Finale (Caraval 3)

“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?”