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“Welcome.” A dusky-skinned girl in a dainty top hat greeted Tella with a curtsy made of narrowed eyes and red ruffles. So many red ruffles. Tella knew Legend favored red, but this girl seemed desperate. Red ruffles wrapped around her platinum gown like a stripe on a cane of candy.
“Congratulations on finding our door, but now you must choose carefully if you wish to enter the church.”
The girl waved a ruffled arm and several brassy candelabras sparked to life, illuminating more than a dozen sets of stairs. All covered in thick ruby carpets, they writhed in every direction, up and down and side to side, like escaped blood veins before they disappeared into the black beyond. Some stairs appeared to be more worn than the others, but all of them shimmered with the same dull oak lighting, hinting at shine that had long since dimmed.
“Only one of these will lead you to where you wish to go,” said the girl.
“And where will the others take me?”
The girl’s crimson smile dripped at the corners. “That’s a mystery you must risk if you wish to join our congregation and serve the great Legend.”
Tella didn’t wish to join anything, she definitely had no plans to serve Legend, and she really didn’t feel like climbing up or down any stairs, but she had heard that finding the church was supposed to be like a game.
Tella examined the ruby stairs again. Each possessed a different personality, like the playful golden-lined corkscrews to her right. Then there was the adventurously carved case that stretched straight ahead as if it were a bridge to a fantasyland. The rickety stairs to her left appeared untrustworthy, as did the twisting wrought-iron case without handrails that she wasn’t about to attempt. Lastly, Tella’s eyes fell on a luscious black marble case, polished to a mirror-shine and covered with a deep, untouched garnet-red carpet. They appeared to go down instead of up.
Tella tried to see where the other girl’s eyes darted, curious as to which path she would choose. But her gaze remained narrowed on Tella.
“Decide?”
Tella’s eyes returned to the lush marble case with the untouched garnet carpet. The girl’s expression didn’t shift, but she swore her shoulders stiffened. She didn’t want Tella taking those steps, and Tella had a feeling it wasn’t because this girl feared for her safety.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather choose another set?” asked the girl.
“I think I’ll like what I find at the end of these.”
The girl laughed, but it sounded forced as Tella swept onto the immaculate black marble staircase and took her first step down.
The marble stairway didn’t feel quite like Legend, but Tella sensed that it was trying. With each flight the air grew colder. Candles on the wall winked out, while mysterious black stains spotted the once immaculate carpet and the smooth banister, mimicking drops of dried blood. But Tella had seen enough real blood spatter to know how it usually fell and the color it turned once it dried. Not blood here, an illusion.
Just in case, Tella pulled out Dante’s razor-tipped gloves. They smelled of him, like ink and secrets. But unlike Dante, they were cool to the touch as she slid them on, liking the gentle weight of the hidden blades at the tips of her fingers.
After a few more steps she stole a waxy candle from a sconce. Behind it, holes poked through the wall so bits of dry wind could make the lights flicker. At least they were clever here. Though Tella regretted wearing such a heavy gown as the stairs grew steeper. The wind holes in the walls disappeared next, covered up by thickly framed portraits—all of young men, with top hats.
At first she wondered if these were the church’s members, but the faces were all too handsome, and a little too wicked. Legend.
Not real pictures of him. No one knew for certain what he looked like, but clearly members of the church had attempted to render him. Tella saw skin tones ranging from translucent white to dark shades of brown. Some faces were narrow and as sharp as curse words; others were almost cherubic in their curves or seraphic in their chiseled edges. A few faces were scarred, some grinned, while others glared. Tella’s heartbeat stopped entirely as she spied a narrow face that reminded her of Jacks, with silver-blue eyes and golden hair. The final portrait winked, as if it were all a great joke.
Perhaps it was. Perhaps Legend was toying with her yet again, and the stairs went on forever and ever and ever. Tella’s lethargic legs turned to liquid at the thought. Maybe there was no way to ever truly find Legend, and the church represented an endless search for a man who was unsearchable.
Or perhaps Tella was being overdramatic.
Brighter light lit the stairs below, making it clear there was an ending in sight. Tella shoved her torch in an empty sconce and quickened her pace.
A few steps later pitchy notes of music sounded—a squeaky violin, cimbalom, and a banjo. Tella wouldn’t have said the music was pretty, but it was just the right combination of strange and enticing, matching the tavern she found at the bottom.
She’d expected more red, but everything was green instead, glowing like ripening magic. Tella no longer felt fatigued as she breathed it all in, as if the air was as intoxicating as the drinks the tavern served.
Dark green kerosene lamps illuminated pale mint-green glass tables, while velvet green settees cushioned people sucking on glowing cubes of green sugar, or sipping vials of vivid lime liquid. Even the floor was covered in tiny emerald tiles, which reminded Tella of mermaid tails. This was nothing like the taverns back on Trisda, which only came in shades of dull and smelled of dashed dreams and cheap rum. It wasn’t quite like the pubs of Caraval, either, but it was an interesting attempt.
With its quirky music and glowing green drinks, it bordered on the type of surreal that made Tella imagine it could have been a Fate pictured on the Decks of Destiny. Tavern Emerald, she would have called it. Where answers to dangerous questions could be found. There was the Blank Card in the deck, and Tella may have wondered if this saloon was perhaps that undepicted Fate. But for all its sparkle, once Tella looked closer she thought it seemed more like glitter pretending to be stardust.
It seemed even the steps she’d seen upon first entering weren’t as dangerous as the ruffled girl wanted Tella to think, but merely a test as Tella had been warned. Between the tables, the bar, and the floating balconettes, Tella spied the ends of all the other staircases—every set led to the same place. Like Caraval it seemed this church was full of illusions, and clearly its members enjoyed them.
The patrons in the tavern seemed to have traveled from all over. As she wove deeper inside, Tella’s ears picked up hints of different languages, while her eyes saw skin colors ranging from pale to dark. The fashion choices were varied as well, but almost everyone had one thing in common: top hats.
Tella had no idea if people wore them because they worshipped Legend or wanted to be him, but almost every person in the bar had one. Some hats were stout, some were straight, others curved or were purposely bent out of shape. A few had feathers, veils, or other bits of cheeky adornment. Tella even spied a top hat with horns coming out the sides, and one young woman had two miniature pink top hats that popped out of her head like ears.
Maybe this was the real reason why Dante had fled rather than followed her. Perhaps he was jealous of all of the people who so blatantly worshipped Legend. Not that Tella should have been thinking of Dante, or wondering what he would have said if he were there with her.
