Caraval Series, Book 1

  “So, you’d be free to meet me at nightfall for dinner?” he asked.

  Valentina groaned.

  “Shut it,” said Dante. “Please ignore my sister; she had too much to drink tonight. It makes her a little more unlikable than usual. I promise, if you meet me for dinner, she will not be coming along.” He continued to smile at Scarlett, the way Scarlett always hoped a boy would, as if he wasn’t just attracted to her, but he wanted to protect and take care of her. Dante’s eyes stayed on her as if he couldn’t turn away.

  The count will look at me the same way, Scarlett assured herself. For although she wasn’t truly involved with Julian, she was still engaged, and behaving otherwise was dangerous. “I’m sorry. I—can’t. I—”

  “It’s all right,” Dante interrupted quickly. “You don’t have to explain.” He smiled again, wider but not nearly as sincere. Silently he walked her to his room before handing her an onyx key.

  For a tense moment they both lingered near the door—narrow and pointed. Scarlett feared that despite his word Dante was going to try to go inside with her. But he merely waited for her to make sure the key worked before whispering, “Sleep well.”

  Scarlett started to say good-bye, but she broke off as she entered the room. An oil lamp sat on the short wardrobe, illuminating the mirror above it. Even in the dim, Scarlett’s image was clear. Dark hair fell past shoulders barely covered in thin ruffles of gauzy white fabric.

  She gasped. The evil gown had transformed again, turning sheer and lacy and far too scandalous to be worn in a public hall or while talking to a strange young man.

  Scarlett slammed the door without finishing her good-bye. No wonder Dante had been unable to take his eyes off her.

  * * *

  Scarlett did not dream well.

  As she slumbered, she dreamed of Legend. She was back in the gilded balcony, wearing little more than an exposed black corset with a red petticoat and trying to cover up with the curtains.

  “What are you doing?” Legend swaggered in, sporting his signature blue velvet top hat and a gaze full of wayward intent.

  “I was just trying to watch the game.” Scarlett wrapped herself deeper into the curtains, but Legend pulled her away. His hand was as cold as snow, his youthful face concealed by a shadow.

  Frost nipped Scarlett’s naked shoulders.

  Legend laughed and wrapped both hands around her waist. “I didn’t invite you here to watch, precious.” His mouth moved closer to hers, as if he was about to kiss her. “I want you to play the game,” he whispered.

  Then he threw her off the balcony.

  NIGHT ONE OF CARAVAL

  13

  Scarlett woke up covered in cold sweat. It drenched her hairline and the space underneath her knees.

  She knew it was only a dream, but for a moment she wondered if the magic of Caraval—if Legend’s magic—had somehow sneaked into her thoughts.

  Or maybe the dream was made of her thoughts? Twice she’d been told these experiences were all just a game, yet she was behaving as if everything were real. As if her every action would be discovered and judged and punished.

  I didn’t invite you here so you could watch.

  Scarlett wasn’t even doing that, though.

  Yesterday she’d seen incredible things, but the entire time she’d been controlled by fear. She reminded herself her father wasn’t there. And if she were only going to stay for one night, she would regret it later if she spent the entire time too frightened to enjoy anything. Tella would probably sleep for another hour at least; Scarlett could go that long without worrying about her. And it wouldn’t kill Scarlett to have a little fun in the meantime.

  Her thoughts fled back to Dante, to the black rose tattoo on his hand and the warm, wanted way he’d made her feel. She should have said yes. It was only a dinner—not nearly as scandalous as talking with him in a darkened hall while only in a nightdress. And even that had not turned out as terribly as she would have imagined.

  Her borrowed room had only one tiny octagonal window, but it was enough to see the sun leisurely setting, and the canals and streets returning to life. The world was on the cusp of nightfall. The hour of smoke before everything turned fully dark. Perhaps if she headed to the Glass Tavern fast enough it wouldn’t be too late to find Dante and accept his dinner invitation. Though she felt as if she should be eating breakfast. She’d adjusted to sleeping during the day with surprising ease, but the idea of waking up and going to supper still felt unnatural.

