Tella wanted to ask why it mattered to him so much. When they’d first met he’d claimed exposing the lie would paint him as weak and put his life in jeopardy. As soon as she found out he was a Fate she imagined that was a lie, but perhaps he was vulnerable until he had his full powers.
“Now,” he added loudly, “I really must leave.” He said a quick good-bye to Scarlett. Thankfully, he made no attempt to kiss her hand or cheek.
Though from the way Scarlett fluttered her lashes as she closed the door behind him, Tella imagined her sister had wanted Jacks to at least brush his lips against her fingers.
“Scar, you need to be careful with him.”
“That’s funny,” Scarlett said, her head turning sharply back toward Tella. “I was about to tell you the same thing.”
28
Scarlett gripped the door’s glass handle with five white knuckles while her back pressed against it, as if she were barring it to prevent a particular person’s reentry.
“Tella, what are you doing with the heir to the throne?” Scarlett’s smile had vanished, and her voice had gone from treacle-sweetness to sour.
“I thought you liked him, from the way you kept grinning.”
“His reputation is vicious, and he’s royalty—I’ve seen his pictures all over the palace. How else was I supposed to act?” Scarlett marched back over to the bed and perched on the edge, a brilliant crimson bird about to strike. “Tella, what is going on? When Julian told me to come here earlier he made it sound as if you’d almost died, but then Jacks told me a ridiculous story about you falling from a carriage. Did he hurt you?”
“No, Jacks didn’t lay a finger on me.”
“Then tell me what happened. Julian refused to explain. He ran off, and this time I didn’t even tell him to go.”
Tella tugged at the sea-salt blue ribbons hanging off her dress, avoiding her sister’s demanding gaze. Scarlett kept looking at Tella as if she’d done something wrong. But Tella wouldn’t have been in this situation if Scarlett hadn’t been keeping secrets.
“You want to know what happened?” Tella asked. “I was out searching for you. I went by your suite after midnight, but you were gone.” Tella finally looked up. “Where were you, Scarlett?”
“I wasn’t anywhere,” she answered flatly. “I was in my room, sleeping.”
Tella’s eyes narrowed. “I knocked.”
“I must have slept through it.”
“I pounded hard enough to bruise my knuckles.”
“I was exhausted.” Scarlett pressed her hands against her skirt and smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle. “You know how heavy I can sleep.”
Tella didn’t want to doubt her sister. Scarlett’s tone was sincere, but the way her hands continued to fidget with the even folds of her gown gave Tella the impression that even if she was telling the truth, it wasn’t the entire story. She just kept smoothing and smoothing and smoothing.
Scarlett seemed to sense her sister’s growing doubts. “I’m not playing the game. Where would I have been, Tella?”
“Maybe you’re not playing because you’re working for Legend,” Tella accused.
“You—you think I’m in on the game?” Scarlett sputtered.
“I don’t know what to think! After everything that happened last night I’m not even sure I still believe it’s just a game,” admitted Tella.
To her credit Scarlett didn’t say this was exactly what she’d warned her about. Instead she took a deep breath and smoothed her skirt again before calmly saying, “Have you already forgotten what Legend put me through in the last game? Do you really believe I would be a part of doing something like that to you? Don’t answer, because it’s clear from the look on your face that you do. But I would never hurt you like that, Tella. I swear, I’m not working for Legend and if you believe otherwise, then Legend’s tricks are working on you.”
Scarlett took one of Tella’s hands, her grip warm and firm but a little bit shaky. Tella could have interpreted it to mean her sister was being dishonest, or that Scarlett, who rarely ever lied to Tella, was genuinely hurt.
Tella felt an arrow of guilt.
“I’m sorry,” Tella said. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have jumped to the conclusion you were working with Legend just because you didn’t answer your door.”
Tella almost laughed when she said the words out loud; she had made a rather large leap. But it seemed too soon to joke about. Scarlett still held on to Tella’s hand, and yet the bond between them felt unusually fragile, as if the weight of Tella’s many secrets might break it.
She gazed out the window. The light had changed from lazy peach to brilliant apricot, turning everything in the room a little more gilded. Tella had not been paying attention to the bells, but she imagined it was sometime around or after noon. There were enough hours before nightfall and her dinner with the empress to confess everything to Scarlett. And Tella considered it. But she doubted Scarlett would believe anything that Tella had learned during the game, which scared her almost as much as the idea of Scarlett believing everything.
Tella almost wanted to hear her sister’s reassurance that it was all only a game. But if Caraval was all real—as this morning’s run-in with the Undead Queen had started to convince Tella—pretending it was just a game would not do Tella any good. However, convincing Scarlett it was real would not do Scarlett any good, either. She would only worry more about Tella.
But maybe there was one secret Tella could reveal that would make things better instead of worse. “I think Dante might be Julian’s brother.”
“Why would you say that?” Scarlett’s tone was pure skepticism. “The two don’t even like each other.”
“I overheard something last night.”
“It was probably just an act for the game.”
“It sounded very convincing.”
Scarlett slit her eyes. “You really are starting to believe it’s not just a game, aren’t you?”
“No,” Tella lied.
