“Thank you for the warning.” Tella hadn’t known that bit, and she was more than a little surprised Jacks had told her, since a Fate’s primary source of entertainment was toying with humans. In fact, she was surprised by everything he’d told her. She’d come here half wanting to rebel against Legend and half hoping for answers. She hadn’t actually expected to get any. But she had. She now knew Legend’s immortal weakness, and she also knew where to search for the Fallen Star’s weakness. “I imagine you want something in exchange now.”
Jacks’s eyes slowly lowered to her mouth.
A chill caressed her lips like a kiss. “I already told you that’s not why I’m here.”
“So then why haven’t you left?”
His laughter followed Tella as she walked out the door.
21
Scarlett
Scarlett should have been tripping over her feet with exhaustion rather than dancing into her sparkling palace suite.
After using the Reverie Key with Julian to visit a baker he knew in the north, where Scarlett tasted the best cakes of her life, he’d then brought her to see an old friend of his in the Southern Empire, where the water was the most brilliant shade of turquoise she’d ever seen and people sent messages with sea turtles. She could have stayed there longer, but Julian had wanted to take her to his distant cousin, who lived in a house with a roof made for watching the world’s most spectacular sunsets. In one afternoon Julian and the Reverie Key had shifted Scarlett’s tiny view of the world, making it even larger than she’d realized.
She tried to tamp down her smile. She shouldn’t have been giddy as she fell back onto her bed. She should have been mourning the loss of her mother, worrying about where her sister was, or fearful of the Fates that were all waking up.
But it was difficult to be afraid of nightmares when Scarlett’s thoughts were still tangled up in the dream that was Julian. She’d lied about needing to sleep because she’d felt so caught up in him she’d wanted to wake and return back to the real.
She regretted it already.
The Reverie Key was still warm in her pocket. She thought about using it to find him, and asking him to visit one more magical place. And maybe Scarlett would have done just that, if a servant hadn’t knocked on the door with a delivery from Nicolas.
Scarlett didn’t even need to open the card that came with it to know the gift was from him. It was a crystal watering can, small enough to fit in her palm, as if it were for pixie-size plants.
Scarlett crashed back to reality. She’d been trying not to think about the competition between Julian and Nicolas. Given everything else that had happened in the last two days, it didn’t seem nearly as important as it had before. But she couldn’t just ignore it.
Scarlett opened the note reluctantly. When she had received letters from Nicolas in the past, she’d always reread them until the paper went thin. But she wished this one had never arrived.
* * *
Dearest Scarlett,
I haven’t stopped thinking about you since you visited. Now that I have met you, my imaginings are no longer adequate. I hope you like the first part of my gift. There’s a second part that goes with it, but I’d prefer to give it to you in person. If you’re available, I would like to see you again tomorrow.
Faithfully yours,
Nicolas
* * *
If Julian had written the words, Scarlett was certain her heart would have raced, or her cheeks would have hurt from the way her smile stretched. She’d have felt something. But not even the dress managed a response.
Closing her eyes, Scarlett lay her head against her pillows.
She used to think Nicolas was her best option for marriage. And maybe he was safer than Julian. Nicolas was attractive, attentive, everything he’d made himself out to be in his previous letters. But Scarlett felt nothing for him. No, that wasn’t true. She felt relieved that they weren’t married.
Nicolas might have been the safer choice, but Julian was whom Scarlett wanted to choose. There was no competition between Julian and Nicolas. Julian had won Scarlett’s heart a long time ago.
She went to her desk to write Nicolas one last letter.
* * *
Dear Nicolas,
Thank you for the watering can—
* * *
Scarlett tried, but she couldn’t write another word. After all of their lost chances, it seemed terribly callous to inform Nicolas in a letter that she’d already made her choice. She wouldn’t want to be dismissed this way.
Balling up her note and tossing it in the trash, Scarlett looked at his letter once again. She couldn’t give him her hand in marriage, but she could give him this final meeting. She owed that much to him.
22
Donatella
Valenda was a city that had been made for the night.
As Tella took a sky carriage back to the palace, the world below her glittered with light. The churches and sanctuaries of the Temple District glowed like bits of moon that had lost their way, while the dimmer lights in the Spice Quarter smoldered like ashes from a fire that refused to die. Then there were the sleeping houses in between the districts, illuminated by guardian lampposts, giving an illusion of safety as people slumbered in their beds.
No one knew how fragile their security was, and Tella wondered if more Fates were waking up now. She probably should have asked Jacks about it before she’d left him. But the Prince of Hearts had looked as if he’d wanted to collect a higher fee for more information.
Tella’s coach came to a gentle halt as it reached the palace carriage house. Mindful of her gown’s ripped hem, she exited carefully.
The air tasted candied, the world glittered, and the stars looked close enough to steal and place inside of her pockets, making Tella feel as if she were inside of one of Legend’s dreams, or back in Caraval. Though the sun had set, servants were still bustling about the palace grounds in preparation for tomorrow’s Midnight Maze. Night dust, which made whatever it touched shimmer under the light of the nearby stars, filled buckets that servants carried around so they could brush everything from the hedges and the fountains lining the walkways to the bunnies that hopped through the gardens.
