Finale (Caraval, 3)

Tella felt as if the whole world should have stopped or cheered for her. She’d just slayed the Fallen Star. She’d killed the monster who’d murdered her mother.

She’d also come close to dying. She could still smell the smoke and the char from the flames that would have scorched her. Her hands shook and her heart raced. But then Jacks was there, sliding a cool, comforting arm around her and pulling her close. “It’s all right, my love.”

But it isn’t all right, said a tiny voice inside her head. The same annoying voice urged her to pull away from Jacks—there was a truth about him that she’d chosen to forget. But Tella didn’t want to remember it. She liked the seductive lie that was Jacks. She liked his cruel games and his teasing smiles and the way he bit her whenever they kissed. The throne room might have looked like a page ripped from a horror story, but Jacks was her Prince of Hearts and he’d turn it all into a fairy-tale ending. She leaned into his touch and the world became hazy.

“I did it,” Tella said, her voice tinted with disbelief.

“Of course you did, my love. But we need to get out of here now.” Jacks held her tighter as he tugged her away from Scarlett. Tella had seen her fall to the floor with the Fallen Star, but she hadn’t gotten up. She remained slumped against his lifeless body.

“Wait, my sister—”

“Look at me, Donatella.” Jacks twisted her around until she was facing him. “Do you still want to spend the rest of your life with me?” He asked the question as if it were the only thing that mattered in the world. Never in her life had Tella felt a question with so much power. Though Jacks looked almost powerless as he asked it. He was a mess of gold hair, sea-salt blue eyes, and bitten lips, beautiful in a way only broken things could be, and Tella wanted him exactly how he was. She wanted him fractured and chaotic and completely untamable. The feeling was as consuming as what she felt from him whenever he kissed her—as if it would never be enough, even if she gave him everything.

“You are the only thing I want right now.”

A ghost of Jacks’s smile returned, and yet it looked so much more real than every other smile he’d given her. He looked happy. Despite the death and the wreckage and the smoke in the air, he glowed in a way she’d never seen him glow before. “You’re all I want as well. But we need to leave right now or someone might try to stop us from being together.” He released her shoulder to capture her hand.

He roughly pulled her through the disastrous throne room as if their lives depended on leaving. Jacks stormed past Jester Mad’s abandoned stage, spilled puddles of wine, and a mirror that looked as if it had a person trapped inside. He barely stopped to open the massive doors that led to the sparkling glass courtyard.

Night had taken over and winking stars reigned from above, reflecting on the glassy ground as—

“Tella!” Legend’s voice cut through the night, loud enough to startle the sky and tie her stomach into a knot.

Tella closed her eyes, as if she could undo the effect Legend had on her. She didn’t want him anymore. She couldn’t even look at him when he’d been in the cage; one glance at him and feelings she didn’t even know she possessed had erupted. She hated Legend. She hated everything about him. But somehow the low sound of his voice still tangled her up.

“Don’t stop.” Jacks jerked her hand so she was flush against him once more. She willed her feet to run with him. To go wherever Jacks went. He was the boy she wanted to follow to the ends of the earth. But her body was betraying her to Legend, again. Her legs wouldn’t move, and her toes had dug into her slippers, as if begging for purchase against the ground.

Jacks yanked harder on her hand, his icy grip tightening around her fingers. But Tella couldn’t even look away as Legend approached.

He looked like the ending of a doomed love story. His dark clothes were ripped, there were fresh burns on his chest, and eyes that had once been full of stars were desolate, black with desperate gray cracks, and painful red lines snaking through the whites.

Her throat went tight. It shouldn’t have hurt her. She hated him—she hated him for all those months he’d played with her heart. Even now he still held a piece of it. He’d always hold a piece of it, said a tiny voice inside of her. But Tella ignored the voice. She wanted to take her heart back and give it fully to Jacks.

“Why can’t you leave us alone?” she cried. “Haven’t you tormented me enough?”

Legend’s eyes met hers, wide and pleading.

But Tella was done giving in to him.

“Undo whatever you’ve done to her!” Legend roared at Jacks.

“He hasn’t done anything,” Tella said. “You’re the one who keeps hurting me!”

“I think that’s her way of asking you to leave.” Jacks smirked and gave Tella’s hand a gentle squeeze. He no longer held her as tight—he knew that she belonged to him.

“Tella, listen to me,” Legend begged. “You can fight what he’s done to you.”

“The only one I want to fight is you!” She pulled free from Jacks, prepared to finally shove Legend away forever. But as soon as she let go of him, Jacks vanished and the world shifted. Magic filled the air, thick and sweet. The glass courtyard beneath Tella’s feet turned into smooth moonstone steps as the golden tower behind Legend disappeared and a new illusion took its place. A temple made of glowing white, topped in a domed roof covered in outstretched wings—the Temple of the Stars. Above it, radiant red fireworks mingled with more stars than Tella had ever seen, re-creating the moment that Legend had walked away from her, right after saving her.

Tella’s heart stopped beating altogether. She could still picture the flat way Legend had looked at her that night, and the coldness in his voice as he’d told her that he wasn’t the hero in her story. But now his eyes were brilliant as stars once again, full of bits of gold that glittered in the night. He was gazing at her the way he had in the painting on his wall, as if he never wanted to leave her, as if he adored her, as if he wanted to be her hero after all.

“Undo this illusion!” Tella said, unable to stand the sight of it—or him. He wasn’t a hero. And she’d never wanted a hero. She was the hero of her own story, and it was time to save herself from him. “Bring back the courtyard and Jacks.”

