Scarlett hadn’t contacted Julian and her sister. She’d been too ashamed and embarrassed to slip them a note letting them know that she’d failed in getting the blood, and she didn’t want them to see her like this, even for a second. Scarlett knew that she had to be even more careful now. She couldn’t risk using the Reverie Key unless it was an emergency.
She couldn’t make another mistake and she couldn’t run away. If Scarlett wanted to save herself and everyone else before the Fallen Star took the throne the day after tomorrow, she had only one choice left: to conquer her power and use it to make him love her.
She took a deep breath and left her bedchamber to meet him.
Tonight, he was dressed in brown leather pants, a loose white shirt, and a pale gold cape that matched the victorious gleam in his eyes. He’d been in an excellent mood ever since he’d placed the cage around Scarlett’s head; he liked being able to demonstrate just how much power he had over her. But tonight he appeared almost boyish in his excitement.
When Scarlett took a seat beside him on the marble bench near Anissa’s cage, he grinned and stroked the curving ruby bars surrounding Scarlett’s face. “My Fates have finished tracking down the members of the royal council. Now all their severed heads are sitting on pikes at the docks. There are no more barriers to stop me from claiming the throne tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow.” Scarlett tried to keep the panic from her voice. “I thought you were waiting another day?”
“I’ve never been good at being patient.” He jumped up from his seat. “But don’t worry, to help prepare you for tomorrow’s coronation, I’ve brought a gift that I’m hoping will aid you in finally conquering your abilities.”
The Fallen Star called for his personal guard to open the door, and a young woman who looked as if someone had taken a magic cloth to wipe away half of her coloring stumbled into the room. Her hair was a faded shade of red, and her skin was pallid white, with dull black tattoos peeking out from beneath her long black gloves. Yet the colors of her feelings were anything but dim. Vitriolic shades of rotted plum swirled around her in spiteful, enraged circles.
The Fallen Star strode toward his captive the way a hunter might approach trapped prey. “I rescued her from the Temple District when it was on fire yesterday. Unfortunately, she’s not very grateful; I’ve already had to punish her. She might be difficult for you to work with, unless you find a way to control her.” He ran a finger down the young woman’s cheek.
The woman snapped her teeth over his fingers, biting the tips.
The Fallen Star ripped his hand from her mouth before she could draw blood. “Behave.” His voice remained gentle, but his words were followed by a burst of flames that singed the ends of her hair.
“If you succeed in controlling her emotions, then I will take that cage off your head. But if you don’t, I’m afraid the results will be unpleasant.” His gaze traced the lines of rubies imprisoning Scarlett’s head. “I’ve been wondering if perhaps you haven’t conquered your powers because you’ve lacked the proper motivation. Hopefully you have it now. I’ll come back in the morning to view your progress, and for your sake, auhtara, I really hope there is progress.”
43
Donatella
Tella couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned until she’d ripped all the cool silk sheets off her bed. But as soon as she did, they rearranged themselves, tucking her back in. She didn’t know what kind of glamour it was, but she knew it was somehow Legend’s doing.
He was so frustrating and confusing and impossible not to think about.
He hadn’t come to see her after his conversation with Julian. And now that Jacks had taken away his ability to meet Tella in her dreams, she knew she wouldn’t see him there, either. But even if he had, she didn’t know what was left to say.
She needs to save you.
But Legend didn’t want to be saved the way Julian wanted him to be. And Tella didn’t know if she could really save him, or if she might just become the reason he died and didn’t come back to life.
She sat up, abandoning the idea of sleep, and pulled back the delicate blue curtains that surrounded her canopy bed. Everything in the room had a dreamlike quality, from the sparkling chandeliers to the fur-thick rugs and extraordinarily fluffy cushions on her chairs. She imagined that like the sheets that tucked themselves back in, it was all mostly an illusion, but she enjoyed it just the same.
Padding over the soft floors, she wandered to the Ruscica sitting on her desk. It glowed faintly, full of Fated power. But unless Scarlett appeared with the Fallen Star’s blood, none of that power would be unlocked, and they’d have no way of defeating the Fallen Star. Her mother’s death would go unavenged, Valenda would burn, and Scarlett—
Tella stopped her runaway thoughts before they went too far.
Scarlett might not have appeared with the blood yet, but the night had only just begun. It was too soon to worry. She was probably going to come later, with or without the blood. Scarlett possessed a magical key, and if something had gone wrong, she’d have used it to escape.
Tella ran her fingers over the ancient cover of the Ruscica. She’d never even opened it, and yet she was putting a lot of faith in it. She wished she didn’t need blood to read it. But when she opened the book, her wish didn’t come true. The pages were blank and untouched.
Tella eyed the writing set on her desk. The nib of the glass-tipped pen was sharp enough to draw blood. Jacks had said she needed the Fallen Star’s blood to read his story. But Jacks was rarely entirely honest.
Curious, Tella pricked her finger with the pen nib and let the blood drip into an ink bowl, filling it with red, until there was enough to write inside the magic book.
Tell me a story.
