Finale (Caraval 3)

His mouth twitched at the corner, and his voice turned taunting. “If it looks so bad, why do you keep staring?”

“Just because I don’t like you doesn’t mean you’re not pretty.”

“If you really hated me, you wouldn’t find me attractive at all.”

“I never said I had good taste.” She downed the last of her cordial.

His eyes returned to her lips as he continued to roll his absinthe sugar cubes around his long fingers.

The tattoos on his fingers were gone, but the black rose remained on the back of his hand. Whenever she saw it, she wanted to ask why he’d left it, if he’d gotten rid of his other tattoos, like the beautiful wings on his back, and if that was why he no longer smelled of ink. She was also curious if he still wore the brand from the Temple of the Stars, signifying that he owed them a life debt. The debt he’d taken on for her.

But if she’d asked that, it would have unquestionably counted as caring.

Fortunately, admiring wasn’t against their unspoken rules. If it had been, they’d both have lost this game a long time ago. Tella usually tried to be a little more discreet, but he never was. Legend was unabashed in the way he looked at her.

Although tonight he seemed distracted. He hadn’t made any comments about her gown—he controlled the location, but she chose what she wore. This evening her flowing dress was a whimsical blue, with shoulder straps made of flower petals, a bodice made of ribbons, and a skirt of fluttering butterflies that Tella liked to think made her look as if she were a forest queen.

Legend didn’t even notice when one of her butterflies landed on his shoulder. His eyes kept flitting to the ghostly piano player. And was it Tella’s imagination, or did the tavern appear duller than her other dreams had been?

She would have sworn the chaise he lounged on had been a bright, lurid green, but it had blurred to pale sea glass. She wanted to ask if something was wrong, but again, that would have given the impression of caring.

“Aren’t you going to ask me your question tonight?”

His gaze snapped back to her. “You know, someday I might stop asking and decide not to give you the prize.”

“That would be lovely.” She sighed, and several butterflies took flight from her skirt. “I’d finally get a good night’s sleep.”

His deep voice dipped lower. “You would miss me if I stopped visiting.”

“Then you think too highly of yourself.”

He stopped toying with his sugar cubes and looked away, once again preoccupied by the musician on the stage. His tune had ventured into the wrong key, turning his song discordant and unlovely. Around the room the ghostly dancers responded by stumbling over one another’s feet. Then a raucous crash made them freeze.

The piano player folded atop his instrument, like a marionette whose strings had been severed.

Tella’s heart beat wildly. Legend was always frustratingly in control of her dreams. But she didn’t sense this was his doing. The magic in the air didn’t smell like his. Magic always held a sweet scent, but this was far too sweet, almost rotted.

When she turned back around, Legend was no longer sitting, but standing right in front of her. “Tella,” he said, his voice harsher than usual, “you need to wake yourself—”

His last words turned to smoke and then he turned to ash as the rest of the dream went up in poisonous green flames.

When Tella awoke, the taste of fire coated her tongue and a dead butterfly rested in her palm.

4

Donatella

The next night, Legend did not visit her dreams.

5

Donatella

The intoxicating scents of honeycomb castles, cinnamon bark pies, carmelite clusters, and peach shine floated through Tella’s cracked window when she woke, filling the tiny apartment bedroom with sugar and dreams. But all she could taste was her nightmare. It coated her tongue in fire and ash, just as it had the day before.

Something was wrong with Legend. Tella hadn’t wanted to believe it at first. When the last dream they shared had gone up in flames, she’d thought it could be another one of his games. But last night when she’d searched for him in her dreams, all she’d found was smoke and cinders.

Tella sat up, threw off her thin sheets, and dressed quickly. It was against the rules to do anything that gave the impression of caring, but if she just went to the palace to spy, without actually talking to him, he would never know. And if he really was in trouble, she didn’t much care about breaking the rules.