Legend’s brows slashed down, the feeling in his eyes intensifying. Once upon a time, the brilliant look in them could have convinced her that he had the ability to give her the world. But now Jacks was her world, and there wasn’t room for Legend. If she was being honest, there had never been enough room for him; he was too all-consuming.

“I know you think you want him, but he’s controlling your feelings,” Legend said, his voice growing lower and deeper with every word. “You have to fight against it.”

“You’re just jealous! You don’t want me, but you don’t want anyone else to have me.” She tried to shove against his chest, to push him away at last. “Please, stop torturing me. Just let me go.”

The edge of Legend’s mouth slowly lifted. “You’re the one holding on to me, Tella.”

“No—I—” She looked down to see her fingers gripping his frayed shirt.

Two warm hands wrapped gently around her shoulders as Legend held her in place.

Her heart beat faster. She really needed to pull away. But she couldn’t move. Her body was remembering a time when he wouldn’t get this close to her, when he wouldn’t put his hands on her. All she’d wanted was his touch, and now he was holding her as if he planned on keeping her for a very long time.

His smile grew. “I’m not jealous of Jacks. I know your feelings for him aren’t real. And you’re wrong if you think I don’t want you. I’ve wanted you for so long, and I’ll never stop wanting you.” His grip grew firmer as he pulled her even closer, until she was pressed against his chest.

Her breaths came out short, in tiny, angry gasps. But no matter how hard she tried to push him away, she still couldn’t manage to do it. When she thought of Jacks, her heartbeat calmed, but then it craved the way that Legend made it pound. Because he didn’t just own part of her heart—it belonged to him fully.

No! Tella tried to shake the thought out of her head, she tried to remember Jacks and the way he made her feel, but all she could feel right now was Legend as one of his wonderfully warm hands traced down her spine. “Do you still want to know why I walked away that night on these steps?”

No, she said, but somehow the word “Yes” came out instead.

His palms heated, and the hand on her shoulder slid to her neck and into her hair, tilting her face up, forcing her to look into his eyes. They were still glassy and dark with flecks of gold that looked like shattered stars, and she told herself she hated them.

Jacks’s eyes were beautiful; Jacks’s eyes were the ones she adored. But Legend’s eyes had captured hers, and she couldn’t stop staring into them. She told herself his eyes were just another illusion, the same as all the feelings that were threatening to take her over. She shut her eyes, but it didn’t help. It only made her more aware of Legend’s deep voice as he said, “I’m sorry I left you that night. I shouldn’t have left, I shouldn’t have hurt you. And I shouldn’t have gotten scared and run away when I realized that I was falling in love with you.”

Tella’s eyes flashed open, and words spilled out before she could stop them. “You told me you weren’t capable of love.”

“I didn’t think I was.”

Legend moved his hand from her hair to cup her cheek, holding her face as if he’d never touched anything so precious. “I can’t say that I understand love, or that I’m very good at it, because I’ve never loved anyone before. But I love everything about you, Donatella Dragna. Everything.” His hand dropped lower to stroke her jaw. “I love the secrets you haven’t told me, and the lies you’ve tried to get away with. I love your stubbornness and your persistence. I love the way you always pretend not to care when I visit you in dreams. I love that you never stop fighting for what you want or the people you love, even when they don’t deserve it. I love you, I don’t intend to stop loving you, and I hope that somewhere deep inside, you still love me, too.” His mouth slowly lowered to hers, moving incrementally closer, warning her that if she didn’t want to kiss him, she needed to pull away.

But she no longer wanted to pull away, and she wasn’t even sure she could have. Love really was another type of magic. She was trembling all over. Shaking off the rest of the spell that Legend had broken when he’d told her he loved her. He loved her! Her limbs trembled harder with something like wonder at the thought.

She couldn’t bring herself to speak, so she tried to tell him that she loved him with a kiss when his warm lips finally pressed against hers. They were so perfect and soft and sweet and gentle. Even though she was supposed to be letting Legend know that she loved him, she felt as if he was the one repeating the words with every languorous press of his lips, as if they weren’t in any rush, as if they had all the time in the—

Abruptly Tella shoved him away. It was the last thing she wanted to do. She loved him, she knew she did. She wanted his lips on hers until she forgot how to breathe. She wanted to hold on to him forever, but he wouldn’t have a forever if she didn’t let him go right now.

His jaw tensed and the pained look returned to his face. “What’s wrong?”

“You need to leave.” Tella didn’t recognize her own voice, as if she were battling herself with every word. She wanted to be selfish, she wanted to keep him. She loved him—which was why she forced herself to push him away. “You need to leave me before you stay like this.”

“It’s too late.”

“No, it’s not.” Tella shoved him again.

He didn’t even stumble backward on the moonstone steps.

She turned to run. If he wasn’t going to leave, she would. But before she moved an inch, his hand clasped around her wrist and he pulled her back, binding her to him with his arms. “Tella.”

“Let me go.” She could already see him changing. She could see it in his smile, in the way it filled with love as it lit up his entire face. She tried to pry his arms away, but it was less than half-hearted. She’d always thought he was beautiful, but when he looked at her the way he was looking at her right now, he was absolutely everything. “If you don’t let me go, I’m not going to be able to fight you anymore.”

“Good, because I don’t want to fight you. I just want to love you.” He lifted her a little and pressed another kiss to her lips. “This is my choice, and I choose you, Donatella. I don’t need immortality. You’re my forever.”