actually her exception, that her desire for him was the weakness that could destroy her if she didn’t conquer it.

  If Legend was willing to betray the woman who’d created him, then he was willing to betray anyone.

  Tella tore through the roses, running from her hiding spot beneath the window back into the forest. She stumbled off the main path, into the trees, only glancing back once she was safely hidden behind a copse of pines.

  Legend left the cottage with Esmeralda still slung over his shoulder. And in that moment, Legend no longer felt like Tella’s enemy, or her friend, or the boy she used to love—Legend felt like every story she’d never wanted to believe about him.

  7

  Scarlett

  Scarlett’s feelings were a commotion of colors, swirling around her in garlands of excited aquamarine, nervous marigold, and frustrated gingersnap. She’d been pacing the suite since her sister had left, somehow knowing that Tella wouldn’t be back in time, but also hoping that she’d prove Scarlett wrong.

  She stopped pacing and looked herself over in the mirror once more, to make sure her dress wasn’t a reflection of how anxious she felt. The gown’s pale pink lace appeared duller than before, but everything appeared dimmer in this mirror.

  The suite Scarlett and Tella rented was a threadbare tapestry of aging items. Both girls had agreed on moving out of the palace. Scarlett had wanted to be independent. Tella claimed the same thing. But Scarlett imagined her younger sister had also wanted to create distance from Legend after how he’d walked away from her at the end of Caraval.

  Tella had begged to rent one of the fashionable apartments in the fanciful Satine District, but Scarlett knew that their money had to last beyond one season. As a compromise, they’d leased a suite of small rooms on the farthest edge of the Satine District, where the trim on the mirrors was more yellow than gold, the chairs were upholstered with scratchy velveteen, and everything smelled chalky, like chipped porcelain. Tella complained about it regularly, but living somewhere modest allowed them to stretch their funds. With most of the money Tella had stolen from their father, they’d secured this apartment until the end of the year. Scarlett wasn’t sure what they’d do after that, but it wasn’t her most pressing concern.

  The clock chimed three.

  She peered out her window. There were still no signs of Tella among the holiday revelers, but Scarlett’s ground coach had finally arrived. There weren’t many in Valenda, as people favored floating carriages to ones that rolled through the street. But, her former fiancé, Count Nicolas d’Arcy, or Nicolas as she had started calling him, resided in a country estate outside the city’s quarters, far beyond any of the floating carriage houses. Knowing this, Scarlett had secured her transport a week ago. What she hadn’t known was how crowded the festival would be.

  People were already hollering at her coachman to move. He wouldn’t wait long. If he left, Scarlett would be stranded and she’d miss her chance to finally meet Nicolas.

  Her lips pinched together as she entered the bedroom where Paloma slept. Always sleeping. Always, always sleeping.

  Scarlett tried not to be bitter. Knowing her mother hadn’t meant to abandon them forever, that she’d been trapped in a cursed Deck of Destiny for the past seven years, made Scarlett more sympathetic to her. But she still couldn’t forgive her mother for leaving her and Tella with their wretched father in the first place. She could never see Paloma the same way Tella did.

  In fact, Tella would probably be furious when she returned and found Paloma unattended. She was always saying how she didn’t want their mother to wake up and be alone. But Scarlett doubted Paloma would wake today. And if Tella was so concerned, she should have come back in time.

  Scarlett pulled open the main door to her suite, ready to call for a servant and ask her to keep an eye on their mother. But one of the maids was already there, coral-cheeked and smiling broadly.

  “Afternoon, miss.” The servant did a quick half-curtsy. “I came to tell you there’s a gentleman waiting for you in the first-floor parlor.”

  Scarlett looked past the servant’s shoulders. She could see the scratched wood banister, but there was no view of anything downstairs. “Did the gentleman give a name?”

  “He said he wanted to surprise you. He’s very handsome.” The girl coyly twirled a lock of hair around her finger, as if this attractive young man was standing in front of them.

  Scarlett hesitated, considering her options. Perhaps it was Nicolas, come to surprise her. But that didn’t sound like him. He was so proper, he hadn’t wanted to meet her while the Days of Mourning were being observed; he’d asked her to wait until today for their true courtship to begin.

  There was one other person who it might be, but Scarlett didn’t want to hope
it was him, especially not today. She’d vowed not to think about him today. And if it was Julian, he was five weeks late. Scarlett might have thought he’d died, except she’d had Tella ask Legend about it, and he’d confirmed Julian was still alive. Though he didn’t say where his brother was, or why he’d failed to contact Scarlett.

  “Would you do me a favor?” Scarlett said to the servant. “My mother is still unwell. She doesn’t need anything, but I hate to leave her alone. While I’m out, would you check on her every half hour in case she wakes?”

  Scarlett handed the girl a coin. Then she quietly crept down the stairs, heart in her throat, hoping despite her better judgment that Julian had finally returned and had missed her as much as she missed him. She kept her steps quiet, but the moment she entered the parlor, she forgot how to move. Julian’s eyes met hers from across the room.

  Everything was suddenly warmer than it had been before. The parlor walls grew smaller and hotter, as if too much sunlight had snuck in through the windows, covering all the tattered bookshelves and chairs in the sort of hazy afternoon light that left the entire world out of focus, except for him.

  He looked perfect.

  Scarlett could have easily been convinced he’d just escaped from a fresh painting. The tips of his dark hair were wet, his amber eyes were shining, and his lips parted in a devastating smile.

  This was the boy of Scarlett’s dreams.

  Of course, Julian probably starred in the dreams of half the girls on the continent as well.

  All of her earlier feelings from before transformed into flames of fiery tangerine. Julian couldn’t see her colors, but Scarlett didn’t want to reveal her feelings with other tells. She didn’t want her knees growing weak, or her cheeks turning to blush. And yet she couldn’t stop her heart from racing at the sight of him, as if she were preparing to chase him should he run away. Which he had.

  He must have been somewhere even warmer than here. His unusually crisp shirtsleeves were neatly rolled up, showing off lean arms. One forearm had a wide white bandage on it that contrasted with his skin, which was several shades darker than his natural golden brown, tanned from wherever Legend had sent him last. The neatly trimmed stubble lining his jaw was thicker and longer than she remembered as well, and covered part of the thin scar that ran from his eye to his jaw. He didn’t wear a coat, but he had on a gray vest with shiny silver buttons that matched the lines of fancy thread on the sides of his deep blue trousers, which were tucked into brand-new leather boots. When she’d first met Julian, he’d looked like a scoundrel, but now he was pure gentleman.