Finale (Caraval 3)

Julian tried to pull the dog from the room as they went to hunt for Scarlett. But the animal wouldn’t leave; it continued to howl and guard its dead master as Tella and Julian scoured every tainted inch of the estate for Scarlett.

“Crimson!” Julian shouted, and Tella would have sworn his eyes were glassy. He wasn’t crying, but he was close. “Crimson!”

“Scarlett!” Tella called at the same time, repeating the name until her throat went raw. Her vision dulled around the edges as she combed through closets and cellars and dusty rooms full of cloth-covered furniture. By the time she and Julian completed searching, Tella’s legs were shaking, she was covered in damp, and she’d found no signs that Scarlett had even been there.

Julian was a sweaty mess as well. Hair clung to his forehead and his shirt stuck to his chest as they stumbled away from the house and into the empty stables. It was the sole place on the estate that did not reek of dying.

But Tella didn’t want to rest there. She didn’t want to curl up in the hay and eat the food Julian had stolen from the kitchen. She didn’t want to rehash any horrors, or sit in silence while her worst fears came true. She’d already lost her mother and Legend. She couldn’t lose her sister.

Her chest went tight, and for a desperate moment Tella wished Jacks was there to take away the pain.

26

Scarlett

Scarlett waited for the world to rock, for the boat to sway and her stomach to roll. But only her stomach met her expectations. It bubbled with queasy unease as she sat up in a feather-soft bed and opened her eyes to find that everything was cream-and-gold columns and carpets and bedding, with delicate hints of pink.

Nothing was purple, her father’s signature color. She didn’t smell his wretched perfume, or see his hateful face. Yet Scarlett felt far from safe as she slid out of a bed shaped like a crescent moon and covered in gossamer-thin pink sheets.

On clumsy legs, still unsteady from whatever she’d been drugged with, Scarlett made her way between columns, all topped with disembodied heads of baby cherubs with animal eyes. Lovely and wrong. But they were not quite as disturbing as the frescoes of humans with animal parts painted on the ceiling.

Someone had a very twisted sense of decoration.

Her stomach churned as she reached the floor-to-ceiling windows and swiftly pulled back the curtains.

More endless arches and arcades of gold and white. Scarlett wasn’t certain where she was, but she wasn’t on a boat at the docks or on the ocean. It looked as if she’d traveled back in time to before Valenda’s ruins had been ruins.

Scarlett turned and ran, her feet bounding over fluffy cream carpets, to search for a door. The Reverie Key still rested in her pocket; all she needed to find was a lock. But the only thing she found was a veil of pink curtains, barely thicker than the gauzy sheets on her bed.

Scarlett tore them apart and barreled into a sitting room full of more frescoes. But it was the gilded cage that gave her pause. It took up almost half the room. On the other side of the cage was a door. But inside the cage was a young woman in a lavender gown, sitting on a swing like a pet bird.

Scarlett could have darted past her. The captive woman’s head was gently bowed and her eyes were closed, as if she’d just rocked herself to sleep. If Scarlett were quiet, she wouldn’t even wake her. But she couldn’t escape and leave another girl captive.

Scarlett took a cautious step closer.

There were no ill colors swirling around the captive young woman, but Scarlett felt a wave of uncertainty as she approached. There was something very familiar about all of this, but her head was still too muddled from the drugs to untangle what it could be.

The gleaming lock on the cage’s golden door was larger than Scarlett’s fist. She reached toward her pocket, wondering if it would open with the Reverie Key, but her dress closed the pocket before her fingers could reach in. At the same exact moment, the captive woman’s head shot up, revealing alert lavender eyes the same color as her dress.

“Aren’t you precious?” Her voice was scratchy as if she’d not spoken for a long time. “Sadly, you cannot free me, little human. Only his true death will allow me to leave this cage.”

“But I can never truly die,” said a new voice.

Scarlett spun to her side.

For a moment she thought she was looking at an angel. The broad man before her was dressed in the purest white and surrounded by sparks that made her think the air around him was a breath away from catching fire.

Scarlett swore the gilded cage beside her looked duller now that he stood near it. His olive skin glowed and his thick brown hair had strands of gold that matched his brilliant eyes. He was clearly not human.

“Hello, Scarlett.” The man before her curved his mouth slowly. It might have been a convincing smile except for his golden eyes, which twinkled and crinkled at the corners a second too late, as if he needed to remind himself that a smile was supposed to touch his entire face. “You look exactly like your mother. But she would never have paused to free Anissa if she thought she could have escaped. Paradise was ruthless.”

He said the word ruthless the way someone else might have said the word beautiful. His smile even reached his eyes this time, making them glitter like stolen stars; they shined brighter than the sparks around him, which warmed the room like genuine flames. Instantly Scarlett knew exactly who the immortal before her was—the Fallen Star. The Fate who’d murdered her mother in front of Tella.

Scarlett faltered backward, shoulders slamming into the cage. She didn’t know what the Fallen Star wanted with her, but she didn’t want to find out. She tried to dart past him toward the door.

“That would be a mistake.” His hand fell on Scarlett’s shoulder, heavy and strong enough to crush her entire arm with one squeeze.

“Gavriel, be a little gentle or you’ll break her,” said the woman in the cage.