Finale (Caraval, 3)

Tella’s stomach went hollow.

The woman was made of things that Tella didn’t possess. She was older, not by much—just enough to look more like a woman than a girl. She was taller than Tella too, statuesque with straight, fiery-red hair that fell all the way down to a narrow waist, which was cinched with a black leather corset. Her dress was black as well, silky and slender with slits down both sides that showed off long legs clad in sheer stockings embroidered with roses.

Tella might not have thought much about the stockings, but there were also roses tattooed on the woman’s arms, black ones, matching the rose inked on the back of Legend’s hand.

Tella instantly hated her.

She might have hated him, too.

Roses weren’t rare flowers, but she doubted these matching tattoos were a mere coincidence.

“Welcome back, Legend.” Even the woman’s voice was the antithesis of Tella’s, slightly raspy and laced with a seductive accent Tella couldn’t place. The woman didn’t smile, but when she looked at Legend she licked her lips, making them deepen to a shade of red that matched her hair.

Tella resisted the urge to pick up a snowball and toss it at the woman’s face.

Was this who Legend visited in his days while he kept Tella confined to his dreams? Legend had always made it sound as if he was busy with imperial business when they were awake, but Tella should have known better than to believe him.

“It’s good to see you, Esmeralda.” The tone of Legend’s voice chilled her to her blood. When he spoke to Tella it was deep and low, but often tinged with something teasing. This was more carnal and a little cruel, a voice that didn’t know how to play. He used it as easily as the voice he taunted her with in her dreams. And for a cracked moment Tella couldn’t help but wonder if this vicious Legend was the act—or if the flirtatious Legend she saw when she slept was the true performance.

“We should get out of the cold.” The woman slipped her arm through Legend’s.

Tella waited for him to shift away, to show a hint of discomfort, but he only pulled her closer, touching her easily when, for the last two months, he hadn’t touched Tella.

She seethed and shivered as she followed the pair, creeping behind them as they reached a two-story cottage, bright with firelight that fell through the windows and then spilled out from the door as the woman opened it and they both stepped inside.

Tella felt a flare of heat before the door slammed shut, leaving her blanketed in cold once more. She should have left, but apparently she was a masochist, because rather than turning around and saving herself from more torture, she braved the moat of thorny roses surrounding the house, sacrificing the helpless feathers of her skirt as she crouched beneath the closest cottage window to eavesdrop.

If Legend was having a relationship with someone else, Tella wanted to know everything about it. Maybe this woman was the reason he’d walked away from her that night in front of the Temple of the Stars.

Rubbing her hands together to keep herself from turning to ice, Tella lifted her head enough to peek through a frosted window. The cabin looked as warm as a handwritten love letter, with a stone fireplace that took up an entire wall and a forest of candles dangling from the ceiling.

The hideaway seemed to be made for romantic rendezvous, but as Tella spied, she saw no kissing, no embracing. Esmeralda sat on the blazing fireplace hearth as if it were her throne, while Legend stood before her like a loyal subject.

Interesting.

Maybe the matching tattoos didn’t mean what Tella thought they meant. But Tella was still troubled. She always imagined that Legend answered to no one except himself, and no matter who this fascinating woman was, Tella didn’t like her. And she really didn’t like the way Legend stood, leaning toward her, head slightly bowed, as he said, “I need your help, Esmeralda. The Fates have broken free from the Deck of Destiny that you imprisoned them in.”

Blood and saints.

Tella ducked back down, sucking in cold gasps of air as her back slammed against the icy cottage wall. Suddenly she knew exactly who this young woman was. Before Legend had freed the Fates, they had been imprisoned in a Deck of Destiny by the same witch who’d given Legend his powers. The witch who Legend was speaking with now.

No wonder he was treating this woman like a queen. Esmeralda was his creator. When she had cast the spell dooming the Fates to the cards, she’d taken half their powers and then given them to Legend when he’d sought her out, centuries later. Tella didn’t actually know much more about the witch. But she wasn’t supposed to be so young, or so tall and attractive.

