Legendary

by Stephanie Garber

continued to fall to the floor. The Prince of Hearts – the Fate famous for his fatal kisses, who had haunted both her dreams and nightmares, and cursed her to unrequited love after drawing his card from her mother’s Deck of Destiny – was not merely a myth. He was real, and he was standing right in front of Tella. His pale skin glowed so unnaturally, if the entire ballroom hadn’t been frozen, she imagined they’d have all seen him for what he truly was.

When they’d danced her heart had pounded, her veins had heated, her blood had raced. But now she could feel her heart struggling, beating too slowly, a weak echo of what it should have been. ‘Am I going to die?’ ‘Not yet.’

‘I want Legend the man, not just his identity. I want you to win the game and then give him to me.’

Dante stood casually with one elbow propped against a thick metal bar near the mouth of the cage, but the rigid set of his jaw, the hooded sweep of his gaze, and the derisive line of his lips told Tella that he was far from calm. He looked furious.

… his heart had stopped beating long ago. Only one person could make it beat again: his one true love. They said his kiss had been fatal to all but her – his only weakness.

She was bold. She was brave. She was cunning. And she was going to come out of this triumphant – no matter the cost.

It might have been the most convincing lie she’d ever been told.

Even now, some of the glow had worn off, but Jacks still looked utterly inhuman, viciously beautiful. Capable of killing with only one press of his lips.

But when Jacks turned the card around it did not reveal a Fate. It showed an alarmingly lifelike picture of her mother, Paloma, with dark locks of hair cascading over shoulders that looked thinner than Tella remembered. Paloma stood with her palms outward, as though pressed hard against a window, almost as if she were trapped inside of the card. ‘This is where your mother has been for the past seven years,’ Jacks said.

Jacks set the card atop Tella’s clenched fists. It did not tingle like the Aracle, it throbbed, painfully slow, a dying heartbeat. Tella knew it was dying because it matched her own slowly beating heart.

‘I might have delayed the full power of my kiss, but you will still experience some of its effects.

Death visited Tella while she slept. The tips of his claws stroked the back of her neck, while his shadow followed her into pristine dreams, poisoning all the colors until everything tasted of dust and withered to ash. Soon you will be mine once more.

Tella clutched her damp sheets with one hand and the card imprisoning her mother with the other. She’d bent its edges during her nightmarish sleep, wrinkling the corner right above her mother’s dark head.

girl wtf???

Tella shuffled to the tiny chest where she stored the Aracle and slipped the card with her captive mother inside.

what a sentence

But Tella imagined Jacks’s directive to appear wasn’t so much about appearance as it was about possession: he wanted to make it clear that she now belonged to him.

He’d have turned absolutely purple at the sight of this dress.

Scarlett was Tella’s person – the one someone in the world whom Tella could always count on.

Tella’s stomach dipped and her heart might have flipped, the same way it always did whenever she met Dante. He didn’t lounge or rest, he possessed.

‘Maybe I was going to tell you that you’re clever and funny and beautiful. I always thought you were too smart to marry a murderer.’

Coldness swept over Tella’s skin and started sinking in like claws. That wretched, deceitful, remorseless, pain-enjoying prince of vile. It wasn’t enough that he’d cursed her to unrequited love; he really was killing her. The slower heartbeats weren’t merely in her mind.

She was cursed, her mother was trapped inside a card, and to save them both, Tella was now playing a game involving two infamous immortals – one of whom wasn’t supposed to exist anymore.

But the blood dripping from Tella’s fingers and the heart dying in her chest felt like solid proof he was the real Prince of Hearts.

‘I know you don’t want to believe me, but Caraval is more than just a game this time. I’m not sure what the Prince of Hearts has promised you, but to the Fates, humans are nothing more than sources of labor or entertainment.’

There were gowns that changed color in the sun, and capes sewn with thread made of stardust so they would always glitter at night.

Someone gasped. Probably Tella.

Every item was fitted to exactly her size and worth a noble’s fortune. Some were lined in feathers, others in jewels or polished pearls. All of it monstrously beautiful, like the treasures of a magical nightmare, which she supposed Jacks was.

‘It’s not part of a traditional costume. It represents Elantine’s missing child, the Lost Heir.’

If there was one costume that declared that despite Jacks’s kisses and curses he would never fully own her, it was the crown of the Lost Heir. Maybe it was a foolish choice to be so defiant, but it was one of the few choices Jacks had given her.

If Scarlett Dragna had a magical ability, it would be the power to always find her sister.

She was staying in a golden tower. A wicked prince had cursed her and imprisoned her mother, and if Tella failed at her task, they’d both be doomed, and so would Scarlett, who’d be left without anyone.

which is of course why we're 41% of the way into this book and you haven't done a damn thing

‘I know Caraval can be magical and romantic and wonderful, but the spells it casts aren’t easily shaken off, and half the time I don’t even think people realize they have been bewitched.’

Caraval has a way of making people fall in love, and sometimes it’s with people who might not be entirely real.’

You’re the starlight to his darkness, and if you feel the same about him, you should give him another chance.’

‘But Julian promised not to lie to me at the end of Caraval, and he couldn’t even keep that vow for one day.’

She did believe that Julian loved her sister, but maybe his life was so entrenched in lies that he was incapable of change, and Scarlett deserved more than that.

He leaned one jacketed elbow against a tarnished silver door, the color of disillusioned dreams and bad decisions. Or maybe he was the one who looked like a bad decision.

‘Weren’t you the one who said you see girls the same way we see party dresses, only to be used once?’ ‘Clearly I view you a little differently.’

Dante’s voice rumbled with a laugh. ‘If I was Legend I’d definitely never tell you.’

‘I’d hold on to my secret because I’d want to keep playing the game with you, and if I told you the truth it would spoil all the fun.’

When Dante looked in Tella’s eyes he wasn’t watching the rest of the world. He wasn’t looking out for himself. He was risking part of his person to focus solely on her.

‘So if you were Legend and we were partners, would you be helping me win or sabotaging my efforts?’ ‘Definitely helping.’ Dante began untwisting her hair, letting his warm fingers brush her neck, and then leaving them on her pulse as he whispered, ‘Even if I wasn’t Legend I would want you to win.’

a part of her wanted it to be true, wanted to believe that something inside of her burned bright enough to capture Legend’s uncapturable attention.

If Legend wants something, he’ll go beyond the ends of this earth for it.’

‘When the witch that Legend visited banished the Fates, she took half of their magic, so that even if the Fates returned, they would not have the same power as before. It was this magic that she used for Legend’s wish. But she warned Legend that if the Fates ever managed to break her curse, they would kill to get their magic back.

The witch knew that in order to keep his powers forever, Legend would eventually have to destroy the Fates, or be destroyed.’

Tella knew Jacks was real. But it was madness to start believing the game was real as well.

‘But I was told that if Legend succeeds in destroying the Fates, he won’t only keep his power, he’ll take all of their powers as well.’

No one wants to be the only one who doesn’t know a secret.

‘I thought you just said the clues are meaningless.’ ‘No, I said the game isn’t really about the clues, but they’re still necessary to show people, like you, the correct path.’

‘Why do you care so much about my future?’ ‘I couldn’t care less, but Legend is very interested.’