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game.” “Now you’re finally thinking like a player.” Julian smiled, but it looked as flat as a line in a painting.
The world was stillness and quiet and milky fog. No colorful boats traveled canals and no other people walked on the cobbled paths.
But while her eyes were letting her down, her ears picked up a gentle melody. Subtle. So quiet it almost sounded like a memory, but as Scarlett moved forward with Julian, the soft music grew into something more solid and soulful. It hummed from the street with the rose-covered carousel, the only spot not infected with fog. She remembered it was also one of the few things that had remained in color when her world had turned to black-and-white.
Brighter than freshly spilled blood, the carousel appeared even more alive than when Scarlett had seen it last. It was so vibrant, she almost didn’t notice the man sitting at the pipe organ beside it. He was far older than most of the other workers she’d come across, and his face was wrinkled and weatherworn, and a little bit sad, mirroring his music. He stopped playing as Scarlett and Julian approached, but the echoes of his song still hung in the air like lingering perfume.
“Does this feel like Legend to you?” “If feeling like Legend means disturbing and creepy, then yes.”
“Can you play us something pretty?” The song that followed was not pretty; it rasped out of the pipe organ like a dying man’s final words. But it did make the carousel spin around. Slowly at first, yet hypnotic in its graceful movements. Scarlett could have stood there and watched forever, but in her dream, just before he tossed her from the balcony, Legend had warned Scarlett not to observe.
“Julian, what are you not telling me?” His lips fell into a rough line, making him look sad and regretful all at once. “There’s not time for all the things I wish I could say.”
“I’m so glad you finally made it, Scarlett.”
“It’s really too bad,” Legend said. “You’re so dramatic, you would have made a fantastic performer.”
“Once people leave this isle, the things they’ve done here don’t just unhappen, no matter how much they might wish them undone.”
“It amazes me,” Legend said. “I’ve only told you the truth and you won’t even allow me to touch you. Yet you think yourself in love with someone who has done nothing but lie to you this entire game. Your friend has told you not to trust me, but you cannot trust him, either.”
“We were just talking about you,” Legend said. “Would you like to tell her, or should I?”
“It seems to me your fiancé is meant for decorative purposes only, but he was right about one thing,” Legend said. “I don’t do anyone favors. It would make no sense to go to all that trouble to put an end to your engagement only to let you leave the isle with someone else. Which is why I’ve had Julian working with me for the entire game.”
Meanwhile the master of Caraval regarded Julian as if he were one of his prized possessions, and to Scarlett’s horror Julian smiled back, the straight edges of his teeth flashing in torchlight. It was the same wicked grin she’d first noticed on Del Ojos Beach; the smirk of someone who’d just succeeded in playing a very cruel trick.
“So your sister, Rosa? That was all a lie?”
“There was someone named Rosa, and she died the way I told you, but she was not my sister. She was just an unfortunate girl who got too swept away in the game.”
“I guess I’m better than I thought.” Julian’s smile turned vicious, the kind made for breaking hearts. But Scarlett had already been broken. For years her father tore her down. Over and over, she had let him. She’d allowed him to make her feel worthless and powerless. But she was neither of those things. She was done allowing her fear to make her weaker, to eat away at the meat on her bones until she could do nothing but whimper and watch.
“You said it yourself. My ex-fiancé is more of a decoration than a man, and I’m better off without him. Now give me my sister and let us go home.”
“It wasn’t just a game for me. I hope you can forgive me.”
He turned back to Scarlett with the look she’d been searching for, his brown eyes full of all sorts of unspoken promises. He’d wanted to tell her the truth, but it seemed as if he physically couldn’t. Some spell or enchantment wouldn’t allow him to say the words. But he was still her Julian. Scarlett could feel the pieces of her battered heart daring to move back together.
And it might have been a beautiful moment, if Legend had not chosen that same instant to pull out a knife and stab Julian in the chest.
Everything about this place reeked of Legend, even the scent of the fire pits, as if the logs were made of velvet and something slightly sweet. The air felt soft and poisonous. Closer to the room’s back wall, a massive black bed, piled with pillows as dark as nightmares, mocked her.
“Scar?” A petite figure sat up in the bed. Honey-blond curls bounced around a face that might have been angelic, if it wasn’t for her devil’s grin.
Always the worrier.
well yeah she did think you were literally kidnapped a few days ago
“Tella, I’m so sorry.” “It’s all right,” Tella said. “I was just getting awfully bored.” “Bored—” Scarlett choked on the word.
dont piss me off
But Tella didn’t budge. She just stood there in her fragile blue nightdress, a rumpled angel, looking up at Scarlett with wide, worried eyes.
But Legend was not the only threat.
“Do you believe me now?” she asked. “I believe you’ve been through a bit of madness this week, but it’s over now. None of that was real.”
Tella is not a sympathetic sister
I’ve met someone.
“Tella, this is wrong,” Scarlett said. “You can’t be in love with someone you just met.”
and suddenly I'm in a Frozen fan fic
but until Daniel, no one had ever actually cared about me.”
girl... you have got to be kidding me
“Forgive my sister, Jo, she’s still caught up in the game. She thinks Legend is out to kill us both.” “Are you certain she’s wrong?” Jovan winked as if she was joking, but when her eyes cut to Scarlett her playfulness vanished.
She gave Scarlett a cranberry dress with a frothy ball-gown skirt, longer in the back than in the front, and covered in teardrop-shaped red beads. The dress matched the blood on Scarlett’s palms.
bitter yellow puddle of dread
it's giving pee
“I’m sorry,” Tella said. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
men ruin everything
“You’re not really in a position to make deals.” “Then why are you making a deal with me?”
“I love you, Scar, but I know this game does strange things to people.”
girlie we're only here because of you
A hidden door in the back opened, and Legend’s maniacal smile returned as Scarlett’s father, along with Count Nicolas d’Arcy, walked through.
because this couldn't get any worse already
“Can I keep the rope?” the governor asked, his eyes full of retribution.
didn’t say another word, but Scarlett could see her sister crumbling. Growing smaller and younger and turning suddenly fragile as she continued to stare up at Legend the way Scarlett imagined she’d gazed at Julian when she’d first learned the truth about how he’d deceived her. Believing but not accepting. Waiting for an explanation that Scarlett knew would never come.
However, the count did not look entirely surprised. He merely cocked his head.
And, Father, you know if you don’t have me, you’ll never be able to control Scarlett. Even if you have her, you won’t make this marriage happen.”
“I meant it when I said I’d rather die at the edge of the world than live a miserable life on Trisda. I’m so sorry.”
With no wings to fly her down, she fell to her death.
the end.
She would not remember how Tella had looked like a doll, knocked from a very high shelf, until the blood started pooling around her.
“I don’t ever want to see you again. I don’t ever want to hear your voice, and I don’t want you to try to ease your conscience by apologizing. You brought this about. You drove her to this place.”
“Your father thought he could kill me,” Legend said. “The governor mistakenly believed Dante was the master of Caraval, and took his life instead.”
Scarlett got the impression that although Count Nicolas d’Arcy was leaving, their business was far from complete.
“I’m not marrying him, and you cannot make me. You’re the one who destroyed our family. All you want is power and control,” Scarlett said, “but you will not have either over me any longer. You have nothing left to hold me now that Tella is gone.”
And I know other secrets too, ones that will put an end to everything you’ve built.”
you mean you could have destroyed him years ago???
