“I don’t,” he bit out. “I still can’t control emotions the way I used to, or give someone feelings that they don’t have. But I can temporarily remove unwanted feelings. I can take away your pain for tonight.” His icy fingers lingered on her cheek, a numbing promise and a warning all at once. “I won’t be permanently erasing it, my love. You’ll still experience it. But when your sorrow returns tomorrow, it won’t be as powerful as it is now.”
His other hand stroked up and down her back again until it was easier for her to breathe. Too easy. She wondered if he was using his powers to calm her. But Tella couldn’t bring herself to care as much as she should have. The heartache was too overwhelming. She knew that the instant Jacks let her go, her lungs would tighten once more, her tears would return to sobs, and even if she didn’t close her eyes, she’d see her mother dying over and over and over. A hundred deaths in the span of one heartbeat. Too many heartbeats and she might die, too.
“Do it,” Tella said. A part of her knew how desperately wrong it was to take comfort from a Fate. But even if it was a mistake, it couldn’t be as bad as this. “Take the sadness and the pain—just take everything that hurts.”
13
Donatella
Jacks’s cool hand cupped Tella’s cheek. “All right, my love.” He tilted her face toward his as he lowered his lips to hers.
Tella pressed her palms against his chest and shoved off of his lap. “What are you doing?”
“I’m taking the pain away.”
“You didn’t say you had to kiss me.”
“It’s the most painless way. It will still hurt, but—”
The last time they’d kissed, her heart had stopped working properly.
“No,” she said. “I’m not letting you kiss me again.”
Jacks ran his tongue over his teeth, thinking for a long minute. “There is another way, but”—a second hesitation—“it requires an exchange of blood.”
A rigid spike of awareness shot down Tella’s spine. Blood sharing was powerful. Tella had learned during her first Caraval that blood, time, and extreme emotions were three of the things that fueled magic. Tella had drunk blood before. She didn’t recall it clearly, but she knew she’d been on the brink of death after her altercation with the Undead Queen and Her Handmaidens. She might have even died, but then she’d been fed blood, and it had saved her life. But blood also had the ability to take life. One drop of blood had once cost Scarlett a day of her life.
“How much blood would you need to drink?” she asked.
“I don’t need to drink any, unless you wish to do it that way.” He flashed her a feral smile as he pulled a jewel-tipped dagger from his boot. Half the gems were missing, but the ones that were still there sparkled, bitter-blue and ruinous-purple.
He sliced the dagger down the center of his palm. Blood, glittering with flecks of gold.
“You’ll need to do the same.” Jacks handed her the knife.
“What happens after I cut myself?”
“We clasp hands and say magic words.” His voice was teasing, but his unearthly eyes were gleaming with grave intent as he held his bleeding palm for her to take.
He did not look human at all as gold-flecked blood continued to well in the hollow of his hand. It should have frightened Tella, but there was too much grief and too much pain, she didn’t have room for emotions like fear.
She didn’t even feel the dagger’s cut as she pressed it to her palm. Blood welled, darker than the glittering stream running down Jacks’s wrist. But he made no move to stop its flow. His eyes were on her hand, watching as two red beads fell and stained her sullied yellow sash and her periwinkle skirt. Her gown had started out the day so bright, but now it was ruined, like so many other things.
Tella handed Jacks the dagger back, but he dropped it to the ground, and took her bleeding hand in his.
His pulse was racing. His palms had never felt so hot. The blood from his wound felt eager to mingle with hers. “Now repeat after me.”
The words that followed were in a language Tella didn’t recognize. Each one rippled to life on her tongue, metallic and magical-sweet as if she could taste the blood flowing between their hands. It surged faster and hotter with every foreign word. Jacks had promised to take her sorrow and her pain, but something about the exchange made her feel as if she was agreeing to give him even more.
Stop, before it’s too late.
But Tella couldn’t stop. Whatever Jacks wanted to take, she’d let him have it—if he just took away her grief.
