Finale (Caraval, 3)

The silence inside the Immortal Library was absolute and alive. Tella could feel it swallowing up her footsteps, and sucking up the sound of flipping book pages, and flickering wicks inside hurricane glasses, but the worst was the feel of the silence keeping her lips pressed painfully shut.

Legend reached out and took her hand once more. His eyes silently promised they were in this together, and then he pressed the world’s softest kiss to her knuckles. She felt it from her fingertips all the way down to her toes, reminding her there were good uses for closed lips, as they ventured under an archway made of books and farther inside the Fated place.

Everything smelled of dust trapped in light, cracked leather, and wayward dreams. Breathing in and out through her nose, Tella looked down at the Map of All. It had transformed once they’d entered the library. It now revealed an entire kingdom made of books that could have either been a book lover’s nightmare or their wish come true. There was a Broken Spine Castle, an Unread River, a Ravine of Ripped Pages, a Poetry Valley, a set of Novel Mountains, and then finally the Ruscica and Books for Advanced Imaginations.

The most direct route to this room was through an area referred to as the Zoo. Tella wondered if it would have books in cages, but the Zoo didn’t even have bookshelves. The volumes all roamed freely in this room as they clung together to take the shapes of different animals. Tella spied bookish rhinos, papier-mâché elephants, and very tall giraffes that milled about in an oddly peaceful silence. The elephant sniffed at Tella with its leathery-gray trunk of books, while a paper bunny made of loose pages noiselessly hopped after Legend. The bunny continued to follow as they left the Zoo and reached the Reading Chamber, where books formed couches and chairs and one massive throne.

A warning flashed on the map: Do not sit on the throne.

Tella was instantly curious, but not enough to test the map, especially when they were so close to what they wanted. According to the map, all they had to do was climb the staircase made of books, which rested behind the throne, and they would find the Ruscica room.

The steps were too narrow for them to walk side by side.

Tella reluctantly released Legend’s hand as she started to climb. The bookish stairs were the type of steep that made it feel treacherous to turn around. They were unsteady, shifting beneath her slippers. But Legend touched her back or her shoulder every few steps, letting her know that he was still there. He was with her, and he wasn’t leaving even though she couldn’t see or hear him.

It made her wonder at all the other things he’d said to her in the past without words. By the time they reached the top of the steps and the room with the Ruscica, Tella was grateful the library swallowed up sound. It didn’t enhance her other senses, but it made her more aware of them, and more aware of Legend as he came up beside her and silently brushed his fingers against hers. The movement was quick and subtle, and she might not have noticed it if she’d been standing there waiting for him to speak, rather than paying attention to his silence.

The map didn’t give any indication of where in the room the Ruscica rested, forcing her and Legend to split up as they searched. Many of the volumes had spines covered in numbers, symbols, or languages she didn’t read. There were also a few spines with titles that she would have liked to read, had she not felt pressed for time.

Mermaids and Mermen and How to Become One

Ten Essential Rules of Time Travel

Shape-shifting for Beginners

Cakes, Cakes, and More Cakes

Turning Your Shadow into a Pet

Love, Death, and Immortality

She might have picked up the book on cakes or immortality, had the latter not been sitting right next to a thick flesh-colored volume with one word crudely stitched into the spine: Ruscica.

The book slid out from the shelf in a cloud of red-tinged dust that made the tips of Tella’s fingers tingle as she took it.

She found Legend on the opposite side of the silent room. When she showed him her prize, he smiled. Neither of them knew if it would have the information they needed, but Tella finally felt victorious as Legend took her hand again.

After the Maiden Death and the Assassin had visited his home in the Spice Quarter, Legend had decided they needed to move every night. But a part of Tella thought he was just showing off his many homes. His four-story coastal cottage looked as if it had been built around the same time as Count Nicolas’s estate, but whereas Nicolas’s estate had appeared as if it was in need of magic, Legend’s house was the opposite. Full of glittering windows and expansive balconies that looked over the foaming ocean, the house sat on Valenda’s rocky coast the way that Tella imagined Legend would have sat on his throne, demanding attention by simply being there.

They’d started about a mile away, and Legend’s fingers stayed entwined with hers for the entire walk. She should have broken free; earlier his touch had grounded her, as he pulled her through the spiders and steadied her in the library. But now, he wasn’t helping, he was making a claim. Tella reminded herself that nothing good could come from this as she looked down on their clasped hands. But she didn’t let go. He had long fingers, strong palms, neatly trimmed nails—and no traces of ink.

She lifted their hands, peering closer. “Your black rose is gone?”

“Did you really think I’d keep it?” He dragged her hand up to his mouth and brushed a kiss to her knuckles. “You don’t have to be jealous of the tattoo anymore.”

