Finale (Caraval, 3)

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 into 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.

Was it possible he didn’t know that she’d followed him to see the witch? And if that was the case, then why had he locked her up?

She glowered at him when his probing gaze traveled from her neck, to her lips, and then—finally—her eyes.

The dungeon suddenly grew very warm. His gaze was still tight and dark, but it was edged in heat that she felt all the way down to her toes.

For months Tella had pondered what it would be like when they met again outside of her dreams. She wondered if he’d touch her at last, if he’d apologize for leaving her on the steps in front of the Temple of the Stars. Once she’d even imagined him asking her to be his empress. She almost laughed at that thought now, but she was wholly serious when she said, “Just because you’re going to be emperor doesn’t mean you can lock me up without reason.”

The corner of his mouth slowly lifted into an arrogant tilt. “Actually, it does. But I didn’t mean for you to be arrested. I only told my guards to collect you and bring you to me once you were found.” His voice was cool, even. Again, another person might not have picked up on the way his sentences turned razor-sharp right at the ends. He was definitely angry, and angry with her.

Tella couldn’t believe it. Her mother was dead. The Fates were awake. Her sister had been kidnapped. His guards had locked her up, and yet Legend kept looking at her as if she was the one who’d done something wrong.

“What crime have I committed?”

“I told you, I didn’t have you arrested. I know how you feel about cages. I was only trying to find you.”

“Did you really have to use your guards?” She tried to keep her voice as even as his was, but it was difficult. She could feel Jacks’s spell cracking. Her chest was tight and her head was pounding. And Legend still hadn’t unlocked her cell door. “If you’d wanted to find me, why didn’t you just visit me in my dreams and ask me where I was?”

A quick clench of his jaw. “I tried to.”

“Then why couldn’t you?” Tella said. Shortly after he’d first showed up in her dreams, he’d taught her how to control parts of them—little tricks to change what she wore and larger tricks in case she didn’t want certain people entering her dreams. But even when she’d been mad at Legend, she’d always let him in. “I wasn’t keeping you out.”

“I know. But something else was.”

Tella didn’t see Legend move—he must have used his magic to hide what he was doing—but suddenly the door between them was open, and Legend was holding something in his hands—two pieces of confetti, one shaped like a spade and the other shaped like a heart.

A sharp memory returned to Tella: Jacks carrying her through his gambling den as card-suit confetti fell from the ceiling. Was this why Legend was mad at her, because she’d been with Jacks?

“Where were you last night, Donatella?”

Again, she hadn’t seen him move, but he was now farther away, leaning against the bars opposite her cell, making it clear that even though they were outside of her dreams, some of the rules hadn’t changed. He was still keeping his distance.

“That’s none of your business,” Tella snapped, “and even if it was, I don’t have time to argue with you about it. I need to find my sister.”

“Tella!” Scarlett’s voice carried down the hall before Tella caught sight of her running forward in a storm of flushed raspberry skirts, bright enough to light up the entire dungeon.

“Where have you been?” Scarlett captured Tella in a hug so tight it cut off Tella’s breath. Or maybe she couldn’t breathe because of the emotions suddenly captured in her throat. Her sister wasn’t dead or injured or kidnapped. She was here and safe and alive. “We’ve been searching the entire city for you and Paloma.”

“I thought something happened to you,” Tella choked out.

“Why would you think that?” Scarlett shot an accusing look at Legend.

He continued to lean against the prison bars, regarding Tella with narrowed eyes. “I didn’t get the chance to tell her you were here.”

“Oh good, you found her.” Julian appeared at the end of the hall, swaggering forward as if the tension in the dungeon wasn’t thick enough to choke on. He was dressed in finer clothes than Tella had ever seen him in, but they looked tired, as if he’d been wearing them since the day before. “Where was she?”

“We were just figuring that out.” Scarlett turned back to her sister. “Legend told us that he thought Jacks had taken you.”

The bright raspberry skirts of Scarlett’s dress began to fade as she took in the disheveled state of Tella’s feathered dress. She’d probably lost a couple feathers during her time with Jacks, but she doubted they’d come undone in the same way Scarlett was imagining. And after all she’d seen yesterday, Jacks didn’t feel like the most dangerous immortal that Tella knew.

“Is your mother here too?” Julian asked.

Scarlett didn’t say anything, but Tella could see the question in her eyes as well. Eyes so much like their mother’s that just looking at them made Tella tremble all over, as if her bones wanted to break out of her skin and flee before they were forced to relive last night’s horrors.

“Tella, what’s wrong?” Scarlett reached for her sister’s hand again.

Tella wrapped her fingers around Scarlett’s, the same way she had as a child the day after their mother had vanished from Trisda. Tella had been the first of the sisters to discover Paloma was missing. She’d found the room her father had destroyed after he couldn’t find Paloma anywhere. Then Scarlett had been there, taking her sister’s hand and silently promising she’d never let go as long as Tella needed her to hold on.

“She’s left again?” Scarlett guessed.

Tella was tempted to say yes. It would have been so much easier for her and for her sister if she just let Scarlett believe her mother had run off. But if Tella took the easy path now, it would be so much harder to take the necessary one.

Last night she’d vowed to kill the Fallen Star, and she planned to follow through. She’d find a way to destroy him, and she couldn’t do it on her own.

She took a deep breath, but it became lodged in her throat until she finally managed to say, “Our mother died yesterday.”

Scarlett staggered back and clutched her stomach, as if the wind had been punched out of her.

