Finale (Caraval, 3)

Scarlett fell through the doorway in a screaming blur of agonizing color. Blistering orange, searing yellow, and violent garnet. Her shoulders were burning. She’d felt the pain before, but now it was all she could feel.

“Get her damp towels and cold water.” A pair of strong hands picked her up and carried her to a cloud-like bed.

“No,” Scarlett choked. “Take care of Julian first.”

“I’m fine, Crimson.” Then he was next to her, holding a cold cloth to her shoulder, easing a bit of the burn as her head fell against downy pillows and the world went in and out of focus.

She didn’t know how long she lost consciousness for, but when it returned, she was in a cloud of pink and gold, back in her bedroom at the Menagerie, surrounded by marble columns, disturbing frescoes, and familiar faces. But Julian’s was the only face she truly saw.

The horrible mask was still covering half of his face. But the chains around his wrists were gone. He was standing up without any help. His chest was smooth and brown instead of red and sweating, and he was taking even breaths as he unfolded a damp cloth to cover her neck and her chest.

“Is this real?” she asked.

“You tell me.” He pressed an affectionate kiss to her forehead with the side of his mouth.

“But … how are you unharmed?” Scarlett sputtered.

“You told me that we were getting through this together, or we weren’t getting through. And”—Julian’s brow wrinkled in something like confusion—“whatever was in Poison’s goblet healed me.”

“I wish some would have been poured on Scarlett,” Tella said.

Scarlett turned to see her sister. She was perched on the other side of the bed, her delicate hands pressing another cold cloth to Scarlett’s other shoulder. At first glance, she looked stunning in a gown covered with dark blue ribbons and pale blue lace. But when Scarlett looked closer, she saw her sister’s eyes were puffy and her cheeks were splotchy, as if she’d been fighting back tears all day.

“Tella? How did you get here?”

“I had a little help.” She nodded toward the columns flanking the window, and the room’s other guests. Fates.

Scarlett jolted back.

Tella had gone insane. She’d brought the Maiden Death, along with another cloaked Fate who looked extraordinarily out of place, as gauzy curtains fluttered behind him. He wore a rough woolen cape over slouched shoulders and a hood that kept his entire face concealed. Scarlett had to run through the list of Fates until she remembered the Assassin, the mad Fate who could travel through space and time.

“It’s all right,” Tella said, though Scarlett swore her sister’s voice was higher than usual, as if she was still convincing herself of this. “They want the same thing we do.”

Scarlett didn’t want to trust any of them. But, she knew her sister hated the Fates as much as she did. Tella wouldn’t have trusted these two without a good reason, and Poison had probably saved Julian’s life with whatever he’d thrown on him.

“Is Poison working with you two?” Scarlett asked.

“We have no alliance with Poison,” answered the Maiden Death as the Assassin shook his head.

“Poison works for himself,” called the Lady Prisoner.

Scarlett shot up in bed. She’d forgotten all about the other treacherous Fate on the opposite side of the open doorway. “We need to get out of here!” Scarlett yelled. “She’s a spy.”

“Of course I’m a spy,” the Lady Prisoner said. “That’s why he put me in here. But I’m also on your side.” She hopped off her perch in a dramatic whirl of lavender skirts and clutched the bars in front of her. “I want out of this cage. Why do you think I sliced his throat that day?”

“Maybe you were bored.” Scarlett knew the Lady Prisoner couldn’t lie, but she really didn’t want to listen to her.

She wanted to hate all the Fates. She didn’t want to look in the Maiden Death’s sad eyes and remember how awful it had felt to be inside of a similar cage.

Scarlett didn’t know why the Assassin would be aiding their cause—he was more powerful than anyone and yet the sooty-charcoal emotions swirling around him conjured feelings of brokenness and misery.

“Tella, why did you bring them here?” Scarlett asked.

“They sort of brought me. The Maiden Death is the one who told me you were in danger, and the Assassin is how we got inside. He brought me here to search for you, while Legend went to look for Julian. Did you two see him?”

“He helped us get away,” said Julian. “He was using his illusions to fight the Fallen Star and keep him busy while we left.”

Tella’s face went paper-white. “You shouldn’t have left him down there.”

“He can handle himself,” Julian said.

“What if he’s been captured instead and they figure out who he is? They’ll drain all of his magic. We need to get him.” She turned to the Assassin. “You—”

“If you go down there to save one person, you’ll never defeat Gavriel,” Anissa interrupted. “You’ll just keep repeating the same mistakes—sacrificing one of you to save another one of you.”

“But we can’t just leave him!” Tella’s face went from pale to red, as if she was afraid Legend would lose more than just his powers. She looked ready to battle the Fallen Star herself.

Scarlett’s ribs tightened. Her gaze darted to the empty space on the floor in front of the Lady Prisoner’s cage, where a body had rested earlier that day. Murder was how the Fallen Star solved problems. “We’re not going to leave him.”

“The only way to win this battle is to become what the Fallen Star wants most of all.” Anissa’s violet gaze met Scarlett’s.