She watched as her blood soaked into the paper and slowly re-formed into a new set of curving words: Welcome to the life of Donatella Dragna.
Not what she’d hoped for. Tella already knew this story, and yet she was curious to read what the book said about her.
A table of contents formed beneath the greeting. She’d have expected it to mark her life in years, but the table favored significant events. They appeared to be listed in order of their occurrence. Some were obvious, like The birth of Donatella Dragna, Donatella and Scarlett’s mother vanishes, and Donatella’s first kiss. But she was surprised by some of the other captions:
Donatella spends a week pretending she’s a mermaid
Donatella steals a goat and names him Cuddles
Donatella steals all her sister’s underclothes
Donatella writes her first letter to Legend
Donatella marries the Prince of Hearts
Tella’s blood ran cold. She looked back over the table of contents, to see if there was anything else that wasn’t true. But none of the other claims were false.
Maybe the book had a sense of humor like the Map of All? Or maybe Jacks had given her a fake map that led to a fake library where she’d gotten this fake book.
She hadn’t married Jacks. Tella wasn’t married. She wasn’t even sure she ever wanted to get married.
According to the table of contents, the event happened right after her mother had died. Tella violently flipped through the book until she found the dreaded chapter in question. She read each word carefully, but there were sections that stood out more than others.
* * *
If her heart had not been so heavy with grief and pain, Donatella would have known better than to trust the Prince of Hearts.
If she’d not been burning with despair, she would have realized the danger in repeating magical words as her blood mingled with his.
If she’d not just watched her mother die, she would have known that the Prince of Hearts was not taking her grief away because he cared. The Prince of Hearts did not know how to care. He only knew how to take what he wanted, and he wanted Donatella Dragna.
But poor Donatella was too grief-stricken to see it. When he told her to speak, she repeated his words, creating an immortal bond
that would forever tie their souls together in eternal matrimony.
* * *
No way in all the hells. Tella didn’t want to believe it. But a part of her felt it. If she was being really honest, she’d felt it since the night it had happened, when she’d decided to lie there with him, to sleep beside him instead of leave. She’d felt it again, when she’d gone back the next day to ask for help. And again, when she’d felt so betrayed and so hurt by him after he had nearly killed her, when all she should have been was angry.
If it had been a human wedding, she’d have just slammed the book shut and pretended it had never happened. But this wasn’t something she could ignore or pretend away.
This was an immortal bond that would tie her soul to Jacks’s forever.
44
Donatella
Tella didn’t care that it was the middle of the night, that she’d forgotten her cloak, or that the streets of Valenda were far more dangerous than they’d ever been now that the Fates had taken over. She marched to Jacks’s as if she were deadlier than anything she might encounter.
Once at the door, she pounded her fist and then stormed inside the moment it opened. A riot of clacking and clicking and clapping assaulted her immediately.
It seemed that rather than hiding from the Fates, half the city had just come here. Tella wondered if Jacks had altered their feelings to get them there, or if all of them were as foolish as she was.
Heavily perfumed bodies brushed against her as she moved through the crush. The last time she’d been at Jacks’s it had been mostly men, but tonight the gentlemen were outnumbered by the ladies. All of them were coiffed and clean. None of them were covered in sweat like Tella.
A horrid spike of jealousy shot through her at the thought that she might find Jacks with his arms around another girl. But was she really jealous or did she have that sudden feeling just because they were immortally married?
Married!
Tella still couldn’t believe it. She’d flirted with trusting him again after he’d given her the map. But she never should have trusted him enough to let him trick her like this in the first place.
“Aren’t you full of fire tonight?” The lively crowd parted as Mistress Luck strode closer to Tella, all green-velvet-clad curves and cryptic eyes. “Seems you really can’t stay away from him.”
“Where is he?” Tella spat.
The Fate pointed toward a wall covered in black-and-white hearts. “There’s a door hidden there; it will take you to the gaming room where Jacks likes to play. But—”
Tella strode off without hearing the woman’s warning. It wouldn’t have mattered what she’d said.
Tella tore through the door and down a set of stairs, which landed her inside a room that looked as if it had been attacked by a deck of playing cards. Everything was black and white with violent hints of red. The white walls were striped with crooked lines of glittering red spades, while the floor looked as if someone had plucked handfuls of clubs, diamonds, and hearts and tossed them everywhere. In the center of the room, the heavy round table was equally wild, piled high with chips, cards, bits of jewelry, a few fancy shirts, and half-empty bottles of liquor. The chairs encircling it were full of gamblers, all in various states of undress, explaining the clothes mixed with the chips.
The only one who remained mostly dressed was Jacks. He’d lost his jacket from earlier, discarded his gold cravat, and his shirt was open, missing all of its diamond-sharp buttons.
“Everyone out!” Tella shouted.
A dozen heads turned her way, intoxicated faces all wearing various shades of surprise. Save for Jacks. His silver-blue eyes met hers expectantly and then he grinned like the devil he was. He’d known this moment was coming. “Hello, wife.”
Still looking at her, Jacks gave a lazy wave of his hand toward the table. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’d introduce you to my bride, but I think I’d rather kick you out so we can chat in private.”
