Caraval Series, Book 1

by Stephanie Garber

  “You wish to know your future?” asked a young man.

  “Oh, I—” Scarlett sputtered as she turned and saw a wall of flesh. She had never looked at a naked man, and while this man was not quite that, he was so close to it she knew it would be improper to even consider entering his russet tent. Yet she didn’t back away.

  All he wore was a brown cloth that went from his hips to his thick upper thighs, revealing smooth planes of skin all covered in brightly inked tattoos. A fire-breathing dragon chased a mermaid across the forest on his abdomen, while cherubs shot arrows from above his ribs. Some speared coy fish, while others pierced clouds that bled yellow dandelions and peach flower petals. Some of the petals dripped toward his legs, which were covered in detailed circus scenes.

  His face was equally decorated; one purple eye looked out from each cheek, while black stars lined his actual eyes. But it was his lips that drew Scarlett’s attention. Surrounded by tattoos of barbed blue wire, one side was locked with a golden padlock, while the other was sealed with a heart.

  “How much do you charge for a reading?” Julian asked. If he was surprised by the man’s unique appearance it didn’t show.

  “I will uncover your future in proportion to what you give me,” said the inked man.

  “That’s all right,” Scarlett said. “I think I’m quite fine discovering my future as it comes.”

  Julian eyed her. “That’s not how it looked yesterday when we passed by those ridiculous spectacles.”

  “What spectacles?”

  “You know, the different-colored ones that could see the future.”

  Scarlett remembered now: she had been intrigued, but she was surprised he’d noticed.

  “If you want to go in, I can keep looking for clues.” Julian pressed a hand to the small of Scarlett’s back and gave her a gentle shove.

  She was about to argue; putting on spectacles was not the same as entering a darkened tent with a half-naked man. But yesterday she’d lost Tella because she’d been too frightened to strike a bargain. If the third clue needed to be earned, maybe she could earn information about the future—about where she would find Tella.

  “Do you want to go in with me?” Scarlett asked.

  “I’d rather my future remain a surprise.” Julian cocked his head toward the kissing tent. “When you’re done, I’ll meet you over there.” He blew her a taunting kiss, which made her think maybe all the earlier awkwardness was just inside of her head.

  “I’m not sure if I’d agree with that,” said the tattooed man.

  Scarlett could have sworn she hadn’t spoken aloud; surely this man couldn’t have read her mind. Or maybe he’d only guessed that statement could easily apply to whatever it was she’d been thinking, another way to trick her into entering his darkened tent.

  15

  The tattooed young man told her his name was Nigel as he guided her past the sleek borders of the tent, onto sand steps that led her down into a den covered in pillows and filled with a fog of candle smoke and jasmine incense.

  “Sit,” instructed Nigel.

  “I think I’d rather stand.” The sea of pillows reminded Scarlett too much of the bed in her room at La Serpiente. For a moment she flashed back to Julian as he stretched across it and unbuttoned his shirt.

  When she looked back at the cushions, Nigel had positioned himself in a similar pose, naked arms spread across the pillows, leaving her with the urge to run back up the stairs.

  “Where is your ball of crystal? Or those cards people use?” she asked.

  The corner of Nigel’s tattooed lips twitched, but it was enough to make Scarlett edge back toward the steps. “You have much fear.”

  “No, I’m just cautious,” Scarlett said. “And I’m trying to figure out how all this works.”

  “Because you are afraid,” he repeated, looking at Scarlett in a way that made her believe he was talking about more than just how hesitant she’d been to enter his tent. “Your eyes keep finding the painted lock on my lips. You feel trapped and unsafe.” Nigel pointed to the heart on the other side of his mouth. “Your eyes land here as well. You want love and protection.”

  “Isn’t that what every girl wants?”

  “I cannot speak for every girl, but most people’s eyes are drawn to other things. Many want power.” Nigel drew a finger, inked with a dagger, over the dragon on his abdomen. “Others want pleasure.” He ran a hand over the wild circus on his thighs, along with a few more tattoos. “Your eyes passed over all these.”