  Before leaving she gave her appearance a quick check in the mirror. As she’d washed her face, she’d felt her gown shifting, the thin fabric of her nightdress turning to heavy layers of silk.

  She’d hoped for something less noticeable, a dress that would blend into the night, but this gown definitely had a mind of its own.

  A giant wine-red bow sat atop her bustle, its two thick ties streaming down her backside to the floor. The rest of her dress was pure white, except for the bodice, which was wrapped in red ribbons, leaving only glimpses of the snowy fabric beneath. Her shoulders were bare, though long sleeves covered her arms. Like the bodice, they were threaded with ruby ribbons, which tied on top of her hands, leaving their ends to dance between her slender fingers.

  Tella would love it. Scarlett could already imagine how her sister would squeal at the sight of Scarlett in such a bold gown.

  Even though Scarlett had vowed not to worry about her sister for the first hour of the night, she still could not help but think of Tella as she passed by room five.

  The door was cracked. Emerald-green light, the color of the gem-shaped doorknob, seeped from the other side like fog.

  Scarlett told herself to keep walking. To find Dante, who actually wanted to spend time with her. But something about the light and the crack and the ever-present pull of her sister drew Scarlett closer.

  “Tella—” Scarlett knocked quietly. The door creaked open a little farther, spilling out more green light, the color of malevolent things. Scarlett’s ill feeling from before returned.

  “Tella?” She pushed open the door the rest of the way. “Oh my—” Scarlett covered her mouth.

  Tella’s room was a shambles. Feathers covered the carnage, as if a rebel angel had gone mad. They mixed with the splinters of wood that snapped under Scarlett’s boots and the clothes ripped from the torn-apart wardrobe. The bed was damaged as well. Its quilt was torn in half, and one of its posts had been completely removed, like a roughly severed limb.

  This was all Scarlett’s fault. Tella had been in her room with a man, but not for the reasons Scarlett thought. She should have known. She should have gone in despite Tella’s protests. It was Scarlett’s job to take care of her sister. Tella was far too reckless with men. And Scarlett had been foolish to think they could stay here, even for a day. She should have departed the island with Tella the moment she’d found her. If Scarlett had left right away, this—

  “God’s teeth!”

  Scarlett spun at the sound of her sister’s familiar curse, uttered by an unfamiliar voice.

  “Hector, look—it’s another clue.” The woman who marched into the room was silver-haired and slight, and definitely not Donatella. “This is superb!” She pulled an older man with spectacles through the door.

  “What are you doing?” Scarlett asked. “This is my sister’s room. You can’t be in here.”

  The couple looked up as if they’d just noticed Scarlett.

  The silver-haired woman smiled, but it wasn’t kind. It was as greedy and green as the light that dusted the room. “Is your sister Donatella Dragna?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “When did you last see her?” asked the silver-haired woman. “What does she look like?”

  “I—she—” Scarlett started to answer, but the interrogation felt foul, like a bathtub filled with dirty water. The silver-haired woman’s tone was as eager as her pale eyes and clutching hands. And then Scarlett saw it, in the woman’s wrinkled palm. A gr
een glass key.

  Exactly like the one Scarlett had received, etched with a number five, and attached to a slip of paper bearing Donatella’s name.

  Julian’s words rushed back. Her sister’s name was Scarlett’s first clue. And other people had been given the same exact clue.

  It’s all a game. Scarlett remembered the warning from the girl on the unicycle. This wasn’t real.

  But it felt that way. The dresses strewn about the room were really Donatella’s. And when her sister had warned her away from the room, that had been her voice, and she had genuinely sounded upset, although now Scarlett feared it wasn’t for the reason she originally thought.

  Several feathers took flight as the woman plucked one of Tella’s lacy light-blue nightdresses from the ground and her companion stole a piece of costume jewelry from the floor.