Tella expected a few murmurs of protest, but Jacks must have been using his newly restored powers to control everyone’s emotions. There were no objections from the group, and within a minute, his court of half-naked gamblers was on the stairs.
“That was quite an appearance.” Jacks leaned into his winged chair and kicked one scuffed brown boot onto the table. “Have you come to consummate the—”
Tella launched herself at him before he could finish. His chair fell back, bringing both of them with it.
“You foul, heartless, wretched, cheating, manipulating, apple-sucking demon!” The curses were inelegant, not nearly as dirty as they should have been, and her blows were ineffective. He’d easily caged her wrists in his cool hands, so she didn’t even hit him, but it felt good to fight him. It felt good to wrestle against his grip.
“You tricked me into marrying you!”
“You begged me to help you.”
“I wanted you to take my emotions away, not make me your wife.”
“But I’ve been a good husband. I told you how to find the Vanished Market, I gave you that Fated map.”
“You also threatened to kill me! And you nearly did!” Tella panted as she finally ripped her wrists free from his icy hands. She would have tried to hit him again, but she needed to stop touching him.
She pulled herself from him, then she shoved up from the ground until she towered over him. He wasn’t even breathing heavily. He just looked up at her as if he were a misbehaving angel with gold hair hanging across his pale forehead.
“I want you to undo it,” she demanded. “I want the marriage revoked, and then I never want to see you again.”
“Why would I agree to that?” he droned. “There’s nothing really in this solution for me.”
“You want to be married to someone that hates you?”
“Maybe I like the intensity of it.” He grinned at her as he pushed up from the floor, leaving the chair lying between them.
Tella could barely breathe she was so furious. She would have walked out if she could have. But this marriage wasn’t something she could ignore or pretend away. Even now she could feel it in the way she hated him. Fiery and all-consuming, so much stronger now that he was standing in front of her like her own personal villain.
“If you don’t undo this, I swear I will kill you.” She stepped over the chair, until they were so close she had to crane her neck to look up at his sharp face. “If I remain your wife, I promise that I will make you fall in love with me. I will become everything you’ve ever wanted, and the moment you are mortal, I’ll stab the closest sharp object through your chest and end your heartbeat once and for all.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.” Jacks sighed. “If you want out of the marriage, there’s a simpler way to do it.”
He reached in his boot and pulled out a dagger.
Tella scrambled back, nearly tripping on the fallen chair.
“Don’t worry, my love, it’s for you to use on me.” He flipped the dagger in his hand and held the hilt toward her. “Immortal matrimony cannot be undone with signatures and pieces of paper. To sever our connection, you have to wound me.”
“And doing that will undo the marriage?”
“‘Undoing’ implies it never happened.” Jacks’s voice switched from sharp to dull in a flash. “What’s done cannot be undone, but it can be severed. All you have to do is use the knife and say the words: Tersyd atai es detarum.” He stepped over the chair until the space between them was gone once again.
Tella cautiously accepted the blade. It was the same jeweled dagger they’d used the night he’d taken her emotions, when he’d also married her. She slowly tipped it toward Jacks’s throat.
He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even appear to breathe, though his lips remained parted as he looked her directly in the eyes, his gaze the saddest shade of blue she’d ever seen. She didn’t believe it was real. And yet, the look on his face was so convincing, it made her wonder just enough to hesitate.
“Should I make this easier for you?” He s
pread his shirt apart, baring his chest of smooth, sculpted skin, like marble with a heartbeat. She could hear the rapid pulse of it as it moved in tandem with hers, pounding harder with every breath she took. When they first met, his heart hadn’t beat at all. Then it started again—because of her.
She gripped the dagger tighter, but didn’t make another move.
“Why are you hesitating, my love?”
“Why are you making this so easy?”
“You think this is easy for me?” Jacks leaned forward until his skin pressed against the blade. For once he didn’t smell like apples. He smelled like liquor and heartache, and when he spoke, his words were almost too soft to hear. “You think it’s in my nature to be kind?”
“There’s nothing kind about what you did to me.”
“You’re right,” he whispered. “What I did was purely selfish. So stab me before I decide to be selfish again. The longer we’re bound together, the more difficult it will be for you to fight it. You might hate me, but you’ll find yourself wanting and needing to be near me. So if you really wish to end this, do it now. Cut me and sever everything that ties us together.”
Sweat slicked the jeweled hilt in Tella’s hands. She wanted to do this. She wanted to slash him and be done. But something about the words sever everything that ties us gave her pause.
Maybe he’d known all along that as soon as she found out they were married she’d come here demanding that he end it. Maybe that’s why he was giving in so easily, because that’s what he actually wanted—to sever everything that tied them together. She was supposed to be his true love. She was the one who made his heart beat again—which meant she was also his greatest weakness.
“If I do this, if I sever our connection, will I still be your true love?”
“Why would you care?” Jacks’s lips thinned as if he couldn’t wait to be rid of her, but the look in his eyes said he wanted to devour her. “I imagine after today you won’t be kissing me again.”
Finale Page 24