The last three words he spoke all at once, in a voice that thrummed with power: “Persys atai lyrniallis.”
These words did not taste sweet at all. They latched on to her tongue like barbs. Biting and sharp and utterly unholy. The leather couch, the empty fireplace, the cluttered desk all disappeared.
Tella tried not to scream or crumble against Jacks as invisible cords of magic lashed around their clasped hands; it felt like threads of flames and burning dreams. Then the fire was spreading, searing her arms, scorching her chest, and branding her flesh as raw magic infected her veins.
“Don’t let go,” Jacks commanded. His other hand was now clutching her unwounded palm. But Tella could barely feel it. She was back in the cavern, on the rocky floor, watching her mother walk away from her. Then Gavriel was there, and this time there was no spinning wheel between them. Tella was seeing the Fallen Star pull the dagger from his chest, thrust it into her mother’s heart, and twist until—
“Look at me,” Jacks hissed through his teeth.
Tella opened her eyes.
Jacks’s forehead was damp with sweat and his chest moved unevenly as his ragged breathing matched hers. He wasn’t just removing her pain, he was taking it. Bloody tears streaked his cheeks and agony turned his eyes pale.
Tella clutched his hands tighter and pressed her forehead to his.
“Is this transaction too intense for you,” Jacks panted, “or are you actually worried about me?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Don’t lie to me—I feel everything you’re feeling right now.” His lips moved so close to her mouth she could taste his bloody tears dripping down the edges. They were bitter, full of loss and grief, but also cool and pure like ice. It wasn’t quite a kiss, but it didn’t hurt so much when she brushed her lips against his.
Maybe she should have let him kiss her … maybe it wouldn’t hurt her this time.
“I promise it won’t hurt this time,” he rasped against her mouth.
Tella let her lips pass over his again. He was a liar and a Fate. But when she pressed her mouth to his, it felt better than anything else had that day.
Her pain shattered as he kissed her back. Everything was a tangle of tongues and tears and blood and heartbreak as Jacks continued to take her sorrow. He drank it in with every needy movement of his cold lips against hers. His hands stayed locked with Tella’s, but they snaked behind her back, holding her tighter and caging her in as they both tumbled onto the floor.
This was nothing like their flawless first kiss during the Fated Ball. This kiss was urgent and wild and raw and corrupt. Full of all the terrible emotions flowing between them. A torrent of sorrow and pain. They were on the rough carpet and all over each other. Her teeth sank into his lips, biting sharp enough to draw blood.
He kissed her harder, possessively, nipping her jaw, then her neck, as his lips and teeth trailed down to her collarbone.
Before, he could feel her emotions, but now she could feel his. Even though he’d taken both her pain and her sorrow, that wasn’t what he was feeling now. He felt desire. Desperation. Lust. Obsession. He wanted her. She was all he wanted. All he thought about. She felt it in the way the kiss began to shift from reckless and hungry to languorous and savoring, as if he’d considered this for a very long time and now he was acting out all the things he’d imagined.
A faraway place that Tella tried to ignore told her this was all a great mistake—Jacks wa
sn’t really the one she wanted, Legend was. No matter what he did, or what he was, it would always be Legend. Maybe she could never actually have him, but she wanted him. If she was going to kiss one of the villains, she wanted it to be Legend, not Jacks.
She needed to push Jacks away.
But Legend never touched her anymore. Even if Legend had been there, he might not have held her, let alone kiss her. And it felt so good to be kissed, to be cherished and touched. To feel desire instead of pain. The sorrow was almost gone, and the kiss grew more intense. Or maybe now that Tella was no longer feeling crushing despair or seeing death, she could truly feel the entire kiss, and every inch of Jacks’s body as it pressed against hers.
But even in her muddled state, Tella knew she couldn’t let it continue.
She ripped her bleeding hand free of Jacks’s and ended the kiss.
Jacks made no attempt stop her. But he made no further effort to move away. They were both on their sides, chests pressed together, legs all tangled.
