Finale (Caraval, 3)

Scarlett had no idea how long it would be until the Fallen Star came for her that night, but she had no intention of being there when he did. As soon as she was allowed to leave his horrendous party she raced back through the tunnels until she reached her rooms in the Menagerie.

The Lady Prisoner leaped from her gilded perch in a flurry of violet fabric the moment Scarlett stepped inside. “What—”

“Do not talk to me, you duplicitous disappointment of a woman.”

Anissa’s face fell into a pretty frown. “I tried to warn you; I told you that I cannot lie.”

“I said not to talk to me!” Scarlett ripped off her bloody gown once she reached her bedroom and hurried to put on her own enchanted dress. It warmed against her skin, as if it had missed her. Then it grew thicker and stronger as the fabric shifted from soft satin to supple raging red leather, which hugged her chest and flared out at her waist.

“Scarlett, listen to me,” the Lady Prisoner said. “Whatever you’re planning—”

“Stop talking!” Scarlett took out her Reverie Key and headed toward the door. “If you’re not a traitor, then save your words to distract or misdirect Gavriel when he comes for me.”

“But the torture—”

Scarlett ignored whatever Anissa said next. She shoved the Reverie Key in the doorknob, thinking only of Julian, hoping he’d already gotten far away from the palace—as she turned the magical object and opened the door.

At first she thought the key hadn’t worked. She was in a dungeon hallway, far more foul than the one Legend’s guards had used to lock up Tella. The air smelled of damp water and things left to die. Behind the iron bars, Scarlett saw a variety of torture devices, racks and chains and ropes, and then Julian, dangling from a ceiling.

Her legs buckled. She’d seen him wounded, she’d seen him dead, and yet neither of those things made this sight easier.

Julian’s hands were chained over his head and linked to a hook in the ceiling that left him hanging over a bloodstained drain. His shirt was ripped off, his chest was red and sweating, and his beautiful face was half covered in a metal mask that Scarlett could only partially see because his head was bowed, as if he couldn’t lift it anymore.

Her father must have had his Fates grab him as soon as he’d escaped the party, or he’d foolishly come back for her.

“Crimson—” His voice was raw and muffled.

“It’s going to be all right.” She tried to sound confident but her words cracked as her heart tore in half. “I’m—I’m going to get you free.”

“No,” Julian groaned, “you … you … need to get out of here.”

“Not without you.” Scarlett rose up on her toes to get him down from the hook on the ceiling, but it was too high to reach. She needed a ladder or a stool.

Frantic, she ran back into the hall. A few other prisoners called after her, but she ignored them as she searched for and found a short stool that must have belonged to an absent guard. She dragged it back and wasted no time in stepping on top of it.

Julian’s emotions were weak, gray shadows. He swayed as she looked for the lock that held the cuffs on his wrists chained together. Only there was no lock, it was an infinity chain. She’d have to lift him to free his hands from the hook in the ceiling, but his wrists would remain shackled.

His eyes flickered open and shut. “I love you,” he moaned. “If I die … it was…” The colors around him flickered and disappeared completely.

“No!” Scarlett said. “You’re not going to die! We will get through this together or we won’t get through it. Do not give up on me, Julian. I’m saving you, I’m saving you, I’m saving you, I’m saving you.”

Scarlett repeated the mantra as she used all her strength to lift his limp body from the ceiling hook. His skin was clammy from sweat and cold. He slumped against her, nearly knocking them both to the floor with his weight.

“Julian.” She said his name like a demand as she wrapped an arm around his feverish back and helped him to stand. “We need to get to the cell door, and then I can use the Reverie Key to get us out of here.”

“I’m afraid your key won’t help you this time.” Every single bar inside the prison caught fire, filling the dungeon with violent tongues of red and orange, as the Fallen Star appeared on the other side of Julian’s cell. Poison, an ever-present goblet of toxins in his hand, stood at his side, with an enthusiastic grin twisted further by the firelight.

