Finale

by Stephanie Garber

  “Stop trying to distract me,” Tella said. “And take the illusion off my dress. I don’t want to be your next Esmeralda.”

  Legend’s smile vanished. “You and Esmeralda—”

  “Don’t tell me we’re not alike,” Tella said. “I already got that impression from spying on you.”

  His eyes clouded over. “Then why are you upset?”

  “You deceived her. You took all of her magic. Then you kidnapped her!”

  Legend’s expression didn’t change, but behind him the fire blazed hotter and brighter, shifting from orange to scorching red. “If you knew her, you wouldn’t feel sorry for her, Tella. She isn’t innocent. I collected her so she could pay for her crimes. Esmeralda is ancient. She used to be the Fallen Star’s consort, and before she trapped him and his Fates in the cards, she helped the Fallen Star create the Fates. She’s responsible for their existence, and the Temple of the Stars wants to make her face trial for that.”

  “What does that have to do with you?” Tella asked.

  “You might remember that I made a deal with the temple.” Legend removed his jacket, took out a cufflink, and folded back one of his black shirtsleeves.

  It might have looked as if he were doing it because of the sweltering heat from the fire, except as he moved, Tella caught a glimpse of the brand on the underside of his wrist.

  The mark was not nearly as brutal as the first time Tella had seen it seared into his skin. It was now so faint she could barely detect it, as if it were healing and disappearing. But she still remembered what it had looked like before—and what it signified. The Temple of the Stars had branded Legend in exchange for allowing Tella to enter the vault where her mother had hidden the cursed Deck of Destiny trapping the Fates.

  “I vowed to the temple that I would bring them the witch who helped created the Fates. When I did, I swore it on my immortality. If I hadn’t delivered Esmeralda to them, I would have died that night, and nothing would have brought me back to life this time. I know you’re angry with me right now, but I’d hope you wouldn’t want me dead.”

  Of course she didn’t want him dead. Just thinking Legend was in trouble had driven Tella to chase him into another world. But saying that felt like giving too much away when he still wasn’t giving anything away.

  When Legend had first accepted the brand from the Temple of the Stars, in Tella’s place, it had felt like such a great sacrifice on his part. But knowing the lengths Legend was willing to go to in order to get what he wanted, Tella was no longer sure if he’d made the bargain to prevent her from being owned by the temple, or if he had gone through with it to ensure she’d enter the vault and retrieve the cards for him.

  She wanted to think he’d done it for her, but she still wasn’t certain, and right now that wasn’t what mattered. He might have given her answers about the witch, but he still hadn’t given her the answers that she wanted most.

  “Is that why you won’t tell me your weakness?” she asked. “Have you actually thought I wanted you dead? You think I’d use your weakness against you?”

  He looked into the fire, avoiding her gaze. “The weakness I share with the Fallen Star won’t do us any good when it comes to defeating him.”

  “Since when do you care about good?”

  “I don’t—” Legend broke off. His eyes shot past her, as if he’d heard a noise outside of their illusion.

  Whatever it was, Tella couldn’t see where it came from until a door appeared on the wall next to the fire, and Armando stepped through it.

  Tella cringed away, moving closer to the fireplace, and to Legend.

  Armando was the performer who’d played the role of her sister’s fiancé during the sisters’ first Caraval. Tella couldn’t stand the sight of his smug smile, his calculating green eyes, and the irritating way he tapped his fingers against the blade he wore at his hip. Like Jovan, he was also dressed like a member of Legend’s guard, in a navy military coat with a shining line of golden buttons.

  “Why is he here?” Tella asked.

  “Armando has agreed to guard you when I can’t be around.”

  “No,” Tella said. “I don’t want him following me, and I don’t need a guard.”

  Legend pierced her with a look that was hotter than the flames at his back. “I didn’t free you from the cards just to see you killed by the Fates.”