  “So is this how you tell the future?” Scarlett inched closer, growing more intrigued. “You use the paintings on your body to read people.”

  “I think of them as mirrors. The future is much like the past; it is mostly set, but can always be altered—”

  “I thought it was the opposite,” Scarlett said. “The past is set but the future is changeable?”

  “No. The past is only mostly set, and the future is harder to change than you would think.”

  “So, you’re saying everything is fated?” Scarlett was not fond of fate. She liked to believe if she were good, good things would happen. Fate left her feeling powerless, and hopeless, and with an overall feeling of lessness. To her, fate seemed like a larger, omnipotent version of her father, stealing her choices and controlling her life without any regard for her feelings. Fate meant that nothing she did mattered.

  “You’re too quick to dive into fear,” Nigel said. “What you think of as fate only applies to the past. Our futures are only predictable because as creatures of this world we are predictable. Think of a cat and mouse.” Nigel revealed the underside of his arm where a tawny cat stretched its clawed paws toward a black-and-white-striped mouse.

  “When a cat sees a mouse, it will always chase, unless, perhaps, the cat is pursued by something larger, like a dog. We are much the same. The future knows what things we desire, unless there is something greater in our path that chases us away.” Nigel moved his fingers to trace a midnight-blue top hat on his wrist and Scarlett watched, mesmerized. It looked almost exactly like the one Legend had worn in her dream, making her recall the time when all she wanted was a letter from him.

  “But even those things that might alter our course, the future usually sees clearly,” Nigel went on. “It is not fate, it is simply the future observing that which we crave the most. Every person has the power to change their fate if they are brave enough to fight for what they desire more than anything.”

  Scarlett tore her eyes from the top hat and caught Nigel smiling at her once more. “You’re intrigued by that hat?”

  “Oh, I wasn’t really looking at that.” Scarlett didn’t know why she felt embarrassed, except that she should have been thinking about Tella, and not Legend. “I was just looking at the other images on your arm.”

  Nigel clearly did not believe her. He continued to grin, tiger-wide. “Are you prepared for me to tell you what I see in your future?”

  Scarlett shifted her weight, watching as more smoke wove around the pillows at her feet. The lines of the game were beginning to blur again. Nigel made more sense than she wanted him to make. As she looked at the fire-breathing dragon on his abdomen she thought of her father—his destructive desire for power. The wild circus on Nigel’s thighs reminded Scarlett of Tella—her need for pleasure to help her forget the wounds she liked to ignore. And he’d been absolutely right about the lock and the heart on his lips. “What will it cost me?”

  “Just a few answers.” Nigel waved a hand, flicking wisps of purple smoke in her direction. “I will ask you questions, and for every one you respond to truthfully, I will give you an answer in return.”

  The way he said it made it sound so simple.

  Just a few answers.

  Not her firstborn child.

  Not a piece of her soul.

  So simple.

  Too simple.

  But Scarlett knew nothing was that simple, especially not in a den such as this, a place designed to trap and seduce.<
br />
  “I’ll start with something easy,” Nigel said. “Tell me about your companion, the handsome young man you traveled here with. I’m curious, how do you feel about him?”

  Scarlett’s eyes immediately returned to Nigel’s lips. To the barbed wire around them. Not the heart. Not the heart. Her feelings for Julian were not like that.

  “Julian is selfish, dishonest, and opportunistic.”

  “Yet you’ve agreed to play the game with him. Those must not be your only feelings.” Nigel paused. He’d seen her look at the heart. Why it mattered, Scarlett wasn’t sure, but she could tell it did. She heard it in the way he asked, “Do you find him attractive?”

  Scarlett wanted to deny it. Julian was the barbed wire. Not the heart. But while she didn’t always like Julian as a person, she couldn’t honestly deny he was extremely appealing physically. His rugged face, his wild dark hair, his warm brown skin. And even though she would never tell him, she loved the way he moved, with total confidence, as though nothing in the world could harm him. It made her less fearful when she was around him. As if boldness and bravery did not always end in defeat.