“I wasn’t jealous.”

“Then maybe I should have left it on longer.” The rose reappeared on the back of his hand.

“You’re wretched.” Tella lifted her free hand to playfully smack him with her book.

He caught her wrist before she could, and then he took her other hand and trapped them both behind her. They’d finally reached the porch of his cottage, and in one quick move he spun her around and pressed her back to the door. “I think you like me because I’m terrible.”

“No.” Tella wiggled against him, but he didn’t budge. “I’ve decided I like nice boys, like Caspar.”

“Lucky for me he doesn’t like girls that way. And I can also be nice. But I think you like it when I’m not.”

He freed her wrist and wrapped his hands around her hips. Tella’s heart raced as his fingers spread out, claiming her as he drew her closer.

Maybe one more kiss wouldn’t hurt.

Waves crashed against the nearby coast, filling the air with salt and damp, while Legend continued leaning—

The door behind her opened wide.

Tella stumbled backward, and she might have fallen if not for Legend’s arms tightening around her.

“Sorry about that.” Julian ran a hand through his hair, looking mildly embarrassed, though she sensed he actually wasn’t. There was something hard in his eyes that wasn’t normally there. And was it Tella’s imagination, or was he refusing to look at her?

He’d promised Legend he’d stay away from the Menagerie, where Scarlett was being kept, but knowing Julian, he was finding ways to meet with Jovan, who was supposed to be watching her sister.

“Is Scarlett all right?” Tella asked.

Julian finally looked at her, and he even managed to smile. But Tella couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong. “I just need to talk to my brother.”

Legend’s arms slowly left her waist. “I’ll find you when we’re done,” he whispered.

Tella stepped inside the house and shut the door behind her. But she couldn’t bring herself to go up the curving wooden staircase to her bedroom just yet. If Julian was lying and Scarlett wasn’t all right—if she’d been hurt trying to get Gavriel’s blood, or if she wasn’t able to get it at all—Tella didn’t want to be protected from the information.

She stood close to the door, hands pressed against the warm wood, but there was only silence, save for the ocean waves. Wondering if the brothers were giving her a chance to walk out of earshot, she took a few noisy steps from the door and quickly tiptoed back in time to hear Julian say, “What are you doing with Tella?”

She jolted at the sound of her name, her alarm taking a new direction as she moved closer and peered through the door’s spy-hole.

Legend’s response was too low for her to hear, but she could see his expression. His dark brows slashed down and the look in his eyes shuttered.

“I know you don’t love her,” Julian said.

Tella staggered back a step. She already knew Legend didn’t love her, but the way Julian said the words made it sound so much worse. It didn’t matter that his voice was soft. The words were like a period at the end of a sentence, small but absolute in their power.

“If you care about her at all, then you should let her go rather than try to change her.”

Silence.

Tella dared to look through the spy-hole once more. The sun was almost set. Night was taking over the sky as Legend looked down on his brother with something like an accusation. “That’s her choice to make, not yours. Although you didn’t object when I told you that a blood oath could make you ageless.”

“And I hate myself for it sometimes.” Julian’s voice turned harsh. “I hate not just watching you lose yourself piece by piece, but benefitting from it. Then I saw you with Tella. I thought, maybe after you saved her from the deck, you would change.”

Tella held her breath, but nothing about Legend changed.

He looked like the Legend who’d left her on those steps in front of the Temple of the Stars—closed off and cold and utterly unreachable. “If I’d changed, I’d be dead.”

“You don’t know that,” Julian argued. “Maybe you would have just done things differently. You’re careless with your life. You take chances because you know you can’t die. That’s fine if that’s how you want to live, but don’t be careless with her life.” He looked up at his brother, brown hair sheltering eyes that appeared to be waging a battle between abandon and hope. “Do you remember what the game was like when it first began?”

“I try not to.”

“You should, it was fun.”

“It was barely a traveling carnival,” Legend mumbled.

Julian smiled, as if hope had just won. “It was. But it still inspired people to dream and believe in magic. It made me believe in magic.”

Legend eyed his brother as if he’d lost his mind. “You know magic is real.”

“Just because something is real doesn’t mean you believe in it. The Fates are real, but I don’t put my faith in them. I used to put my faith in you, and I want to do it again. I know you can be better than this.”

Legend laughed, but it sounded so far from humorous that it made Tella sad, not just for Legend but for all of them. “When did you become such an idealist?”

“When I met a girl who loved her sister so much she was able to wish her back to life. You might possess magic, but love like that is real power.”

“And yet all the love in the world wouldn’t have brought Tella back without my magic.”

“She never would have died without your magic, either.” Julian’s smile disappeared. “Tella would have found another way. She didn’t and doesn’t need you to save her. She needs to save you.”