The pain and the sorrow and the hurt were gone. But so was all of her strength. She was boneless. Empty. There were splatters of blood all over her dress and her hands, and all over him. Something intimate, beyond the physical, had just passed between them.
Red tracks ran down his cheeks, ghosts of tears he’d cried for her.
She should have tried to leave. But her body was exhausted. And she liked the way it felt when Jacks wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight to his cool chest as if he wanted her to stay. After she regained her strength, she would go back to hating him. All she cared about now was that the pain was gone. “Thank you, Jacks.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m not sure I did you a favor, my love.”
14
Donatella
Tella woke up haltingly. Her dreams had been feverish flashes, all fleeing too fast for her to fully remember, but she knew Legend hadn’t been in them.
After two months of sharing dreams with Legend, she wasn’t used to dreaming alone. She also hadn’t expected to dream alone. Legend had his full powers back. Since he’d taken all the witch’s powers, he probably had more power than before. But he still hadn’t visited Tella’s dreams.
Had he seen her following him yesterday? Was something still wrong with his powers? Or was it something else?
Tella’s heart pounded, and her skin flushed hot, except for all of the places where she tangled with the Prince of Hearts’s icy arms and legs.
Dirty blood and saints.
She needed to get out.
She hadn’t meant to sleep there all night. She needed to leave and find her sister, who was probably worried to death.
Carefully, Tella slid her leg out from between Jacks’s. His arms responded by pulling her closer. Air rushed from her lungs as their faces became perfectly aligned.
Even in slumber, he looked vicious in his beauty. His brows formed a cruel line; his dark eyelashes looked sharp enough to prick fingers; his cheeks were so pale they’d turned an icy shade of blue; and his lips still had flecks of blood from where she had bitten him during their kiss.
Her skin went suddenly hot. She could still taste him on her lips. Tart and bitter and deliciously sweet. Apples and grief and Fated magic. She refused to think of it as a mistake, but she couldn’t let it happen again.
Giving up on graceful, Tella clumsily shook out of his grip, jumped up to her feet, and bolted for the exit.
* * *
Tella smelled breakfast porridge and bitter black tea when she knocked on the boardinghouse door. The light brown wood was warm from the freshly risen sun. It would be another hot day. The back of Tella’s neck was already damp from the growing heat.
She looked down at the dirt and blood spattered across her tired periwinkle dress. She should have stolen a cloak from Jacks before leaving. If Scarlett saw the blood on her skirt, she’d ask questions Tella wasn’t eager to answer. And Tella imagined that her sister already had a lot of questions.
But it was too late now. The proprietor had opened the door. She took one look at Tella and started to close it. “We don’t take in charity cases.”
“Wait—” Tella grabbed the edge and held tight. The woman must not have recognized Tella in her current state of dishevelment. “I have a suite here on the second floor with my sister.”
“Not anymore.” The owner puckered her mouth. “You and your sister have been evicted for destruction of property. Leave or I’ll have you arrested.”
“You can’t do that.” The last time Tella had been there she’d ripped a sheet from a bed, but that hardly constituted destruction of property. “My sister and I have already paid through the end of the year. So, get out of my way, or maybe I’ll have you arrested.”
Tella shoved on the door, hard enough to force it all the way open.
“Stop!” the owner yelled. “I will call the patrol if you go any farther.”
“Go ahead!” Tella cried as she barreled up the stairs. She didn’t know what was going on, but she needed to see her sister and—
Tella crashed to a halt just outside the door. Only fragments of defenseless wood now hung from its hinges. Someone had nailed a sheet to the frame, but somehow that made it even worse, like a closed casket at a funeral.
Tella yanked the fabric back with one pull.
“Scarlett?” she called. But her voice was met with only silence and chaos. The furniture was splintered and charred, the mirrors were cracked, and shards of the chandeliers covered the ground in sharp glass tears. It looked like the scene of a crime.