  Tella opened her mouth, but she couldn’t find the proper response. Legend never talked about what he’d done to free her from the cards. The only time he’d acknowledged it at all had been that same night, when he’d told her that he hadn’t been willing to sacrifice her. But then, after she’d called him her hero, he’d walked away, making her question everything.

  “You’re welcome to stay here in the palace.” Legend pushed off the fireplace mantel and picked up his jacket from the clamshell chair. “Your old room in the golden tower is still yours if you want it, and your sister’s old room is hers, too.”

  Tella narrowed her eyes. “What do you want in return?”

  “I never wanted you to leave in the first place.” Legend turned and walked through the walls of the illusion, as if he’d just said too much.

  Although to Tella, it didn’t feel like nearly enough.

  17

  Scarlett

  While Tella and Legend talked about Fates and illusions, Scarlett wished she were only experiencing an illusion.

  Everyone’s feelings were everywhere. They came in too many colors for Scarlett to keep track of or ignore. Scarlett had never felt anything like it. It was far more intense than the brief flashes she’d seen with Nicolas and Julian. Mournful nevermore gray covered the ground like deathly fog. Anxious violet vines licked the palace hallway. And dark, fearful greens turned everything else sickly and toxic.

  Scarlett couldn’t breathe.

  She could barely even tell Jovan and Julian she needed air before she stumbled toward the heavy door leading to the stairs. Although Scarlett and the others had left Tella and Legend alone in the dungeon so they could talk, Scarlett could still feel the crushing weight of Tella’s heavy-gray grief and the spiky rage of her burning-red anger at the Fates. Scarlett hadn’t been able to see Legend’s emotions, but she swore they were the ones making it so hard to breathe. Or maybe it was Scarlett’s own unexpected grief at the loss of her mother.

  “Crimson.” Julian rushed to her side.

  “Don’t.” Scarlett shook his hand away. His concern was more than she could take. Stormy, stormy, stormy blue, swirling and fierce and—

  Scarlett’s vision filled with black.

  “Crimson!”

  18

  Donatella

  Legend hadn’t just moved into the palace, he’d taken it over. Servants covered every inch of the place, buzzing around like worker bees as they either prepared for Legend’s upcoming coronation or worked on the massive renovation he’d commissioned.

  During Elantine’s reign, her palace had been a thing made of dust and history. It had been grand in the way old stories were grand, full of curving details, threaded tapestries, and delicate artistry. But Tella imagined Legend’s palace would be none of those things.

  Legend possessed a fallen angel’s beauty that commanded attention. He was tailored suits over inked tattoos, and lies that people wanted to believe. His palace would be breathtaking in the way that only powerful things could be.

  Tella knocked against her sister’s door in the sapphire wing once more. Scaffolding covered both sides of the entry, but there were no workers in sight at the moment, so Scarlett should have heard the knocks.

  “Either she’s not there, or she’s not answering,” Armando said.

  “I didn’t ask for your opinion.” Tella knocked again, just to be obnoxious, since she was certain Legend was just being obnoxious when he’d chosen to assign Armando—whom he knew she despised—as her personal guard.

  Tella wondered if Scarlett was with Julian. In the dungeon they’d looked closer than Tella had expected. In a
dream a week ago, Legend had told her when Julian had returned to Valenda, but as far as Tella knew, he hadn’t come to visit Scarlett until after Tella had left. Whatever reunion they’d had must have been magnificent, or maybe Scarlett hadn’t been quite as over him as she’d claimed—something both sisters had in common.

  Tella knocked on the door a final time, but Armando was right—Scarlett wasn’t there or she wasn’t answering the door. Either way, Tella couldn’t stand here and do nothing, not as long as the Fates were out there.

  Tella had bathed and scrubbed off the dirt from the cavern, and changed into a slender ice-blue gown with tiered skirts that she must have left in the palace. But she would never wash away what had happened in those ruins. She could still hear the click, click, clack of the wheel and see her mother’s wounded body, unmoving on the floor.