“I can’t do that,” Scarlett said. “I tried. If I come into my full powers I’ll become someone else—”

It hit Scarlett then. Maybe that was what she needed to do. Her father wanted her to change, but he also wanted someone else. Scarlett saw it whenever he looked at her with a brief bit of tenderness. He still wanted Paradise, the only women he’d ever loved. He’d killed her, but he regretted it, because like all immortals, he was obsessive and possessive. He missed her. Scarlett’s mother was what he wanted most of all.

In the background Scarlett heard her sister objecting to something, but all the words turned into white noise as Scarlett finally saw how she could defeat him. The idea was extreme and possibly preposterous, but if love was Gavriel’s only weakness, then she needed to become the one person he loved. “Assassin? Can you take other people with you when you travel through time?”

“What do you need to travel through time for?” Julian asked as Tella simultaneously said, “We’re wasting time.”

Scarlett barely heard the Assassin’s soft “Yes. But if you go back in time and make even the smallest change, you may not be able to return to this timeline, and those you love here will never see you again.”

“What if I just went back in time to steal a dress and observe someone in order to imitate them?”

“You may not change anything,” said the Assassin. “But time travel rarely goes as planned—you may end up doing more than just stealing a dress and observing.”

“Who is it you want to observe?” Tella asked.

But from the shake in her voice, Scarlett could tell her sister already had an inkling of what Scarlett had just figured out.

“I want to go back in time and see our mother.” Scarlett’s words should have sounded impossible. But she was standing in a room full of impossible people—three Fates, one boy who didn’t age, and a sister who had died and come back to life.

Scarlett’s idea was possible. It was just extremely dangerous. If she failed, the Fallen Star could kill her the way he’d killed her mother, he could put her in another cage, or he could keep the promise he’d made earlier and torture everyone she loved. But if it worked, she could save them all, along with the entire empire.

“I know how all of this sounds, but I really believe our mother is the key to killing the Fallen Star. Remember the secret you shared in your letter? The secret that told us he loved her? I’ve seen it in the way he looks at me sometimes. He sees her in me, and it changes him. If I can go back to steal some of her clothing and observe her, then I might be able to convince the Fallen Star that I am her. If I do this, I think he’ll become human enough to kill.”

Tella shook her head. Scarlett had never thought that blond curls could look angry, but Tella’s appeared furious as they bounced around her face. “She’s already dead, Scarlett. The Fallen Star killed her.”

“That’s why I need the Assassin’s help. He can bring me to the Fallen Star and say that he’s taken Paradise from the past.”

Tella scowled, hands fisting the cloth she’d been holding as if she could turn it into a weapon. “Even if you convince him you’re Paradise, what if he just kills you?”

“He won’t.” At least, Scarlett hoped he wouldn’t. “Not if I convince him that I’m Paradise when she was first pregnant with me.”

“Crimson, there has to be another way.”

“He’s right,” Tella pleaded, “I don’t think you’re hearing yourself—this is a dreadful idea.”

“No, it’s not,” rumbled the Assassin. “I’ve seen it work before.”

Every head in the room turned his way. He hadn’t moved from his position by the pillar, where he stood collecting shadows, or maybe he was creating them. Scarlett had been living with a Fate, but the Assassin’s power was far more potent than the Lady Prisoner’s. When he spoke, the room shuddered at the sound of his gravelly voice.

Yet, Tella still had the audacity to glare at him. “If you’ve seen all this, why didn’t you just tell us this is what we needed to do?”

“In my experience, humans don’t like it when I say I visited their futures and know they will die very painful deaths unless they do what I say. It only works if I let them figure it out.”

“Though sometimes people need guidance,” the Maiden Death added.

“They’re right,” came Anissa’s voice from the other room.

Tella’s frustrated scowl deepened. “Scar, this isn’t our only option. I have the Ruscica from the Immortal Library. If we can get some of the Fallen Star’s blood, then—”

“I tried to get his blood,” Scarlett said. “That plan didn’t work out.”

“She ended up in a cage like hers.” The Lady Prisoner nodded to the Maiden Death.

Everyone went quiet.

Tella looked as if she’d briefly forgotten how to argue. Julian looked as if he wanted to lift Scarlett off the bed and hold her in his arms forever—but that would have to wait.

“This is our best chance,” said Scarlett.

“You’re overlooking only one thing.” The Maiden Death inclined her head toward Julian and then Tella. “If this plan works and Gavriel feels a moment of love, one of you will have to kill him. If Scarlett tries to kill Gavriel, he might stop loving her and then he won’t be human.”

“Why can’t you or the Assassin do it?” Tella asked.

“The Fallen Star wanted to ensure that none of us ever killed him, so the human witch who helped him create us worked a spell. If one of his Fates tries to kill him, they will die instead.”

“Then I’ll do it.” Tella’s fiendish smile could have rivaled one of the Fates’. “I’ll gladly kill that monster. If he’s still in the throne room, I can sneak in and do it.”

“That’s not going to work,” Jacks drawled as he strode into the bedroom. “You’ll never get near him. But I can get you close enough to kill him.”