“I failed to destroy the Fates. I’m sorry. But I’m paying the price,” Legend said, his voice carrying down through the cracked window above. “My magic has grown much weaker since the moment they were freed. The Fates are still asleep for now, but I think they’ve already taken some of their powers back. I can barely do a simple illusion.”

Tella resisted the urge to stand and steal another look. Was he telling the truth? If the Fates had somehow managed to steal his magic, then it would explain why he’d vanished so violently from her dreams the other night, and failed to appear last night. Yet she’d seen him use a glamour in the forest to change his clothes, and he’d seemed to have no trouble with it.

Of course, that was a small illusion, and she hadn’t been close enough to touch it. In one of her earlier dreams with Legend, he had explained how his powers worked. He’d told Tella: Magic comes in two forms. Those with powers can usually either manipulate people or manipulate the world. But I can do both and create lifelike glamours that feel far more real than ordinary illusions. I can make it rain, and you wouldn’t just see the rain, you’d feel it soaking your clothes and your skin. You’d feel it all the way down to your bones if I wanted you to.

It had started raining then, inside of her dream, and when she’d woken up hours later, her thin nightdress had been speckled with drops of wet and her curls had been soaked—letting her know that the dreams weren’t just her imaginings, but real rendezvous with Legend, and that his powers of illusion extended far beyond them.

Perhaps Legend was telling the truth about the Fates taking some of his magic, but he wasn’t telling the entire truth. Maybe he could still create illusions, but they weren’t powerful enough to trick people into believing they were real.

Tella thought back to the dead butterfly she’d found in her hand when she’d woken up the day before. Now that she really considered it, she’d seen the butterfly, but she hadn’t felt it. Its delicate wings hadn’t brushed her skin, and as soon as she’d set it on the nightstand, it had vanished.

“The Fates shouldn’t have any of your magic,” the witch bit out, “not unless you released them from the cards.”

“I would never do that. Do you think I’m a fool? I’ve been trying to destroy that deck since the day you made me.” Legend’s tone was clipped as if he were genuinely offended, but Tella knew that this was all a lie. A blatant lie to the woman who’d created him. He had wanted to destroy the cards, but when he’d been given the opportunity, he hadn’t. He’d freed the Fates instead, to save Tella.

“I still want to stop the Fates,” Legend went on. “But to do it, I need to borrow your magic.”

“You can’t stop the Fates with magic,” said the witch. “That’s why I told you to destroy the Deck of Destiny. They’re immortals, like you. If you kill a Fate, they will die, but then they’ll simply return to life.”

“But they have to possess a weakness.” Legend’s voice took on that edge once again, a voice for unraveling and stealing. He wanted Esmeralda’s magic and he wanted to know the Fates’ fatal weakness.

It should have given Tella relief that he was searching for a way to destroy them—she didn’t want the Fates alive either—but a horrible feeling came to life inside her as she heard the decisive click of Legend’s boots.

Tella pictured him moving closer to Esmeralda.

She clamped her frozen hands into fists, fighting the growing urge to peek through the window, to see if he was doing more than closing the distance in order to get the information he wanted. Was he touching the witch? Was he wrapping his arms around her cinched waist, or looking at her the way he sometimes looked at Tella?

When Esmeralda spoke once more, her voice had turned seductive again. “The Fates that were imprisoned do have one disadvantage. Their immortality is linked to the Fate who created them: the Fallen Star. If you kill the Fallen Star, the Fates he made will change from immortal to ageless, similar to your performers. They will still have their magic, and they will never grow old, but unlike your performers, they will not have Caraval to bring them back to life if they die. If you wish to destroy all the Fates, you must first slay the Fallen Star.”

“How do I do that?” Legend asked.

“I think you already know. The Fallen Star shares the same weakness as you.”

The pause that followed was so quiet and still that Tella swore she could hear the snowflakes falling on the roses around her. Twice in a row the witch had just likened Legend to the Fallen Star. First, when she’d mentioned the Fallen Star’s Fates and Legend’s performers. And now she’d just said that Legend shared the same weakness as the Fallen Star.

Did that mean Legend was a Fate?

Tella flashed back to something her nana Anna used to say when she told the story about how Legend came to be. “Some would probably call him a villain. Others would say his magic makes him closer to a god.”