  “Please, don’t touch those,” Scarlett said.

  “Sorry, dear, just because she’s your sister doesn’t mean you get all the clues.”

  “These aren’t clues! These are my sister’s things.” Scarlett raised her voice, but all that did was draw in more people. As eager as vultures, men and women, both young and old, ripped through the room like beasts sucking meat off bones. Scarlett felt powerless to stop them. How had she ever thought this was a magical game?

  Some of them tried to ask her questions—as if she might lead them to another clue—but when Scarlett wouldn’t answer they hastily moved on.

  She tried to seize what she could. She grabbed dresses and under-things, ribbons and jewelry and picture cards. Tella must have been sincere about never returning to Trisda, for it wasn’t only her clothes strewn about the room. All her favorite possessions were there, and a few of Scarlett’s as well. Scarlett wasn’t sure if these were things Tella had taken selfishly, or if she’d brought them to the isle for Scarlett because she’d not planned on either of them returning to Trisda.

  “Excuse me.” A pregnant girl with rosy cheeks and strawberry-blond hair approached Scarlett, her voice the one quiet sound amid the chaos. “You look as if you could use some help. I can’t exactly bend over well.” She motioned to her full, rounded stomach. “Maybe I could hold on to those things while you keep gathering?”

  Scarlett was reaching the point where she couldn’t pick up more, but she didn’t want to let go of what she’d managed to grab.

  “It’s not as if I can run off,” the girl added. She was young, about Scarlett’s age, and from the size of her it appeared she could have her baby any minute.

  “I’m not sure—” Scarlett broke off as a man in cheap velveteen pants and a brown bowler hat kicked a piece of stained glass. Something glittery red sparkled beneath it.

  “No! You can’t take those.” Scarlett lunged toward the man, but the moment he saw her interest, his own ignited into something stronger. He snatched the precious earrings from the floor and bolted to the door.

  She ran after him, but he was quick and her arms were burdened. She was only halfway down the hall when he made it to the rickety stairs.

  “Here, let me hold those.” The pregnant girl was beside her in the hall. “I’ll be right here when you get back,” she promised.

  Scarlett didn’t want to let go of what she’d gathered, but she really couldn’t lose those earrings. Dropping her things in the girl’s open arms, Scarlett clutched the bottom of her snowy skirt and tried to catch up with the man. She caught a glimpse of his brown bowler hat when she reached the staircase, but then it vanished from sight.

  Out of breath, she burst downstairs, seeing the door to La Serpiente swing shut as if someone had just raced through. Scarlett chased after it, grabbing its garish green edge. Outside, the world was nightfall and daybreak all at once. Stars winked above like evil eyes, while hosts of lanterns set the streets ablaze with lustrous candlelight. An accordion’s jaunty tune rang over the streets, and people moved to its music, swaying skirted hips and swinging jacketed elbows. But there were no bobbing bowler hats. The man had disappeared.

  It shouldn’t have mattered. They were only earrings. But they weren’t only earrings. They were scarlets.

  Scarlet stones for Scarlett, her mother had said. A final present before she had left. Scarlett had known there was no such thing as a scarlet stone, that they were really just colored bits of glass, but that had never mattered. They were a piece of her mother, and a reminder that Governor Dragna had once been a different man. Your father gave me these, she said, because scarlet was my favorite color.

  It was difficult to picture her father being thoughtful like that now. He’d been so different before. After Paloma had run off and he’d been unable to find her, he’d destroyed everything that reminded him of her, leaving Scarlett with only the earrings, but only because she’d hidden them from him. That’s when Scarlett swore to always stay with her sister, to never leave Tella with nothing but a piece of jewelry and faded memories the way their mother had. Even years later, Paloma’s disappearance clung to Scarlett like a shadow that no amount of brightness could erase.

  Scarlett’s eyes burned with tears. Again, she tried to remember this was only a game. But it was not the game she thought it would be.