  But she didn’t want to tell Nigel this, either. What if Julian were listening outside the tent?

  “I—” Scarlett tried to say she didn’t care for his appearance, but the words stuck to her tongue like molasses.

  “Are you having a problem?” Nigel waved his hand over a cone of incense. “Here, this helps loosen the tongue.”

  Or forces people to tell the truth, thought Scarlett.

  When Scarlett opened her mouth again, the words poured out. “I think he’s the most attractive person I’ve ever seen.”

  She wanted to clap her hand over her mouth and shove the words back inside.

  “I also think he’s thoroughly full of himself,” Scarlett managed to add, just in case the scoundrel was listening outside.

  “Interesting.” Nigel formed a steeple with his hands. “Now, what two questions would you like to ask me?”

  “What?” It alarmed her that Nigel only wanted to know about Julian. “You don’t have any more questions for me?”

  “We’re running out of time. Hours slip by like minutes here.” Nigel’s hands drifted toward the dying candles lining his den. “You have two questions.”

  “Only two?”

  “Do you wish that to be one of your questions?”

  “No, I just—” Scarlett clamped her mouth shut before she accidentally said something she shouldn’t.

  If it were truly a game, it didn’t matter what she asked. Whatever answers she received would be make-believe. But what if parts of it were real? For a moment Scarlett dared to let her thoughts tiptoe into that hazardous place. She’d already witnessed magic in the clock shop, via Algie’s clockwork door and the enchanted dress from Legend. And Nigel’s incense had made her speak the truth, which evidenced at least some more magic. If the man before her could truly tell the future, what would she want to know?

  Her eyes returned to the heart at the corner of his mouth. Red. The color of love and heartache and other things both virtuous and vile. As she looked at it then, she thought of the count, of his lovely letters and whether or not she could believe all the things he’d said. “The person I’m going to marry, can you tell me what sort of man he is—is he a good, honest person?”

  Scarlett immediately regretted not asking about her sister first. She should have been thinking only of Tella—that’s why she’d gone into the tent in the first place. But it was too late to snatch the question back.

  “No one is truly honest,” Nigel answered. “Even if we don’t lie to others, we often lie to ourselves. And the word good means different things to different people.” Nigel leaned forward, close enough for Scarlett to feel as if all the scenes on his body were watching her as well. He stared so intently, she wondered if there were images painted on her face that only he could see. “I am sorry, but the man you will marry is not what you would call good. At one time, perhaps, but he has turned from that path, and it is not yet clear if he will turn back.”

  “What do you mean? How can it not be clear? I thought you said the future was mostly fixed—that we’re like cats, always chasing after the same mouse.”

  “Yes, but every so often there are two mice. It is not yet clear which one he will continue to chase. You would be wise to be careful.” Again, Nigel looked at Scarlett as if she were covered in pictures only he could see. Pictures that pulled his face into a frown, as if she too had a heart near her mouth, but it was shattered into pieces.

  She tried to tell herself it was all in her head. He was attempting to trick her. To frighten her as part of the game. But her marriage to the count was in no way connected to the game. There was nothing she could gain by Nigel’s cryptic warning.

  Nigel rose from his cushions and started toward the back of the tent.

  “Wait,” Scarlett said. “I never asked my second question.”

  “Actually you asked me three questions.”

  “But two of those weren’t real questions. You never fully explained the rules. You owe me another question.”

  Nigel looked back at Scarlett. A tower of motley images, topped off by a vicious smile. “I don’t owe you anything.”

  16

  Please!” Scarlett chased after him. “I’m not asking for a glimpse into the future. My sister has been taken as part of the game; can you tell me where I’ll find her?”

  Nigel turned around. A flash of ink and color. “If you really care about this sister, why didn’t you ask about her first?”

