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“Do you need any help?” Julian asked.
Scarlett gave a quick shake of her head and something unspoken passed between them. Julian pressed a quick kiss to her cheek, and then he turned back to Tella. Something like sympathy filled his amber eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He didn’t mention his name, but Tella knew he was talking about Legend. “He can make someone the center of his world when they’re a part of his game. But when the game ends, he always walks away and he never looks back.”
Tella sensed Julian was trying to be helpful, but somehow he made it a little worse.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m just glad the game’s over.”
Julian pulled at the back of his neck. Tella feared he was going to say something else, something that would be harder to dismiss without a show of emotion. But she imagined he was more eager to find his brother than continue a conversation with her. Julian must have known things hadn’t gone as planned the moment she’d shown up in Jacks’s arms.
Without another word he left the garden and disappeared into the night.
The minute he was gone, Scarlett turned back to Tella with eyes full of her own questions. Tella didn’t know if her sister wanted to ask about her mother, or the game, or what Tella had done that had put her in such a weakened state.
All Tella knew was that she didn’t want to fight or argue or see any disappointment on her sister’s face. Scarlett deserved answers, but Tella wasn’t ready to get into the entirety of her story. She just wanted someone to comfort her and take care of her until the dawn.
Scarlett held her fiercely. “I’m ready to listen whenever you want to talk.”
“I’d rather forget.” Tella sagged against her sister. She didn’t mean to say anything, but once she started speaking the rest slipped out. “I made a mistake, Scar. I never wanted to fall for anyone, but I think I’ve fallen in love with Legend.”
ELANTINE’S
DAY
43
It was the quietest Elantine’s Day the Meridian Empire had ever witnessed. After a week of burning constellations and buildup, all of the empress’s birthday celebrations had been cancelled due to Elantine’s continued state of failing health. Her people had been informed of her illness that morning, and the entirety of Valenda was in a somber mood. Even the sun didn’t shine quite as bright; it seemed content to hide behind clouds. Only one corner of it peeked out, sending a ray of light into the room where Donatella Dragna sat with her sister, Scarlett.
For her part, the younger Dragna sister felt as if she’d entered a world where both her dreams and nightmares had collided.
She’d dreamed of her mother so many times. Usually it was nightmares where her mother had abandoned Tella all over again. But occasionally, Tella had dreams where her mother returned. It always happened the same way. Tella would be asleep in her dream, and then her mother would wake Tella with a tender kiss on the forehead. Tella’s eyes would flutter open, then her arms would fly around her mother’s neck, and indescribable joy would take over.
It always felt like the urge to cry mingled with the need to laugh; the kind of happiness that was almost painful. It pressed against Tella’s chest, making it hard to breathe and difficult to form words. And it should have been even more potent now that her mother was returned.
She lay atop Scarlett’s bed, as peaceful as a doomed damsel in distress, all pale cheeks, dark hair, and unnaturally red lips. Tella tried not to be concerned by the exaggerated colors of her mother’s lips and skin, reminding herself that for years she’d been a painting on a card, not a woman.
Her mother was now free, and it was because of Tella. That victory alone should have given Tella wings to soar around the room, out the window, and over the glass courtyard below. But the idea of wings made Tella think of a pair of wings tattooed on a beautiful back. Which then conjured thoughts of the one person she wasn’t supposed to be thinking about. Legend.
Her veins heated at the thought of his name.
She had no idea where he’d gone after he’d left her on the steps outside of the Temple of the Stars. And she didn’t want to wonder about it. She didn’t want to replay every encounter she’d had with him, every word he’d said to her, every look he’d given her, or every kiss they’d shared. Each memory hurt, behind her eyes, in her lungs, and in her throat, growing uncomfortably tight whenever she recalled their last moment together.
It felt like weakness to keep thinking of him. Tella knew she’d have had to be completely unfeeling to have banished him from her thoughts after all they’d experienced. And Tella never wanted to be unfeeling. But she didn’t want to be consumed with him, either.
The only way to stop her thoughts of him was to keep focusing on her mother, who was there and would eventually wake up.
Tella was still stunned Jacks had kept his promise and returned Paloma to her. Maybe he was in love with Tella after all. She was his one true love. Although Tella imagined that being the object of a Fate’s affections was a dangerous thing. But she wasn’t worrying about the Fates for now. Jacks had made it clear that it would take the Fates longer than it would take her mother to wake up.
Tella wiped Paloma’s head with a cool cloth, not that it made any difference. Her mother didn’t have a fever. But Tella felt better if she was doing something.
“She doesn’t look as if she’s aged at all since she left,” Scarlett said. “It’s not natural.”
“I’m fairly certain nothing about being imprisoned in a card is natural,” Tella said.
This earned her a deeper frown.
As soon as the sisters had reached the palace the night before, Tella had fallen asleep in her sister’s bed. She’d woken up when Jacks had returned with her very unconscious mother. He hadn’t mentioned where he’d found her, but he’d let something slip about how she’d been trapped inside of a card and how Tella had made a great sacrifice to save her.