  The Fallen Star needed to be stopped—and he needed to pay for what he’d done to her mother. And if Legend wasn’t going to share the Fallen Star’s weakness with Tella, then she was going to find someone else who would. And she knew just the person. Jacks.

  Cold licked the back of Tella’s spine. For a moment she was back in his study, on the floor, feverish and hot except for all the places where his cool limbs tangled with hers.

  It was a bad idea to go back. But if anyone knew the Fallen Star’s weakness, it would be another Fate. And hadn’t Jacks said something about hating the Fallen Star?

  Tella glanced at Armando. He was barely two steps behind her. Losing him might be a little tricky. But she couldn’t take him with her to Jacks. If Legend found out Tella was visiting Jacks again, he might actually lock her up in the tower.

  She did believe that this morning’s imprisonment was a mistake. But Tella also knew that she wasn’t dealing with the Legend of her dreams, who she’d almost convinced herself wasn’t that different from Dante. She was dealing with Legend the immortal, the soon-to-be emperor, the Legend who did whatever it took to get what he wanted. And if he wanted Tella safe—and away from the Prince of Hearts—she could picture him taking measures that went far beyond simply assigning her a guard.

  Tella quickened her steps as she passed the Stone Garden. The statues had been human once, but when the Fates ruled centuries ago, they had treated humans more like objects and playthings. One of the Fates had turned all the people in the garden to stone just to have lifelike decorations. Tella didn’t know if there was any life inside them, if the people who had been frozen could still look out on the world and see and hear. She swore that the statues’ faces appeared more terror-stricken than they had before the Fates had been freed from the cards. She wondered if the bride’s sister who had been turned to stone today was standing among them, or if they’d found a way to cure her, but somehow Tella doubted that.

  Her limbs had turned shaky again as she reached the carriage house.

  “His Highness would prefer it if you didn’t leave the palace grounds,” said Armando.

  “And I’d prefer it if he didn’t keep so many secrets.” Tella hopped inside a floating coach that would take her to the Temple District.

  With a groan, Armando threw himself into the carriage opposite her as the cozy box took off. “I hope we’re at least going somewhere interesting.”

  “Actually, we’re not going anywhere.” With that, Tella opened the door and leaped outside. She tore the hem of her glacier-blue gown and nearly sprained her ankle from the awkward landing. If the carriage had risen any higher, she definitely would have injured herself, but it was worth the risk to get away.

  Armando scrambled to the door, but the coach was too high for him to jump safely.

  Tella blew him a mocking kiss. “I won’t tell His Highness that you lost me if you don’t tell.” Then she picked another carriage line, one that would take her to University Circle and to the Prince of Hearts.

  19

  Scarlett

  The pillows beneath Scarlett were so much fluffier than the lumpy things in her rented apartment. The sheets were far softer as well. They smelled of cool breezes and starlit nights and the only boy she’d ever loved.

  Not her pillows. Not her sheets. Not her bed. Julian’s bed. And just then it felt like the safest place in the world. Scarlett wanted to hug the feathery pillow and curl deep into the sheets until she fell back asleep.

  “Crimson.” Julian’s voice. Gentle but direct enough to tell Scarlett that he knew she was awake.

  She sat up and slowly cracked her eyes open. For a heartbeat her vision was still blurry about the edges, but there weren’t feelings crowding the room. The only colors she saw were the ones that were supposed to be there. The cool dark blue of the sheets cocooning her, the sleek gray of the curtains at the corners of the bed, the warm brown of Julian’s skin, and the intoxicating amber of his eyes.

  His room was full of the same colors and slightly wild, like his appearance. Stubble lined his jaw, his hair looked as if he hadn’t stopped running his fingers through it, and his cravat was on the floor at his feet. Scarlett didn’t need to see his emotions to detect his concern. He sat beside her on the bed, but he looked ready to catch her if she took another fall.

  “How long was I out?” she asked.

  “Long enough to make me worry that this wasn’t just an elaborate ploy to get into my bed.”

  Scarlett managed a smile. “What if I said it was a ploy?”