Tella wanted to take her sister’s hand again, but she couldn’t stop to comfort her. If Tella stopped talking, she knew she’d start crying. She had to keep going. She reached into her pocket and shared the good-bye letter her mother had written. Then Tella told them how she’d ignored her mother’s warnings and followed her into one of the ruins, where Tella had watched every disturbing thing that had passed between the Fallen Star and their mother until the Fallen Star finally took Paloma’s life. The only part Tella wasn’t entirely honest about was the bit involving Jacks. Since they already knew she’d been with him, she told them how he’d found her and carried her out of the cavern, but she didn’t add that he’d then helped her by taking away some of her grief.

When she finished, the four of them no longer appeared to be standing in the halls of Legend’s dungeon. Again, she hadn’t even seen Legend move, but she knew he’d created the comforting illusion they stood within now. The cold floors had turned to plush cream carpets, the stone walls had turned to white soapstone, and the barred windows had shifted to pretty stained-glass ones, covered with serene pictures of clouds in calming skies that shined pale blue light over everyone’s grim faces.

Julian offered his condolences first. Somewhere during her story, he’d moved close to Scarlett and wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

Legend still remained distant. He leaned against one of the gleaming walls, but when he looked at Tella, all the earlier anger and wariness had disappeared, replaced with a look so indescribably gentle, she would never have pictured it on his face. “I wish it was in my power to bring her back. I know how much she meant to you, and I’m sorry you lost her the way that you did.”

His fingers twitched, as if he were tempted to reach for her, but for once Tella was glad that he didn’t attempt to touch her. Last night Jacks had held her together with touch, but Tella had the feeling that if Legend pulled her into his arms right now, she’d fall apart entirely. She could handle his glares and his barbed remarks, but his tenderness could upend her completely.

Scarlett didn’t say a word, but tears streamed down her cheeks, more tears than Tella would have expected, given her rocky feelings toward their mother. Tella felt as if she should have been there to try to soothe them instead of Julian, but again she feared that it would only make her cry, too.

Then warmth encircled Tella as Scarlett broke away from Julian and folded her arms around her sister. Scarlett’s chest shook, but her arms were unshakable, holding Tella impossibly tight, the same way Scarlett had that day after their mother had first disappeared.

Tella shuddered against her sister, but she didn’t fall to pieces as she had feared. Their mother had once told them there was nothing like the love of a sister, and this was one of the moments where Tella could feel that truth. She could feel her sister loving her twice as much as before, trying to heal the wound her mother’s death had left. It was too soon for it to heal, and Tella didn’t know if the hurt would ever completely mend. But Scarlett’s love reminded her that while some things never healed, other things grew stronger.

“Maybe we should leave and give them some time alone,” Julian whispered to Legend.

“No,” Tella said, breaking away from Scarlett. “I don’t want to grieve now. I’ll grieve after the Fallen Star is dead.”

“We have to stop the other Fates as well,” Scarlett added with a sniff. “We can’t let anyone else suffer like this, or like the people we saw yesterday.”

“What did you see yesterday?” Tella asked.

“A family that was petrified by the Poisoner.”

“Though we weren’t certain it was him, or that the Fates were really waking up, until now,” added Julian.

“But you suspected it—that’s why you sent guards for me?” Tella turned to Legend, but if he had actually been concerned about her safety, and not just jealous of Jacks, it didn’t show. Legend’s expression had shuttered, and any trace of gentleness or tenderness had vanished from his handsome face.

“Did you see any other Fates when you were with Jacks?” he asked. “Do you know who he’s working with right now?”

“No,” Tella said.

She might have said more. She might have told them where Jacks was and what he was doing in his gambling den; she was certain they were all curious. But Jacks wasn’t the real enemy now. The Fallen Star was, and according to the witch, there was only one weakness that would allow him to be killed—and Legend shared that same weakness.

“I think we need to worry less about Jacks—who actually helped me last night—and more about the Fallen Star. What is the Fallen Star’s weakness?”

“I don’t know,” Legend said.

“Yes, you do.” Tella kept her eyes fixed on his. Earlier, his gaze had been full of stars, but now his eyes were soulless jet-black with midnight-blue veins, the same colors as the wings that Dante had tattooed on his back. How had she ever thought Legend was only Dante? Tella should have known from his eyes alone. Eyes didn’t change color. Pupils might dilate and whites might turn yellow or red, but irises didn’t change the way that his did.

“Don’t lie to me, Legend. Esmeralda told you that the Fallen Star’s weakness is the same as yours.”

Legend’s eyes flashed—gold-white. Lines briefly formed around them, as if he were smiling, but they were there and gone so fast, Tella wondered if she imagined it. Amusement was not the response she’d expected.

“What she said was useless,” Legend answered, something like bitterness clouding his tone. “If we want to defeat the Fallen Star and have a chance at killing the Fates, we have to find another weakness.”

“Wait—you went to see Esmeralda?” The shock on Julian’s face made it clear that Tella wasn’t the only one from whom Legend kept his extracurricular activities secret.

“Who’s Esmeralda?” Scarlett asked, looking between them.

“I haven’t heard that name in a long time,” chimed a new voice, as Jovan entered the glimmering hall. She was one of Legend’s most welcoming performers, but she was perhaps also the most difficult of all of them to read. She was always smiling. Always friendly, always cheerful. Since no one could possibly be that happy all the time, Tella sometimes imagined Jovan’s grins were just another piece of the costume she wore during Caraval.

But Jovan wasn’t smiling today. Her dark brown face looked uncharacteristically stern as she approached Legend. In one of their dreams, Legend had told Tella that most of his performers had taken on roles in the palace when the last Caraval had ended and he’d been declared the heir. Jovan appeared to be a high-ranking guard, dressed in a navy military coat with gold tassels on the shoulders that matched the gold lines striping her pants.

“Sir, may I speak with you for a moment? There’s been another incident.”