Most of the palace’s staff didn’t pay much attention to Tella, but she swore a few looked her way with narrowed eyes before turning to each other and whispering things about her.
She knew it was a bad idea to stop and listen—gossip rarely contained compliments. And yet Tella found herself following a pair of chattering servants to the Stone Garden. She ducked behind a female statue on the edge of the garden, with a billowing skirt that created the perfect place for Tella to hide behind as the servants brushed the other statues with more glowing night dust.
“Did you see her?” The first girl’s voice was light and chirping, like a bird’s. Tella had heard it before, her very first night in the palace, when she’d come to Valenda for the last Caraval and Dante had told the staff that she was engaged to Jacks. She hadn’t been that angry until she’d overheard this birdy servant talking about the engagement, or rather about Jacks, and how he was a rumored murderer. They hadn’t known he was actually the Prince of Hearts, and at the time, neither had Legend.
“I thought she was the former heir’s fiancé,” replied a second servant. Tella didn’t recognize her voice. But she decided she didn’t like it when she heard the breathless way she said, “I would think His Handsomeness Prince Dante wouldn’t want her around.”
“Oh, His Handsomeness definitely doesn’t want her around,” said the birdy girl. “I think the little trollop is just hoping to make Prince Dante her new fiancé now that her former fiancé isn’t royal anymore. But everyone—except for her—knows that’s not going to happen. The prince is probably just keeping her around because she used to belong to the former heir, and to keep her in his possession is another show of his power.”
That’s not true! Tella wanted to jump out from behind her statue to protest.
But
maybe it was just a little true. Legend was jealous of Jacks. And according to Mistress Luck, when immortals were attracted to humans, they only felt obsession, fixation, lust, and possession.
“I heard,” said the birdy girl, “he actually had her locked in the dungeons this morning!”
“Whatever for?” gasped the second girl.
“It wasn’t because I didn’t want her around,” said Legend, the low sound of his voice filling the entire stone garden.
Suddenly, Tella couldn’t have peeled herself away from her hiding spot if she’d tried. Moments ago, the world had been full of night dust and stars, but now he’d taken over.
The confident scrape of Legend’s boots echoed across the garden and Tella pictured him moving closer, covering the frozen servants in shadows, as he said, “I want her here. If it were up to me, I’d keep her here forever. I asked her to marry me and she said no. That’s why I locked her up. It was an inappropriate response, but sometimes I take things a little too far.”
He paused, and she could picture him flashing a dissolute smile. “You two should keep that in mind the next time you decide to spread rumors, or you might find yourselves in a prison as well.”
“We won’t start any more rumors.”
“We’re so sorry, Your Highness.”
There was a rush of sloppy slippers as if the servants were giving hasty curtsies, and then fleeing the stone garden, probably leaving a trail of glimmering night dust as they scurried off.
“You can come out now, Tella.” Legend’s voice took a teasing turn as he leaned an elbow on the statue that she was behind. Still dressed in the same black-and-wolf-gray suit as earlier, with a matching black half-cape slung over his shoulders, he looked both rakish and regal as he watched her rise from her crouch.
If this had been one of their dreams, when Tella and Legend were still pretending not to care, she might have rolled her eyes up at him, giving him a response that was the opposite of how she felt. But she sensed that game was now over. And yet she still couldn’t be entirely vulnerable and tell him just how much what he’d said had turned her inside out. He’d lied, making himself look like an unhinged princeling in order to keep her reputation from being ruined.
“I think you scared those servants half to death,” Tella said. “But you know they’ll still repeat everything you just told them.”
“I don’t care what anyone says, as long as they’re saying things about me.” His tone was that of a shallow royal, but the look in his eyes was deep and all-consuming. His steady gaze held hers as if he had no intention of ever looking away—as if just maybe he’d been telling the truth when he’d said that he wanted to keep her here forever.
Her neck flushed with heat that spread across her collarbone.
Once again, she thought of Mistress Luck’s warning—immortals only felt obsession, fixation, lust, and possession. But maybe Legend felt more.…
It would get around that he’d been rejected by Jacks’s tarnished former fiancée. Just the rumors would make Legend look weak—a terrible way to start a reign. But he hadn’t even hesitated to defend her.
It made her want to give him something in return.
“I think I know how to find out if the Fallen Star has another weakness.”
Legend’s eyes glittered, as if he’d just won points in the game she thought they were no longer playing. But for once she would gladly give him the points.
“We can buy one of his secrets at the Vanished Market, and I was thinking you could visit it with me.”
His dark brows drew together, suddenly wary. “How’d you find the location of the market?”
“She learned it from me.” Jacks’s smooth voice licked a cold trail up her spine.
Tella spun around.