  “I’d tell you that you don’t need one. You’re welcome in my bed anytime.” He gave her a wicked grin. It would have been convincing if she hadn’t just seen thin threads of worried silver ghosting around the edges of him. She wondered if he suspected that she hadn’t just fainted out of grief.

  Scarlett wanted to close her eyes again, to shut out the emotions coming off him, but she didn’t want to shut him out.

  “Thank you,” Scarlett said.

  “I’m here for whatever you need.” Julian shifted closer to the headboard, a silent invitation. She could lean against him if she wanted, and she did.

  Scarlett pressed her head to his solid shoulder and closed her eyes. But even though she managed to mute the silver worry hovering around him, she couldn’t turn off everything. Earlier she’d thought the grief she’d felt only belonged to Tella, but perhaps some of it had also been Scarlett’s.

  “I didn’t think it would hurt,” Scarlett confessed. “I thought I’d lost my mother a long time ago. I was furious with her. I didn’t trust her. I didn’t want her back in our lives, I didn’t want her … I didn’t want her at all.”

  Julian held Scarlett tighter and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

  She didn’t know how long they sat there like that. And she didn’t know if she was sad because her mother was dead, of if she was sad because she’d wanted her mother gone. She wanted to be sad her mother was dead; that’s how a good daughter would have felt, and if there was one thing Scarlett tried to be, it was good. But she’d stopped trying when it came to her mother.

  “Do you know where my sister is now?” Scarlett asked.

  “I think she’s still with Legend,” Julian said.

  Scarlett slowly peeled back the sheets. She wanted to get up, but given her gown’s fondness for Julian, she was a little nervous as to what it might have shifted into while she was in his bed. Oddly, it was still the same deep pink garment it had been before. She wondered if the emotions that had worn her out had depleted some of the gown’s magic as well.

  Julian hopped off the bed, misreading her hesitation. “Do you need help?”

  “I can manage,” Scarlett said.

  But Julian’s arms were already around her. He picked her up with one quick swoop and carried her into a sitting room.

  “Julian, I can walk.”

  “Maybe I just want an excuse to hold you.” He grinned like a thief who’d just gotten away with a crime.

  She let herself lean into him. It felt good to be in his arms. He was the perfect distraction from all the horrors she could have dwelled on. He set her down on a velvety couch,
warm from sunbeams streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  A tray of luncheon foods sat on the coffee table across from her. Julian piled up a plate with thick sandwiches and cheese for her. As she ate, she noticed that the bandage from yesterday was still around his arm, and though he’d not changed his clothes, the dressing on it looked fresh, as if he had taken the time to put a new one on while she’d been unconscious.

  Scarlett gingerly touched the bottom of the cloth. “You never told me what happened here.”

  “It’s a secret.” He rocked back on his heels, just out of her reach.

  Scarlett couldn’t tell if he was being playful or evading. “Do you plan on wearing the bandage forever?”

  He pulled at the back of his neck, definitely evading. “Why are you so interested in it?”

  “Because it looks as if you’re hurt and you won’t tell me what happened.”

  “What if I gave you a secret instead?”

  Before she could answer, he loped into his bedroom and returned with a cloth-bound book, so old that its ochre cover was practically paper-thin.

  “I had someone take this from Legend’s library while you were asleep. It’s one of the oldest books he has on the Fates, and it’s all about the Fated objects.”

  Scarlett tucked her legs beneath her to make room for him on the couch. “Are you going to read me a bedtime story from it?”

  “Maybe later.” He pulled a pair of glasses from his pocket, which made him look boyish and charming and sweeter than Scarlett thought was possible. “Do you still have the key that little girl gave you yesterday?”

  Scarlett reached inside her dress pocket and pulled it out. “Is this what you’re talking about?”

  “You might want to be careful who you offer that to. I think that little girl was right about it being magical. I believe it might be one of the eight Fated objects.” Julian sat beside her on the couch, his leg brushing her knees, as he started to read: