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‘I made a mistake, Scar. I never wanted to fall for anyone, but I think I’ve fallen in love with Legend.’
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.
If there had been a clock in the room, it would have stopped. 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.
Tella’s heart constricted. She’d never wanted to fall in love with anyone. And in that moment she hated him, for making her feel so many things for him.
Scarlett didn’t understand Tella’s relationship with Legend, which was admittedly complicated. Sometimes Legend felt like her enemy, sometimes he felt like her friend, sometimes he felt like someone she used to love, and every once in a while, he felt like someone she still loved. But to Scarlett, Legend was a game master, a liar and a young man who played with people the way gamblers played with cards.
‘You’re not fun when you’re this pathetic. I can’t torment you if you’re already miserable.’
Before, he could feel her emotions, but now she could feel his. Even though he’d taken both her pain and her sorrow, that wasn’t what he was feeling now. He felt desire. Desperation. Lust. Obsession. He wanted her. She was all he wanted. All he thought about. She felt it in the way the kiss began to shift from reckless and hungry to languorous and savoring, as if he’d considered this for a very long time and now he was acting out all the things he’d imagined.
Her skin went suddenly hot. She could still taste him on her lips. Tart and bitter and deliciously sweet. Apples and grief and Fated magic. She refused to think of it as a mistake, but she couldn’t let it happen again.
If I hadn’t delivered Esmeralda to them, I would have died that night, and nothing would have brought me back to life this time. I know you’re angry with me right now, but I’d hope you wouldn’t want me dead.’
‘How long was I out?’ she asked. ‘Long enough to make me worry that this wasn’t just an elaborate ploy to get into my bed.’ Scarlett managed a smile. ‘What if I said it was a ploy?’ ‘I’d tell you that you don’t need one. You’re welcome in my bed anytime.’
Love and immortality cannot coexist. We only feel obsession, fixation, lust, possession. If an immortal feels true love for even a minute, they become human for that minute. If the feeling lasts too long, their mortality becomes permanent. And most immortals would kill the object of their affection rather than become human.
‘In the future – because there will be a future for us – I just hope you can talk to me about things like this rather than telling me you’ve already made up your mind.’ ‘All right,’ Scarlett conceded. ‘But I hope you do the same?’ ‘I wouldn’t ask it of you if I wasn’t planning on that.’
‘A careful girl wouldn’t say she loved me.’ ‘You’re wrong. I don’t think my heart could be safer than in your hands.’
Tella could have done the same thing. She was all for making mistakes and doing better next time. But Tella feared that if Scarlett took one wrong step, there might not be a next time.
‘Ahem.’ The older sister cleared her throat. ‘If you wish to start making that child now, I’m afraid this isn’t the place.’
Tella. If you become immortal, you won’t lose your free will. You won’t feel my brother controlling you. But you’ll never feel him loving you like the way I love Crimson.’
She waited for a rendering of Legend to materialize next, but all that showed up was a tiny star at her feet. She was where Legend wanted to be.
‘I want you to undo it,’ she demanded. ‘I want the marriage revoked, and then I never want to see you again.’ ‘Why would I agree to that?’ he droned. ‘There’s nothing really in this solution for me.’ ‘You want to be married to someone that hates you?’ ‘Maybe I like the intensity of it.’
She’d loved him as Dante, but she loved him even more as Legend. Dante had helped her forget, but Legend had taught her how to dream again, and she loved all the dazzling dreams they shared and the exquisite lies he told with his illusions. But she loved the imperfect truth of him just as much. She loved how protective he was, and how playful he could be. She loved the boy who’d called her an angel and a devil in the same conversation.
‘If you do this,’ Tella said slowly, ‘I will hate you forever.’ ‘No, my love. If I do this, you’ll finally stop hating me.’ Jacks’s smile vanished and for a moment he looked like pure desolation, a shell of a person with hollowed cheeks, fractured eyes and bloodstains on his chest. He was an immortal who couldn’t die but who could never fully live, because the things he wanted to consume were devouring him instead.
The eyes of the women in the shop went directly to Paradise. There were only three of them, but Paradise commanded their attention like a queen ruling over her subjects.
Then the Fallen Star died. And Scarlett cried. She cried for the horrors he had been, and she cried for the wonders that he could have been instead.
‘I’m sorry I left you that night. I shouldn’t have left, I shouldn’t have hurt you. And I shouldn’t have got scared and run away when I realized that I was falling in love with you.’ Tella’s eyes flashed open, and words spilled out before she could stop them. ‘You told me you weren’t capable of love.’ ‘I didn’t think I was.’
‘I can’t say that I understand love, or that I’m very good at it, because I’ve never loved anyone before. But I love everything about you, Donatella Dragna. Everything.’
‘This is my choice, and I choose you, Donatella. I don’t need immortality. You’re my forever.’
‘Maybe because my sister is nicknamed the Fate Slayer.’ Tella’s cheeks pinked with pride. ‘You think I could get a Wanted poster with a picture of me on it and that title beneath it?’ ‘You’re not a criminal,’ Scarlett said. ‘You’re a hero.’ ‘Yes, but I’ve always wanted my own Wanted poster.’ Tella
