Finale (Caraval, #3)

by Stephanie Garber

Every story has four parts: the beginning, the middle, the almost-ending and the true ending. Unfortunately, not everyone gets a true ending. Most people give up at the part of the story where things are the worst, when the situation feels hopeless, but that is where hope is needed most. Only those who persevere can find their true ending.

Occasionally, there are minutes that get extra seconds. Moments so precious the universe stretches to make additional room for them, and this was one of them. People don’t get pauses like these very often. Some people never receive them at all.

It looked like the color of wishes come true and fantasies made real.

Fear was a poison that people mistook as protection.

There was no competition between Julian and Nicolas. Julian had won Scarlett’s heart a long time ago.

‘But I don’t want to feel differently. I want to feel love in its every form. I used to be so scared of it, but now I think love is another type of magic. It makes everything brighter, it makes people who have it stronger, it breaks rules that aren’t supposed to exist, it’s infinitely valuable. I can’t imagine my life without it. And if you felt any love in your heart, you would understand.’

But she didn’t want perfect – she only wanted him.

‘What’s done cannot be undone, but it can be severed.

She looked the way Love might have looked if Love looked in a mirror, infectiously happy and radiantly beautiful.

Fear was poison to love. And love was poison to fear.

She cried for the horrors he had been, and she cried for the wonders that he could have been instead.

He looked like the ending of a doomed love story.