Caraval (Caraval 1)

Scarlett gasped.

Julian’s hands stopped moving. Her tiny sound seemed to jolt him back. His eyes opened wider, as if he suddenly remembered he thought she was just a silly girl afraid to play a game. He released her and cold air replaced the heat of his hands.

“I think it’s time for me to go.” He reached for the doorknob. “I’ll find you in the tavern right after sunset. We can go take a look at those tunnels together.”

Julian slipped out the door, leaving Scarlett wondering what had just happened. It would have been a mistake to kiss him, yet she felt … disappointed. It came in cool shades of forget-me-not blue, which wrapped around her like evening fog, making her feel hidden enough to acknowledge that she wanted to experience more of Caraval’s pleasures than she would ever have admitted out loud.

It wasn’t until Scarlett lay back down that she realized Julian had managed to avoid telling her exactly how he got injured. Or, how he managed to make it back to La Serpiente, long after the sun had come up and the doors had locked.

NIGHT TWO OF CARAVAL

18

Scarlett didn’t notice the roses at first.

White with ruby-red tips, like the blossoms speckling her room’s papered walls. That must have been why she’d not seen them before she’d fallen asleep. She told herself the flowers blended into the room. Someone hadn’t come in while she was sleeping.

But what she really meant was, Legend had not entered her room while she’d slumbered.

Though his early notes had felt like tiny treasures, something about this latest gift resembled a warning. She wasn’t certain the flowers were from Legend. There was no note next to their crystal vase, but she couldn’t imagine they were from anyone else. Four roses, one for every night that remained of Caraval.

It was the fifteenth. The game officially ended at dawn on the nineteenth, and her wedding was on the twentieth. Scarlett only had that night and the following night to find Tella, or at the very latest by dawn on the eighteenth, if she wanted to leave the island in time for her wedding.

Scarlett imagined her father could keep her kidnapping a secret from the count if her fiancé arrived on Trisda early; there were old superstitions about a groom not seeing a bride. However there’d be no salvaging her wedding if Scarlett never showed up for it.

Scarlett reached into her pocket and pulled out the note with the clues once again:

Scarlett no longer believed that Julian was the third clue, the boy with the heart made of black. But she couldn’t dismiss the feeling he was keeping things from her. She continued to wonder how he’d been wounded, how he’d retrieved her earrings, and about their almost-kiss. Though she couldn’t think about the kiss now. Not when she was marrying the count in only five days.

And because all that mattered was finding Tella.

Scarlett hurried to make herself presentable, but her dress seemed to be in less of a rush. It took its time shifting into a lovely cream-and-pink creation, with a milky-white bodice covered in delicate black dots and lined with pink lace, a bustle made of stylish matching bows, and a smart-looking skirt of brushed pink silk. Somehow the dress had managed to fit her with buttoned gloves as well.

Scarlett had a twisting feeling the gown had gone to extra trouble to impress Julian. Or maybe she was only hoping it would have that effect. His abrupt departure the day before had left her with a multitude of battling feelings, and even more questions.

Scarlett prepared to press the sailor for answers. But when she went to meet him, Scarlett found the tavern mostly empty. Soft jade light lit only one patr

on—a dark-haired girl hunched over a notebook who sat near the glass fireplace. She didn’t even look up at Scarlett, though others did, as the hour waxed by and the room began to fill.

There were still no signs of Julian.

Had he taken what she’d learned about the tunnels and left her waiting in the tavern so he could search them for clues all alone?

Or maybe distrust should not always be her first response.

Julian had his faults, but even though he’d left her on a couple of occasions, each time it was only for a short duration and he always came back. Had something happened? She wondered if she needed to search for him. But what if she left and then he appeared?

With every thought she watched her buttoned gloves turn from white to black, and she could feel the neckline of her gown transforming from a heart shape to a high collar. Thankfully it wasn’t turning sheer, but the silk was shifting to uncomfortable crepe and she could see the tiny black dots on her bodice growing larger, spreading like stains all over her gown. Reflecting her worries.

She tried to relax, hoping Julian would show up soon and her gown would go back to normal. Glimpsing herself in the table’s glass, she looked as if she were in mourning, though that didn’t stop people from talking to her.

“Aren’t you the sister of that missing girl?” One patron asked the question, and suddenly a small herd of people was upon her.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know anything.” Scarlett repeated the phrase until one by one they all departed.

“You should try to have some fun with them.” The girl who’d been sitting quietly, poring over a journal, appeared at Scarlett’s table. As pretty as a watercolor and dressed as bold as a trumpet in a golden gown, daringly sleeveless, with ruffles up to her neck and a bright chartreuse bustle, she folded herself into the glass chair across from Scarlett. “If I were you I’d tell them all sorts of things. Say you saw your sister arm-in-arm with a man in a cape, or that you found a bit of fur on one of her gloves that looked as if it belonged to an elephant.”

Were elephants even furry?