  Back in the crooked hallway of La Serpiente, Scarlett was not surprised to find the pregnant girl had made off with all her things. Nothing remained in the hall of her sister’s precious belongings. All Scarlett found was a glass button and a picture card that either the girl or someone else must have dropped.

  “Those vultures.”

  “I didn’t know you were the sort who ever cursed.” Julian leaned against the opposite wall, brown arms crossed lazily over his chest, making Scarlett wonder if he’d been there all along.

  “I didn’t know the word vulture was a curse,” said Scarlett.

  “The way you used it made it sound like one.”

  “You’d curse too if you had a sister who was kidnapped as part of this game.”

  “There you go again thinking too highly of me, Crimson. If I had a sister who was kidnapped for this game, I’d use it to my advantage. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and come on.” Julian pushed off the wall and started toward Tella’s ransacked room.

  The vultures were gone but everything important was cleaned out. Even the green glass doorknob had been absconded with.

  “I tried to collect all her things but—” Scarlett’s voice cracked as she entered the room, reminded of all the greedy eyes and hands grabbing at Tella’s possessions, as if they were segments of a puzzle rather than pieces of a person.

  She looked up at Julian, but there was no pity in his hooded gaze. “It’s just a game, Crimson. Those people were only playing. If you want to win you have to be a little bit ruthless. Nice is not what Caraval is about.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Scarlett said. “Just because your moral compass is broken doesn’t mean everyone here is unscrupulous.”

  “The ones who come close to winning are. Not everyone comes here just for fun. Some only play so they can sell what they gather to the highest bidder. Like the mate who ran off with your ear-things.”

  “He won’t get much money for those,” Scarlett said bitterly.

  “You’d be surprised.” Julian picked up a knob from the broken wardrobe. “People are willing to spend a lot of money, or give up their deepest secrets, for a bit of Caraval magic. But those who don’t play fairly usually pay an even higher price.” Julian tossed the knob into the air and let it fall to the ground before quietly admitting, “Legend has a sense of justice that way.”

  “Well, I don’t want to play at all,” Scarlett said. “I just want to find my sister and get home in time for my wedding.”

  “That’s a problem, then.” Julian picked up the knob once again. “If you want to find your sister before you leave, you have to win the game.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Let me guess, you didn’t look at the clue I gave you?”

  “All my clue said was Donatella’s name.”
r />   “Are you certain?” he challenged.

  “Of course. I just didn’t realize it was a clue. I thought Legend—” Scarlett caught her mistake too late.

  Julian’s lips were curving into that same mocking twist that appeared whenever she mentioned Legend’s name—even though she hadn’t finished her witless thought.

  Scarlett double-checked the note attached to her key. The only words on the note were her sister’s name, but below that was a wide swath of empty space. Crossing over to the closest stained-glass candled lamp, Scarlett held the page up as Tella had done with the tickets from Legend. Sure enough, new lines of elegant script appeared.

  After a moment the poem disappeared, and a new set of words took its place.

  Scarlett’s dream must have been more than just a delusion. Legend really wanted her here. She recalled what the boy in the balcony had said: Once inside, you will be presented with a mystery that must be solved.

  Figuring out where Tella had been taken must be this year’s mystery. That’s why so many people had been rummaging through her room; they were all searching for Tella as well. The note didn’t say what would happen to Tella if no one found her, but Scarlett knew her sister didn’t plan on going back to Trisda once the game ended.

  If Scarlett didn’t find her, Tella would vanish just like their mother had. If she wanted to see her sister again, Scarlett really did have to remain and play.

  But Scarlett couldn’t stay for the entire game. She was supposed to marry the count in six days, on the twentieth. There were five nights of Caraval, but it would take two full days of travel to return to Trisda. For Scarlett to make it home in time for her wedding, she would have to solve all the clues and find Tella before the last night of the game.

  “Don’t look so distressed,” said Julian. “If your sister is with Legend, I’m sure she’s being treated well.”

  “How do you know that?” Scarlett said. “You didn’t hear her; she sounded so frightened.”