  “I don’t know,” Scarlett said. But that wasn’t quite true. She’d made a mistake yet again, just like in the clock shop. She’d been worried about her own future more than she had cared about finding her sister. But maybe she could fix this error. Nigel had said he’d uncover her future in proportion to what she gave him.

  “Wait!” Scarlett called as he started walking again. “It was the heart,” she blurted. “Every time I looked at you I saw the heart around your lips and it made me think of my wedding, which is only a week away. I really want to get married, but I’ve never met my groom, so there are things I don’t know about him and—” Scarlett didn’t want to admit how she really felt, but she forced out the words: “I’m scared.”

  Slowly Nigel turned once more. She wondered if he could see how deep her fear went, further down than Scarlett herself had realized. Her eyes found a link of chains around Nigel’s throat, and she imagined an invisible bind around her neck as well, always holding her back, formed from years of her father’s cruel punishments.

  “If you want to win this game,” Nigel said, “you should forget about your wedding. And if you want to find your sister, you will not find her in this Castillo. Follow the boy with a heart made of black.”

  “Is that the third clue?” Scarlett asked. But Nigel was already gone.

  When she stepped back into the courtyard the brightness of the Castillo had dimmed. Its arches now looked dull bronze instead of bright gold, casting the palace in distended shadows. She’d used up almost all her time. But she dared to hope that by confessing her fears to Nigel she had earned the third clue. Maybe she was one step closer to Tella.

  When Nigel said, Follow the boy with a heart made of black, her first thought was of Julian, selfish and deceitful. Scarlett could easily imagine his heart to be black.

  Unfortunately, she could see no sign of the devious sailor, or the jade kissing tent where he told her to meet him. She saw a furry clover-green tent and a shimmery emerald-green one, but no jade-green anything.

  Scarlett felt as if the isle was playing with her.

  She crossed over to the emerald tent. Bottles covered every surface: floor, walls, the beams holding up the ceiling. Glass tinkled like fairy dust as she peered inside.

  Aside from the female proprietor, the only other people in the tent were a pair of giddy young women. Both hovered in front of a locked glass box full of black bottles with
ruby-red labels.

  “Maybe if we get to that girl first and find Legend we can slip him some of this,” said one young woman to the other.

  “They’re talking about my romance tonic,” said the proprietor. She stepped in front of Scarlett, greeting her with a spritz of something minty. “But I imagine that’s not what you’re here for. Are you looking for a new scent? We have oils that attract and perfumes that repel.”

  “Oh, no, thank you.” Scarlett stepped back before the woman could spray her again. “What was in that bottle?”

  “Just my way of saying hello.”

  Scarlett doubted that. She turned to leave, yet something pulled her back into the tent, a voiceless call, drawing her to a crude bookshelf in the rear. Piled with burnt-orange apothecary bottles and vials, labeled with things like Tincture of Forgetting and Extract of Lost Tomorrows.

  A voice in Scarlett’s head said she was wasting time—she needed to find Julian and follow his black heart. She started to turn to leave once more, but a celestial-blue ampoule on a high shelf caught her eye. Elixir of Protection.

  For a second Scarlett swore the blue liquid inside pulsed like a heartbeat.

  The tent’s proprietor retrieved it and handed it to Scarlett. “Do you have enemies?”

  “No, just curious,” Scarlett hedged.

  The woman’s eyes were bottle green, an intense concentration of color, and their crinkled edges said, I do not believe you. Yet she kindly pretended otherwise. “If someone is about to cause you harm,” she went on coolly, “this will stop them. All you need to do is spray a bit on their face.”

  “Like you did to me?” Scarlett asked.

  “My perfume merely opened your eyes so you would see what you might need.”

  Scarlett rolled the tiny jar in her palm, barely larger than a vial, yet heavy. She imagined the solidly reassuring weight of it in her pocket. “What will this cost me?”

  “For you?” The woman looked Scarlett over carefully, taking in her posture, the way she curled into herself or refused to have her back fully to the tent’s opening. “Tell me who you fear the most.”