“But you think Julian and Legend are brothers?”
“Yes,” Tella said. “I do.” Or she did, until her sister had started looking at her as if she’d lost her mind.
Scarlett drew a heavy breath. “I wish I could believe you, but I’m not even playing and it’s making me question things.” She motioned toward the door. “I still can’t figure out why you and the heir are claiming to be engaged. I’m sure it has something to do with the game, but I can’t imagine what. All I know is that it scares me, Tella. And if I’m this confused, you must be even more confused.” Scarlett’s voice cracked and something inside of Tella broke along with it.
Tella didn’t want to lie to her sister again, but she also knew that she couldn’t tell her the entire truth.
“I’m playing the game on behalf of Jacks,” Tella confessed. “If I win and give him the prize,” she hedged, “then he’ll reunite us with our mother.”
Scarlett’s expression hardened, but she didn’t say a word.
Seconds passed.
Tella almost feared her sister wouldn’t respond, that she’d ignore the topic as she always did. But it was almost worse when she spoke.
Scarlett uttered every word as if it were a curse, as if she’d rather have learned their mother was dead. “Why are you still looking for that woman?”
“Because she’s not some woman, she’s our mother.” Tella considered walking over to her little trunk and pulling out the card that Paloma was trapped inside of, but it wasn’t indestructible like the Aracle, and she feared Scarlett might do something rash like try to rip it in half.
The color of Scarlett’s dress shifted, darkening from sultry crimson to raging burgundy, matching the dark tone of her voice as she said, “I know you want to believe the best about her. For a long time I did too. But she left us, Tella, and she didn’t just abandon us, she left us with our father. I know you keep hoping there’s a good reason for it. But the truth is, if she’d loved us at all, she’d have stayed, or taken us with her.”
Tella considered telling her sister that their mother had left to protect them from a cursed Deck of Destiny containing all the Fates, but when she thought it all at once, it sounded ludicrous. And, if Tella told Scarlett about the cards, she’d also have to confess that their mother was a criminal who had stolen the cards in the first place, and she doubted that would help her case, either.
“I’m sorry we view this so differently,” Tella said.
“I just don’t want to see you hurt again.” Scarlett sagged against the closest bedpost. “Looking at this situation—at the fact that you’ve teamed up with a violent heir to find her—screams to me that it won’t end well.”
“I know you don’t like this,” Tella said, “but if it’s Jacks you’re worried about, trust me when I tell you that this business between us will end as soon as the game is over.”
“Are you sure about that?” Scarlett said. “When he was in here, he didn’t look as if he wanted to let you go anytime soon.”
“He’s a good performer.”
“I don’t think that’s it.”
“That’s why I’m asking you to trust me.” Tella squeezed her sister’s hand. “I trusted you when you told me you weren’t working for Legend. I promise, three days from now, neither you nor I will ever have to see Jacks again.”
“A lot can change in three days,” Scarlett said.
But she didn’t argue after that, making Tella wonder if perhaps her sister had a secret of her own after all.
WHAT SHOULD
HAVE BEEN
NIGHT FOUR
OF CARAVAL
29
Tella could not stop weaving flowers into her hair. She knew there were far too many; her head looked like a garden, full of blue plumerias. And she continued to add more.
After Scarlett had left, a bouquet of plumerias had arrived at her door without a note. Tella imagined they were a gift from Jacks, since they matched the billowing ball gown he’d sent for that evening. Tella had started to toss the flowers out the window, but something about their perfume was familiar in a way that made her ache at the idea of parting with the blue bouquet. She’d put one in her hair, then another, and another, losing herself in their sweet scent and concentrating on the tiny act of weaving them into her curls rather than the fact that she was having dinner with the empress of the Meridian Empire.
Just the thought unbalanced her.
Since her father was a governor, Tella had been taught all the proper manners for banqueting with nobles, but she’d never been very good at following them. And she knew nothing about dining with royalty.
She took another plumeria from the thinned bouquet.
A chuckle floated from the doorway to her bedroom.
Tella spun away from her vanity to spy Jacks, leaning against the frame.
She’d expected that for once he’d make an attempt to look regal. But like the night of the Fated Ball, Jacks didn’t even have a coat. He wore a loose shirt the color of spilled brandy, with ripped shoulders that made it look as if he’d torn off some sort of ornamentation, hanging untucked over burnt auburn trousers that were shoved into unpolished leather boots. Casual was too fancy of a word to describe him, yet magic still pulsed around him in a glow of burning copper.
In one ungloved hand he held a fresh apple, as white and bright as a virgin’s sheets. “Good evening, Donatella.”
“You know it’s not polite to sneak into a young lady’s room.”
“I think we left politeness behind a while ago. But”—Jacks shoved away from the doorframe in one lithe movement and offered her his arm—“I promise to be on my best behavior tonight.”
“That doesn’t say much.” Tella smoothed her full skirts as she stood up from her perch. The gown she wore felt heavier than any of the others Jacks had sent. One half of it was unadorned pearl-blue silk, the other was an ornate combination of jeweled swirls, twilight-blue velvet flowers, and glacier-blue lace embellishments, which spilled down her skirt in a haphazard combination that reminded Tella of a knocked-over jewelry box.
