Finale (Caraval 3)

“Poison works for himself,” called the Lady Prisoner.

Scarlett shot up in bed. She’d forgotten all about the other treacherous Fate on the opposite side of the open doorway. “We need to get out of here!” Scarlett yelled. “She’s a spy.”

“Of course I’m a spy,” the Lady Prisoner said. “That’s why he put me in here. But I’m also on your side.” She hopped off her perch in a dramatic whirl of lavender skirts and clutched the bars in front of her. “I want out of this cage. Why do you think I sliced his throat that day?”

“Maybe you were bored.” Scarlett knew the Lady Prisoner couldn’t lie, but she really didn’t want to listen to her.

She wanted to hate all the Fates. She didn’t want to look in the Maiden Death’s sad eyes and remember how awful it had felt to be inside of a similar cage.

Scarlett didn’t know why the Assassin would be aiding their cause—he was more powerful than anyone and yet the sooty-charcoal emotions swirling around him conjured feelings of brokenness and misery.

“Tella, why did you bring them here?” Scarlett asked.

“They sort of brought me. The Maiden Death is the one who told me you were in danger, and the Assassin is how we got inside. He brought me here to search for you, while Legend went to look for Julian. Did you two see him?”

“He helped us get away,” said Julian. “He was using his illusions to fight the Fallen Star and keep him busy while we left.”

Tella’s face went paper-white. “You shouldn’t have left him down there.”

“He can handle himself,” Julian said.

“What if he’s been captured instead and they figure out who he is? They’ll drain all of his magic. We need to get him.” She turned to the Assassin. “You—”

“If you go down there to save one person, you’ll never defeat Gavriel,” Anissa interrupted. “You’ll just keep repeating the same mistakes—sacrificing one of you to save another one of you.”

“But we can’t just leave him!” Tella’s face went from pale to red, as if she was afraid Legend would lose more than just his powers. She looked ready to battle the Fallen Star herself.

Scarlett’s ribs tightened. Her gaze darted to the empty space on the floor in front of the Lady Prisoner’s cage, where a body had rested earlier that day. Murder was how the Fallen Star solved problems. “We’re not going to leave him.”

“The only way to win this battle is to become what the Fallen Star wants most of all.” Anissa’s violet gaze met Scarlett’s.

“I can’t do that,” Scarlett said. “I tried. If I come into my full powers I’ll become someone else—”

It hit Scarlett then. Maybe that was what she needed to do. Her father wanted her to change, but he also wanted someone else. Scarlett saw it whenever he looked at her with a brief bit of tenderness. He still wanted Paradise, the only women he’d ever loved. He’d killed her, but he regretted it, because like all immortals, he was obsessive and possessive. He missed her. Scarlett’s mother was what he wanted most of all.

In the background Scarlett heard her sister objecting to something, but all the words turned into white noise as Scarlett finally saw how she could defeat him. The idea was extreme and possibly preposterous, but if love was Gavriel’s only weakness, then she needed to become the one person he loved. “Assassin? Can you take other people with you when you travel through time?”

“What do you need to travel through time for?” Julian asked as Tella simultaneously said, “We’re wasting time.”

Scarlett barely heard the Assassin’s soft “Yes. But if you go back in time and make even the smallest change, you may not be able to return to this timeline, and those you love here will never see you again.”

“What if I just went back in time to steal a dress and observe someone in order to imitate them?”

“You may not change anything,” said the Assassin. “But time travel rarely goes as planned—you may end up doing more than just stealing a dress and observing.”

“Who is it you want to observe?” Tella asked.

But from the shake in her voice, Scarlett could tell her sister already had an inkling of what Scarlett had just figured out.

“I want to go back in time and see our mother.” Scarlett’s words should have sounded impossible. But she was standing in a room full of impossible people—three Fates, one boy who didn’t age, and a sister who had died and come back to life.

Scarlett’s idea was possible. It was just extremely dangerous. If she failed, the Fallen Star could kill her the way he’d killed her mother, he could put her in another cage, or he could keep the promise he’d made earlier and torture everyone she loved. But if it worked, she could save them all, along with the entire empire.

“I know how all of this sounds, but I really believe our mother is the key to killing the Fallen Star. Remember the secret you shared in your letter? The secret that told us he loved her? I’ve seen it in the way he looks at me sometimes. He sees her in me, and it changes him. If I can go back to steal some of her clothing and observe her, then I might be able to convince the Fallen Star that I am her. If I do this, I think he’ll become human enough to kill.”

Tella shook her head. Scarlett had never thought that blond curls could look angry, but Tella’s appeared furious as they bounced around her face. “She’s already dead, Scarlett. The Fallen Star killed her.”

“That’s why I need the Assassin’s help. He can bring me to the Fallen Star and say that he’s taken Paradise from the past.”