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Tella resisted the urge to flinch or cower. A part of her recognized that wearing the dress and risking the heir’s attention might have been a poor idea, but it rattled Dante, so Tella refused to think of it as a mistake.
“Isn’t everything you just described what you wanted to happen when you told your lie?”
Silence followed and a fresh chill ripped through the garden, making Tella suddenly aware of how cold the night had grown. Unseasonably cold, as if the weather were taking Dante’s side and warning Tella to go back inside Elantine’s palace.
“You looked pathetic,” Dante finally said. “I wanted to help, but I was also upset with you for what you’d said on the boat, so I picked the worst person I could imagine without thinking it through.” He didn’t tell her he was sorry, but his thick brows creased and his eyes tipped into something that looked like genuine regret. People tossed around the word sorry far too easily, as if it were worth even less than the promise of a copper. Tella rarely believed it, but she found she believed this. Probably because it was the sort of thing she would have done.
“Now this is an interesting pairing.” Armando strode into the garden tapping a fashionable silver walking stick against several of the more frightened-looking statues.
“What do you want?” Dante asked.
“I was going to ask you a similar question.” The elegant accent Armando had used to play the count during Caraval was replaced by a raspier voice as he angled his perfectly groomed head from Tella to Dante, and said, “I thought you were interested in the prudish sister.”
Tella’s hand worked on instinct, pulling back and slapping Armando across his face. “You don’t get to talk about my sister, ever.”
Armando lifted a gloved hand to his purpling jaw. “I wish you’d given me that warning an hour ago. Your sister slaps even harder than you do.”
Alarm flooded Tella. “You talked to her.”
“It seems she didn’t fully understand the concept that Caraval is only a game. Pretty, but not terribly bright.”
“Watch it,” Dante warned. “I’ll do more than slap you.”
Armando’s sharp emerald eyes lit up with amusement. “You must really like this one, or does Legend have you working her the way Julian worked her sister?”
Tella could have smacked him again, but Armando was already gliding backward.
“A word of advice before tonight’s party: Don’t repeat the mistakes your sister made in the last game. And you might not want to wait around for her, either.” Armando continued to the exit as he said, “She wasn’t pleased to find out I wasn’t her real fiancé. When I left her and poor Julian, their conversation was heated; I don’t imagine it will simmer until after the ball.”
“Filthy, wretched—” Tella loosed a string of inelegant curses at his disappearing back. She knew nothing could really be believed during Caraval, but she was convinced that even when he wasn’t acting, Armando was as vile as the roles he played. “I’m going to pray that angels come down and cut out his tongue.”
Dante’s gaze traveled skyward, and Tella swore more than one star blinked out of existence as he said, “I’m sure many would thank you for that.”
Tella still fumed. “Why does Legend even keep him around?”
“Every good story needs a villain.”
“But the best villains are the ones you secretly like, and my nana always said Legend was the villain in Caraval.”
Dante’s lips twisted into something like a smirk. “Of course she did.”
“Are you saying she was lying?”
“Everyone either wants Legend, or wants to be Legend. The only way to keep innocent young girls from running off to find him is to tell them he’s a monster. But that doesn’t mean it’s all a lie.” Dante’s lips widened into a taunting smile and his dark eyes shimmered as they returned to Tella.
The scoundrel was teasing her. Or perhaps he was Legend and couldn’t resist talking about how others were so obsessed with him. Dante was definitely handsome and arrogant enough to be Legend, but Tella imagined the master of Caraval had more important things to do on the first night of the game than torment her.
Another bell rang in the distance. Midnight would approach in fifteen minutes. If Tella didn’t leave at this moment she would be late to meet her friend.
It felt wrong not to run back to Scarlett; Tella could only imagine how upset her sister must have been to learn how deeply Armando, and everyone else, had deceived her during Caraval. Tella hadn’t wanted her to find out this way. But Tella’s friend was already at the ball, and in his letter he’d said he would not wait past midnight.
Tella did not enjoy the idea of abandoning her sister. But Scarlett would forgive her, and the same could not be said for her friend if Tella arrived late.
“As delightful as this rendezvous has been,” she told Dante, “I’m tardy for a party, and I imagine you have a job to do.”
Before he could attempt to stop her, she loped toward the garden’s exit. More stars winked out as Tella made her way to the glowing carriage house, where a servant helped her inside of a topaz coach still smelling of its last rider’s perfume.
Dante slid in right behind her.
