Finale (Caraval 3)

“Then why couldn’t you?” Tella said. Shortly after he’d first showed up in her dreams, he’d taught her how to control parts of them—little tricks to change what she wore and larger tricks in case she didn’t want certain people entering her dreams. But even when she’d been mad at Legend, she’d always let him in. “I wasn’t keeping you out.”

“I know. But something else was.”

Tella didn’t see Legend move—he must have used his magic to hide what he was doing—but suddenly the door between them was open, and Legend was holding something in his hands—two pieces of confetti, one shaped like a spade and the other shaped like a heart.

A sharp memory returned to Tella: Jacks carrying her through his gambling den as card-suit confetti fell from the ceiling. Was this why Legend was mad at her, because she’d been with Jacks?

“Where were you last night, Donatella?”

Again, she hadn’t seen him move, but he was now farther away, leaning against the bars opposite her cell, making it clear that even though they were outside of her dreams, some of the rules hadn’t changed. He was still keeping his distance.

“That’s none of your business,” Tella snapped, “and even if it was, I don’t have time to argue with you about it. I need to find my sister.”

“Tella!” Scarlett’s voice carried down the hall before Tella caught sight of her running forward in a storm of flushed raspberry skirts, bright enough to light up the entire dungeon.

“Where have you been?” Scarlett captured Tella in a hug so tight it cut off Tella’s breath. Or maybe she couldn’t breathe because of the emotions suddenly captured in her throat. Her sister wasn’t dead or injured or kidnapped. She was here and safe and alive. “We’ve been searching the entire city for you and Paloma.”

“I thought something happened to you,” Tella choked out.

“Why would you think that?” Scarlett shot an accusing look at Legend.

He continued to lean against the prison bars, regarding Tella with narrowed eyes. “I didn’t get the chance to tell her you were here.”

“Oh good, you found her.” Julian appeared at the end of the hall, swaggering forward as if the tension in the dungeon wasn’t thick enough to choke on. He was dressed in finer clothes than Tella had ever seen him in, but they looked tired, as if he’d been wearing them since the day before. “Where was she?”

“We were just figuring that out.” Scarlett turned back to her sister. “Legend told us that he thought Jacks had taken you.”

The bright raspberry skirts of Scarlett’s dress began to fade as she took in the disheveled state of Tella’s feathered dress. She’d probably lost a couple feathers during her time with Jacks, but she doubted they’d come undone in the same way Scarlett was imagining. And after all she’d seen yesterday, Jacks didn’t feel like the most dangerous immortal that Tella knew.

“Is your mother here too?” Julian asked.

Scarlett didn’t say anything, but Tella could see the question in her eyes as well. Eyes so much like their mother’s that just looking at them made Tella tremble all over, as if her bones wanted to break out of her skin and flee before they were forced to relive last night’s horrors.

“Tella, what’s wrong?” Scarlett reached for her sister’s hand again.

Tella wrapped her fingers around Scarlett’s, the same way she had as a child the day after their mother had vanished from Trisda. Tella had been the first of the sisters to discover Paloma was missing. She’d found the room her father had destroyed after he couldn’t find Paloma anywhere. Then Scarlett had been there, taking her sister’s hand and silently promising she’d never let go as long as Tella needed her to hold on.

“She’s left again?” Scarlett guessed.

Tella was tempted to say yes. It would have been so much easier for her and for her sister if she just let Scarlett believe her mother had run off. But if Tella took the easy path now, it would be so much harder to take the necessary one.

Last night she’d vowed to kill the Fallen Star, and she planned to follow through. She’d find a way to destroy him, and she couldn’t do it on her own.

She took a deep breath, but it became lodged in her throat until she finally managed to say, “Our mother died yesterday.”

Scarlett staggered back and clutched her stomach, as if the wind had been punched out of her.

Tella wanted to take her sister’s hand again, but she couldn’t stop to comfort her. If Tella stopped talking, she knew she’d start crying. She had to keep going. She reached into her pocket and shared the good-bye letter her mother had written. Then Tella told them how she’d ignored her mother’s warnings and followed her into one of the ruins, where Tella had watched every disturbing thing that had passed between the Fallen Star and their mother until the Fallen Star finally took Paloma’s life. The only part Tella wasn’t entirely honest about was the bit involving Jacks. Since they already knew she’d been with him, she told them how he’d found her and carried her out of the cavern, but she didn’t add that he’d then helped her by taking away some of her grief.

When she finished, the four of them no longer appeared to be standing in the halls of Legend’s dungeon. Again, she hadn’t even seen Legend move, but she knew he’d created the comforting illusion they stood within now. The cold floors had turned to plush cream carpets, the stone walls had turned to white soapstone, and the barred windows had shifted to pretty stained-glass ones, covered with serene pictures of clouds in calming skies that shined pale blue light over everyone’s grim faces.

Julian offered his condolences first. Somewhere during her story, he’d moved close to Scarlett and wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

Legend still remained distant. He leaned against one of the gleaming walls, but when he looked at Tella, all the earlier anger and wariness had disappeared, replaced with a look so indescribably gentle, she would never have pictured it on his face. “I wish it was in my power to bring her back. I know how much she meant to you, and I’m sorry you lost her the way that you did.”

> His fingers twitched, as if he were tempted to reach for her, but for once Tella was glad that he didn’t attempt to touch her. Last night Jacks had held her together with touch, but Tella had the feeling that if Legend pulled her into his arms right now, she’d fall apart entirely. She could handle his glares and his barbed remarks, but his tenderness could upend her completely.

Scarlett didn’t say a word, but tears streamed down her cheeks, more tears than Tella would have expected, given her rocky feelings toward their mother. Tella felt as if she should have been there to try to soothe them instead of Julian, but again she feared that it would only make her cry, too.