People had also called the Fates gods at one point in time—cruel, capricious, and terrible gods, which was why the witch had trapped them in the cards.

Tella shuddered at the thought that Legend might be like them. During the last Caraval, her interactions with Fates like the Undead Queen, Her Handmaidens, and the Prince of Hearts had almost left her dead. She didn’t want Legend to be in the same category. But she couldn’t deny the fact that Legend was immortal and magical—and that made him something more akin to a Fate than it did to a human.

Tella desperately tried to hear what the weakness was. But Legend didn’t reveal it with his response.

“There has to be another way,” he said.

“If there is, you’ll have to find it out on your own. Or, you could remain here with me. The Fates don’t know I’ve come to this world. If you stay, it will be like it was when I taught you how to master your powers.” She purred. Actually purred.

Tella really did hate her.

Black thorns ripped the freezing feathers from her skirt as she lost her battle with restraint and rose from her crouch to peek through the window once again. And this time she wished she hadn’t.

Legend was on his knees before the witch and she was running her fingers through his dark hair, moving them possessively down his scalp to his neck, as if he belonged to her.

“I didn’t know you were so sentimental,” said Legend.

“Only when it comes to you.” Her fingers knotted in his cravat as she tilted his chin toward her.

“I wish I could stay, Esmeralda. But I can’t. I need to go back and destroy the Fates, and I need your powers to do that.” He pushed up from his knees just as the witch had been leaning into what looked like a kiss. “I only want to borrow them.”

“No one ever wants to just borrow powers.” The witch’s voice turned biting again, but whether it was because of his request or because he’d denied the kiss, Tella couldn’t tell.

Legend must have imagined she’d be vexed by his denial; he took a step closer, picked up her hand, and brushed a chaste kiss to her knuckles. “You made me who I am, Esmeralda. If you can’t trust me, no one else can.”

“No one else should trust you,” she said. But her rich red lips had finally curved into a smile. The smile of a woman who was saying yes to a man she couldn’t resist.

Tella knew the smile because she’d given the same one to him before.

The witch was giving Legend her powers.

Tella should have turned away, should have returned back to her world before Legend caught her there and he saw her trembling from the cold, and from all the feelings that she wished she still didn’t have for him. But she remained, transfixed.

The witch uttered words in a language Tella had never heard as Legend drank blood straight from her wrist. He drank and drank and drank. Took and took and took.

Legend’s cheeks flushed and his bronze skin began to glow, while the witch’s harsh beauty diminished. Her fiery hair dulled to orange; the black ink of her tattoos faded to gray. By the time Legend lifted his lips from her wrist, Esmeralda sagged against him as if her limbs had lost their bones.

“That took more out of me than I expected,” she said softly. “Can you carry me up to the bedroom?”

“I’m sorry,” Legend said—but he didn’t sound sorry at all. His voice was cruel without the sensuousness to temper it. Then he spoke words too quietly for Tella to hear.

The witch lost even more color, her already pale skin turning parchment-white. “You’re joking.…”

“Have you ever known me to have a sense of humor?” he asked. Then he picked up the witch and slung her over his shoulder with the ease of a young man checking an item off a list.

Tella stumbled backward on half-numb limbs, leaving a small riot of ripped-up feathers in her wake. She knew that he’d meant it every time he’d told her that he wasn’t the hero, but a part of her kept hoping that he’d prove her wrong. Tella wanted to believe that Legend really cared about her and that she was his exception. Although she couldn’t help but fear that all that belief really meant was that Legend was actually her exception, that her desire for him was the weakness that could destroy her if she didn’t conquer it.

If Legend was willing to betray the woman who’d created him, then he was willing to betray anyone.

Tella tore through the roses, running from her hiding spot beneath the window back into the forest. She stumbled off the main path, into the trees, only glancing back once she was safely hidden behind a copse of pines.

Legend left the cottage with Esmeralda still slung over his shoulder. And in that moment, Legend no longer felt like Tella’s enemy, or her friend, or the boy she used to love—Legend felt like every story she’d never wanted to believe about him.