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She gasped. The evil gown had transformed again, turning sheer and lacy and far too scandalous to be worn in a public hall or while talking to a strange young man.
OKAY GIRL
Legend laughed and wrapped both hands around her waist. “I didn’t invite you here to watch, precious.” His mouth moved closer to hers, as if he was about to kiss her. “I want you to play the game,” he whispered. Then he threw her off the balcony.
The door was cracked. Emerald-green light, the color of the gem-shaped doorknob, seeped from the other side like fog.
It’s all a game.
Scarlett’s eyes burned with tears. Again, she tried to remember this was only a game. But it was not the game she thought it would be.
If Scarlett didn’t find her, Tella would vanish just like their mother had.
She tried to think of Tella’s disappearance this way, a simple sleight of hand—she wasn’t gone for good, just out of Scarlett’s reach.
“Scoundrel,” Scarlett muttered. “I’ve been called much worse.
When Scarlett was eleven, she’d been wildly in love with castles. It didn’t matter if they were made of sand or stone or bits of imagination. They were fortresses, and Scarlett imagined if she lived in one, she’d be protected and treated like a princess. Tella had no such romantic notions. She did not want to be cossetted, or spend her days locked away in some musty old castle. Tella wanted to travel the world, to see the ice villages of the Far North and the jungles of the Eastern Continent.
At least castles were real, but even Scarlett, who at the time still had impractical dreams and an untethered imagination, knew mermaids did not exist.
kind of shocked by that tbh
Because Tella’s fantasy of being a mermaid gave Scarlett hope—that despite their mother’s abandonment, and their father’s lack of love, her sister could still dream, and that was something Scarlett never wanted to destroy.
Jovan pointed out all sorts of sights. The canals were circular, like a long apple peel spread out around curving lantern-lit streets, full of pubs piping russet smoke, bakeries shaped like cupcakes, and shops wrapped in colors like birthday presents. Cerulean blue. Apricot orange. Saffron yellow. Primrose pink.
While the canals remained midnight dark, glass lanterns lined the edges of each building, emphasizing the brilliant colors as people bustled in and out.
“There’s a lot to see here,” said Jovan. “If you’re willing to pay and you look hard enough, you’ll find things on the isle you won’t come across anywhere else—some people just come here to hunt through shops and don’t even bother playing the game.”
Otherwise known as Castillo Maldito.”
Lines of gleaming sand stretched up into a palace shaped like a colossal birdcage, covered in curved bridges, horseshoe-shaped arches, and rounded domes, all dusted with gold-like flecks of fallen sunshine.
Time goes even faster in the Castillo.”
“If you’ve noticed, the nights and days on this isle are shorter,” Jovan went on. “Certain types of magic are fueled by time, and this place uses a lot of magic, so make sure you use your minutes wisely when you go inside.”
A second in Caraval seemed richer than an ordinary second, like that moment on the cusp of sunset, when all the colors of the sky coalesce into magic.
Winged zebras and avian kittens, miniature flying tigers wrestling with palm-size elephants that used their ears to keep aloft.
“I was looking next door.” She hastily pointed to a tent the unfortunate color of plums.
“Your eyes keep finding the painted lock on my lips. You feel trapped and unsafe.”
Scarlett was not fond of fate. She liked to believe if she were good, good things would happen. Fate left her feeling powerless, and hopeless, and with an overall feeling of lessness. To her, fate seemed like a larger, omnipotent version of her father, stealing her choices and controlling her life without any regard for her feelings. Fate meant that nothing she did mattered.
The future knows what things we desire, unless there is something greater in our path that chases us away.”
Every person has the power to change their fate if they are brave enough to fight for what they desire more than anything.”
The wild circus on Nigel’s thighs reminded Scarlett of Tella—her need for pleasure to help her forget the wounds she liked to ignore.
Too simple.
“I am sorry, but the man you will marry is not what you would call good. At one time, perhaps, but he has turned from that path, and it is not yet clear if he will turn back.”
“If you want to win this game,” Nigel said, “you should forget about your wedding. And if you want to find your sister, you will not find her in this Castillo. Follow the boy with a heart made of black.”
With the name came a fearful rush of anise and lavender and something akin to rotted plums.
No love ever goes unpunished?
ive never heard this one before
In many ways, loving Tella was a source of constant pain. No matter how hard Scarlett tried to care for her sister, it was never enough to fill the hole their mother had left. And it wasn’t as if Tella really loved Scarlett back. If she did, she wouldn’t have risked everything Scarlett wanted by dragging her to this miserable game against her will.
oof
Beneath the grim brown water, etched into the edge of the basin, was a sun with a star inside and a teardrop inside of the star—the symbol of Caraval.
But if this was where Julian had disappeared and if he was the boy with the heart made of black, Scarlett needed to follow him to discover the next clue.
Either Tella could be the thing Scarlett chased after, or Scarlett’s fear could be what chased Scarlett away.
Each fear squeezed the invisible chain around her neck, tempting her to turn around.
But the red-lipped girl across from Scarlett appeared genuinely scared, and the wail sounded incredibly real. Her thoughts flashed back to the contract she’d signed in blood, and the rumors of the woman who’d died during the game a few years ago.
“You will not find your companion down here, only madness.”
She reminded herself it was only a game. But the madness part was starting to feel very real.
She told herself it was only in her head, the shadows and the sounds. Wails and footsteps and crackling noises.
“Who did this to you?”
trope reversal!!!
“Legend likes his prisoners to feel like guests.”
what a guy. can't wait to meet him.
This girl was that hot sunny day in the middle of the Cold Season, either unaware or uncaring that she did not belong.
“Oh, poor you. Here you are on a magical isle and all you can think of is what you don’t have.”
rude buy lowkey yeah
On the sleeves he’d bunched up around his forearms, and the tattoos they exposed. Specifically, a black tattoo shaped like a heart.
Crisp, like the first bite of a chilled apple, smelling just as sweet, with hints of burnt sugar weaving through the charcoal night air.
Normally Scarlett just saw flashes of color attached to her feelings, but as she watched the boy depart, she could see his skin shifting to ashy gray, while his clothes turned black.
“I think I’ve made a mistake.” “Then make it into something better.”
No one had stolen her sister, or the color from her world.
for at the same moment that Scarlett realized she could see the rich red of its petals, a gentleman with an eye patch walked by.
boo boo tomato tomato