“Scarlett!” Tella cried again, louder than before. The painful emotions Jacks had taken away threatened to return in a new form at the thought of losing her sister. There didn’t appear to be any blood, but that didn’t mean Scarlett was all right. And Tella could not imagine that her sister had done all of this.
“She’s right up there, officers.” The proprietor’s starched voice climbed up the stairs, followed by two guards in royal blue uniforms.
Tella started to panic. Her chest tightened the same way it had last night. “Scarlett?” she called one more time, though it was obvious her sister wasn’t there.
By now, several guests had poked their heads out of their doors. Their expressions ranged from curious to frightened to irritated, but no one breathed a word as the guards closed in on Tella.
The female guard stepped forward first, slow and careful, as if Tella were a stray cat who might scratch or run away. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
“But we will if you run.”
Tella’s head snapped to the male guard.
And then she felt the hard press of metal as the female darted forward and quickly linked chain cuffs around Tella’s wrists.
“What are you doing?” Tella shouted.
“We’re placing you under arrest, by order of His Highness, Prince Dante.”
15
Donatella
Tella rattled the dungeon bars, feeling like the Fated Lady Prisoner who’d been put in a cage for no good reason. “Your Highness!”
Magic strangled her every time she attempted calling out for Legend, but she was not in the mood to yell for someone who didn’t really exist and cry out the name Dante, or even worse, “Prince Dante.” But there was something pleasantly mocking about “Your Highness.”
She couldn’t believe he’d had her arrested. Was it because he knew that she’d followed him the day before? She didn’t think he’d seen her, but that still didn’t give him the right to imprison her.
Now she definitely didn’t need to feel guilty about kissing Jacks.
Tella shook the bars again. The stone gargoyles impaled by the tops of them peered down on her with bulging eyes. She didn’t know how long she’d been locked up here all alone. As she’d been dragged inside, she’d looked around at the other cells, wondering if Legend had brought his witch down here as well. But all Tella saw were the tally marks etched into the walls. There were names carved in
to the dry stones as well, but she didn’t plan on staying long enough to make hers one of them.
“You have no right to keep me locked up!” Tella cried out.
A heavy door groaned open at the end of the torch-lit hall, followed by the confident beat of boots, which she knew too well. Legend wasn’t crowned yet, but he already moved like an emperor stepping into a throne room.
Tella’s eyes trailed upward from his tall black boots to the fitted black trousers hugging his muscular legs. His shirt was also black, but it was accented with a vest covered in thin wolf-gray lines that matched the cravat at his throat and the lapels of his velvet coat. The coat was the rich royal color of blackberries—a shade she’d never seen him in. But he wore the color well; it complemented his bronze skin tone, and made his hair look even blacker and his eyes look even brighter, bringing out flecks of gold that reminded her of stars at night.
No wonder they’d already started creating statues of him around the city. He might have been a liar and a villain, but he made both things look very good.
The other cells were empty, but he didn’t even glance at them, and Tella had the impression that Legend wouldn’t have darted his eyes around even if the cells had been full of deadly criminals. He moved like nothing in the human world could hurt him. He didn’t need to look over his shoulder. According to the witch, he only had one weakness, and Tella doubted it was in this dungeon.
She couldn’t believe she’d chased him into another world because she’d thought he was in danger. Even though he could have been telling the truth about losing some of his powers, she should have known that he’d do whatever it took to get them back.
“Let me out of here, you bastard!”
“I think I preferred Your Highness.” He continued his elegant walk toward her, moving with unrushed strides down the dim hall. Someone else might have thought he didn’t have any particularly strong feelings about their current situation. But Tella had spent the last two months sharing dreams with him. She was aware of his movements—aware of him. She noticed the tic in his jaw as he slowly raked her over, eyes traveling from her bare feet to her naked calves. His gaze tightened as he reached her skirt with all its ripped-up feathers. But instead of making a mocking comment, Tella saw lines form across his brow, as if he was trying to puzzle something out.
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