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Scarlett shook as she recalled the last time she’d seen Dante alive. He’d been frantic with worry in the stairwell. Maybe if Scarlett hadn’t lost that day, she would have been able to help him find her. “I should have done something,” she muttered.
“There was nothing you could have done,” Julian said flatly. “Valentina was supposed to meet us here the night I got my head bashed, but she never showed up.”
Julian explained that the tunnels ran under everything. Maps were embedded at the mouth of each one, and they were mainly used for the Caraval performers, to easily get from one place to another. “And sometimes they’re used for murder,” Julian added wryly. His eyes were hooded, cheekbones sharper than usual, an expression made of shattered things.
Scarlett wished she knew how to fix him, but it seemed as if he was almost as damaged as she was. “Are you still set on revenge?” she asked.
“Would you try to stop me if I was?” He cast his gaze down the hall toward Dante’s dead, twisted body.
Scarlett felt as if her answer should have been yes. She liked to believe there were always options besides violence. But Dante’s murder and Valentina’s disappearance took away any illusions that Caraval was merely a game.
Scarlett had thought her father was vicious, but Legend was just as much of a monster. It seemed her nana hadn’t lied when she’d said the more Legend played the role of a villain, the more he’d become one in reality.
Tentatively, Scarlett reached out and took Julian’s hand. His fingers were tense, cold. “I’m sorry about your—”
The echo of footsteps cut her off. Steady, determined, and close. She couldn’t hear any voices, but she swore she recognized the gait. Instinctively, she pulled her hand from Julian’s. “I think that’s my father!”
Julian’s head jerked toward the sound. In a flash his sorrow was gone. “Your father’s here?”
“Yes,” Scarlett said.
They both started running.
24
This way.” Julian tugged her toward a corridor lined in bricks and lit with glowing spiderwebs.
“No.” Scarlett urged him left. “I used a path with stones.” She didn’t recall the walls being speckled with radiant rocks as well, but she’d not really been paying attention to that.
Behind them the crush of boots was getting louder.
Julian scowled but followed her. His elbow brushed hers as the tunnel walls grew narrow and knobby stones dug into both their sides. “Why didn’t you tell me your father was here?”
“I was going to tell you, but—”
Julian’s hand clamped over Scarlett’s mouth, salt and dirt pressed against her lips as he whispered, “Shh—”
He grabbed one of the glowing stones dotting the wall, twisted it like a doorknob, and pulled her into a darkened nowhere. The walls hugging Scarlett’s back were like ice, moist and cold. She could feel them soaking through her thin dress while she tried to remember how to breathe.
Anise and lavender and something akin to rotted plums were replacing Julian’s cool scent, mo
ving like smoke under the odd door he’d just pulled her through.
“I’ll keep you safe,” Julian whispered. His body pressed close to hers, as if to shield her, while boot steps landed hard just outside their hiding spot, which seemed to be growing smaller. The frigid walls were digging into Scarlett, pushing her closer and closer to Julian. Her elbows hit his chest, forcing her to twine her arms around his waist as his taut body molded against hers.
Scarlett’s heart raced irregularly. The coarse stubble of Julian’s jaw grazed her cheek as his hands wove low around her hips. Through the insubstantial fabric of her dress she could feel every curve of his fingers. If her father opened the door and discovered her like this she would be dead.
Scarlett tried to push away, her breath coming out quick and fast. The ceiling now seemed to be sinking too, moving closer, dripping cold onto the top of her head.
“I think this room is trying to kill us,” Scarlett said. Outside she heard her father’s steps retreat, until the sound of them faded to nothing. She would have liked to stay hidden another minute or more, but her lungs were being squashed, sandwiched between Julian and the freezing wall. “Open the door!”
“I’m trying.” Julian grunted.
Scarlett sucked in a gasp. Her flimsy gown rose up above her knees as Julian’s knuckles roamed over her backside, his palms searching for their exit. “I can’t find it,” he ground out. “I think it’s on your side.”
“I can’t feel anything.” Except for you. Her fingers brushed places she knew she shouldn’t have been touching, while her hands tried to explore the wall. But the harder she fought, the more the room seemed to push back.
Like the ocean off the island.