Scarlett tried to run with Julian to the door, not caring that it was burning up, but the Fallen Star reached it first. He opened it wide and out of her reach as he stalked into the cell.

He’d taken off his crown, but his regal clothes were still soaked in blood. Red droplets sprayed the stones on the ground as he approached.

Scarlett’s dress immediately shifted. With a flurry of metallic crashes, it changed from raging red leather into a savage gown of steel-plated armor.

Gavriel laughed, star-bright and vicious. “Her Majesty’s Gown—that dress never did like me.”

“Isn’t that what Queen Azane changed into when she died?” Poison asked. “I thought she was more the lover sort than the fighter.”

“Maybe she just doesn’t like either of you,” Scarlett spit out.

“She definitely never liked me. It’s a shame, too. Azane could have been glorious.” The Fallen Star’s fingers lit with flames. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then don’t.” Scarlett tightened her arm around Julian, her eyes searching for another exit, but there were only three impenetrable walls and burning bars before them. “Let us go.”

“I’m trying to help you, auhtara.” He took another step and before Scarlett could evade him, he pressed his burning hands onto her steel-plated shoulders.

Scarlett screamed and let go of Julian. Her dress’s armor grew thicker but it wasn’t enough to stop the pain, and she wasn’t strong enough to break free. When he’d burned her earlier it was nothing compared to this.

“Stop fighting me, I’m saving you, auhtara.” Golden eyes met hers. “If you leave with that boy under your arm you’ll share the same fate as Queen Azane, who turned into that gown, and Reverie, who became the key in your hand. They were Fates who fell in love with humans and let themselves become mortal and die. But magic cannot die. So, when their human bodies perished, their magic was transferred into objects. Is that what you want?”

“If it means I’ll never become like you, then yes,” Scarlett panted; the air was almost too hot to breathe. She kept trying to break free, but his grip was too tight. All she could do was reach back and press the Reverie Key into Julian’s palm. “Go—”

“You can’t ask me to leave you!” Julian gritted his teeth, took her hand, and pulled with more strength than a boy who’d just been tortured should have had. It still shouldn’t have been enough to free her—the Fallen Star gripped her tighter, searing her metal dress and branding her skin until she cried out again—but in that same painful moment, Scarlett’s gown shifted.

During one ragged breath, the magical dress left Scarlett in only a thin chemise as it changed into two metal gloves that latched on to the Fallen Star’s hands.

All around them, the flames on the bars turned to smoke.

Gavriel cursed.

Scarlett coughed, but she was free of his grip. Her dress had smothered his flames. She saw him battling against it, melting the armored gloves on his hands, destroying her dress, which had sacrificed itself so that Scarlett and Julian could escape.

“Stop them!” Gavriel yelled at Poison.

Poison stepped in front of the lock, holding out his lethal goblet, about to toss its contents and turn them to stone, or worse. “It seems we won’t be great friends after all.”

Scarlett and Julian ground to a screeching halt.

The raging Fallen Star was behind them, still batting the gloves. Poison was in front of them, ready to turn them to stone. They were trapped. Scarlett clutched Julian tighter—when suddenly all of the prison bars began to crumble and re-form around Poison. The thick metal poles herded him away from the door as they formed a new cage, trapping him.

Fetid air, full of smoke, turned magical and sweet.

“Legend’s here,” Julian wheezed. “He’s doing this.”

“Use the key now!” Legend roared.

Scarlett couldn’t see him, but she didn’t hesitate to obey. She darted forward with Julian toward the door.

But Poison was still too close. He was caged, but that didn’t stop him from throwing out the contents of his goblet.

Julian shoved Scarlett behind him, blocking her from the toxin and letting it cover his chest and arms.

“No!” Scarlett screamed, grabbed Julian, and thrust the Reverie Key in the lock, as she thought of her sister and safety.

She found only one of them.