Jacks was standing directly in front of her, looking exactly like the Prince of Hearts she’d been obsessed with as a child. All pale glowing skin and brilliant golden hair that hung over unearthly blue eyes. His gaze was a little bloodshot, but his smile was exquisite, knife-sharp and polished, like a blade eager to be used.
“How did you get here?” Legend’s voice was lethal, but when Tella looked back at him, his eyes were fixed on hers. They filled with something like hurt before thinning to a look that was closer to an accusation.
“The better question is, how did he get here?” Jacks slit his eyes toward Tella.
“I—” Tella started. But—she paused to look back up at the sky full of impossibly close stars—maybe she wasn’t actually in this part of the palace? Maybe Tella hadn’t stopped to listen to a pair of servants, and maybe Legend hadn’t truly defended her in front of them.
Maybe Jacks was asking why Legend was there because Jacks still knew him as Dante—and Dante was not supposed to have magical abilities, like the power to enter dreams.
Tella’s gaze lowered to the ripped hem of her ice-blue gown, and she willed it to mend itself, something she’d only be able to do if she was in a dream. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, almost as soon as she’d begun to think she wasn’t in a dream, the dress began to mend. The rip vanished, and a new tear inside of her heart took its place.
This wasn’t real. Legend had risked nothing to defend her in front of those servants, because they were only in a dream.
Until that moment, she’d always loved her dreams with Legend—they’d felt like something special that the two of them had shared. But this felt like a deception.
Her gaze sliced from Legend’s stormy eyes to Jacks’s cutlass smile, feeling as if she was standing in the middle of an immortal game board. She hadn’t liked how Jacks had tricked his way into her dreams, but it was almost worse that Legend had tricked her once again into believing an illusion was real.
“Both of you are terrible.”
Tella willed herself to wake up, and her eyes flashed open just as her sky carriage came to a halt.
She must have fallen asleep while traveling across the city, her visions of Valenda at night seamlessly turning to dreams without her even realizing it.
She climbed out of the coach to find servants buzzing around the palace grounds and painting everything with night dust, but it didn’t glitter as much, the stars no longer looked close enough to touch, and none of the servants glanced her way or whispered behind her back.
* * *
It wasn’t until the following morning, when Tella was back in her borrowed palace room, that she heard the voice of a servant.
“Miss Donatella.” Her name followed the loud knock that had woken her up.
Tella threw on her robe and dragged herself out of the raised canopy bed and across thick carpets. Perky sunlight warmed her skin as she opened her main doors. Two royal maids stood on the other side, the same ones who’d been in her dream last night.
They each held one end of a shiny black box, almost as long as Tella was tall.
“We have a gift from His Highness, Prince Dante,” the birdy maid said as both girls set the box atop the closest couch.
“He also wanted to make sure you received this.” The other maid handed Tella a crisp black envelope along with a curious smile.
But Tella wasn’t about to open Legend’s note in front of an audience, especially not one that she imagined would share its contents.
“You can go now,” Tella said. As soon as they left, she tore off the envelope’s seal. The note it contained was a simple square and covered with precise handwriting that for once made Legend easy to read.
* * *
Tella,
Last night might have been a dream, but I meant what I said about wanting you. I’m done playing games with you. If you feel the same, find me in the Midnight Maze tonight and I’ll give you your prize.
—L
* * *
She reread the letter, her—
“Donatella.” Scarlett’s voice was paired with a knock on the door, cutting off Tella’s thoughts before they could go anywhere interesting.
“I’m not here r
ight now,” Tella called.
“Then you won’t mind if I come in.” The doorknob turned—although Tella would have sworn it had been locked—and Scarlett stepped inside. Her lacy gown was a shockingly bright shade of red, which seemed at odds with her somber smile.
A small train of lace rosettes trailed behind her as she walked toward where Tella huddled on a couch next to the box from Legend. But Scarlett didn’t really look at the box as she took the chair opposite her sister.
It was the first time they’d been alone since their mother had died, and from the way Scarlett was looking at Tella, this was clearly the main reason she was checking in. But Tella’s feelings were still too raw. If she actually talked about her mother now, it would be like picking off a scab before the wound had a chance to heal.
“How are you doing?” Scarlett asked.
“I’m viciously tired,” Tella moaned. “But I think I might perk up if you tell me why you looked so cozy with Julian yesterday.”
Scarlett’s cheeks turned bright pink and her dress shifted to the exact same color.
“I knew it!” Tella crowed. “You’re in love with him again.” Not that Tella really believed her sister had fallen out of love.
Scarlett shook her head, trying to fight her blush. She probably still felt as if they should be talking about their mother rather than boys.
But Tella needed this more than she needed to talk about broken feelings, and she believed her sister did, too. “Tell me everything.”
Scarlett sighed. “I think he’s stealing my heart all over again.” She then told her sister about Julian’s return, and how he’d insisted on coming with her to meet Nicolas, who sounded far more decent than Tella had expected. She surprised Tella again by confessing she’d challenged both gentlemen to a game. “But I think I’m going to call the game off.”
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