“Don’t worry,” Jacks said. “I’m sure El will adore you.”
“Did you just refer to the empress as El?”
“‘Elantine’ is such a mouthful.”
“You call me Donatella.”
“I like the way it tastes.” Jacks’s teeth broke the skin of his apple slowly, revealing deep red flesh as he took a wide bite.
Tella forced herself to accept his arm, knowing that any signs of discomfort and displeasure only seemed to give him delight. But to her surprise he behaved like a gentleman as they traveled up the steps of Elantine’s golden tower to meet the empress on the topmost floor.
Jacks held Tella’s arm lightly enough that she could have pulled away at any time, more focused on his apple than on her, until after a few flights of stairs. He dropped her arm and turned to face her, abruptly.
His sharp teeth bit into his lips instead of his piece of fruit, while his quicksilver eyes danced over her hair. Tella had lost several flowers on the stairs. It was probably for the best. Yet Jacks began to frown as he took her in.
“What is it?” Tella asked.
“The empress needs to believe we’re in love.” He paused, as if carefully choosing his next words. “My situation with El is complicated. If I could kill her, I would, but there are protections on her that prevent me. And though she’s old, she’s not close to dying. She is, however, close to passing on her throne to me. But that won’t happen until I’ve found someone she believes is suitable to share it with me.”
“And you think I’m that someone?” A laugh accompanied Tella’s words.
But Jacks did not smile. “You convinced Legend to help you, you died and came back to life, and you dared to kiss me. Of course you’re that someone.” He held her eyes for a moment before his gaze swept past her.
Tella followed the line of his eyes to a mirror hanging on the wall. It reflected both of them. To Tella’s astonishment, Jacks appeared different in the mirror; it must have been incapable of capturing his true essence. With his ripped shirt and unpolished boots, he still looked as if he’d just rolled out of bed or fallen from a low window—but he also appeared younger, more boyish, mischievous rather than evil incarnate. His eyes were a bright shade of blue without any cold hints of silver. His skin was still pale, but there was a hint of color in his cheeks and a subtle curve to his mouth that made him look as if he were on the verge of saying something naughty.
“You’re staring at the wrong person, darling.” Jacks gently pressed a hand to her cheek, shifting her view so that Tella saw her own reflection.
She had sat in front of a mirror pinning flowers into her hair for more than an hour, but she hadn’t looked at herself, not really. Sometimes when she gazed in the mirror she swore she saw Death’s shadow instead of her own. But as she peered at her reflection now, she did not see Death. Her skin glowed, not just with color from climbing up the stairs, but with life capable of days and weeks and seasons of adventures not yet had. Beside her, Jacks suddenly looked even paler in comparison. His glow meant he would never die of natural causes or mortal wounds, but her radiance meant she would truly live.
“Other people might underestimate you, Donatella, but I don’t.”
Tella tried not to feel anything at his words. All her life she’d been underestimated, by her father who thought she was useless, her sister who loved her but feared she couldn’t stay out of trouble, her nana who thought of her as only a nuisance; Tella even underestimated herself at times. It was almost cruel that the one who seemed to believe in her the most was the same being who was also slowly killing her.
“If I fail, will you kill me early, the same way you murdered your last fiancée?”
Jacks’s expression shuttered. “I didn’t kill her.”
“Then who did?”
“Someone who didn’t want me to take the throne.”
Jacks dropped his apple, letting it roll down the stairs as
he took Tella’s arm. He held her a little closer than before, almost protectively, but he stayed silent as they continued climbing, as if her mention of his former fiancée had genuinely upset him. Perhaps if Tella believed him she would have felt guilty. But he was the Prince of Hearts, and everyone knew the prince was not capable of love. The stories said he had one true love, but Tella doubted he’d found her. And given how casually he’d mentioned wishing he could kill the empress, Tella doubted Jacks was affected by the loss of one human life.
“Why does the throne matter to you so much?” Tella asked after a few more steps. “As a Fate I’d think you wouldn’t want to be burdened by mortal power.”
“Maybe I like the idea of wearing a crown.” Jacks tilted his head, letting more golden hair fall into his eyes. “Have you seen the emperor’s crown?”
“I can’t say I have.” But Tella had witnessed how carelessly Jacks dressed, and even if that weren’t the case, she couldn’t imagine the Prince of Hearts would fight so hard to be the heir simply so he could wear a crown.
She was about to ask what was so special about this crown when they finally stopped their ascent.
Tella hadn’t counted the number of flights they’d taken, but she imagined they were near the top of the tower. Two black lacquered doors waited for them, with guards dressed in full armor standing on either side. They must have recognized Jacks. Without a word the guards opened the doors.
Candles fell from every inch of a white ceiling, like waxy, glowing raindrops, filling the domed room with flickering spires of marigold light. Tella only had a moment to take it all in, to glance at the steam rising from the elaborate feast beneath the candles and the intricately carved stage on the other side of the room, before a feminine voice burst through the silence.
“You’re finally here!” Empress Elantine rose from a seat at the end of the banquet table.