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Tella needed to figure out the truth before she proceeded. She needed to talk to Scarlett. Scarlett would help her sort everything out, especially if Tella’s earlier suspicions about her sister were right and Scarlett knew more about the game than she’d been letting on.
Tella started for the door.
“Before you go,” Aiko said, “you should hear the rest of Paradise’s story.”
“I think I know how it ends,” Tella said.
“What you know is merely the almost-ending; the true ending has yet to be written.”
“Then what’s left to say?”
“I kept a part out of the middle of the story. Paradise discovered the deck’s true power and danger after using it to read her future. Some said she fled, not to keep the cards safe, but to thwart the future she saw. What she didn’t know was that with this particular deck, once a future is foretold, it cannot be undone unless the cards are destroyed.”
“Thank you, but I think it might be a little late for that warning.”
Aiko’s expression went suddenly somber.
Tella felt it then. Wetter than tears dripping down cheeks. It pooled in her ears before trickling down her lobes to her cool neck.
Blood.
Thick and warm and awful.
Her heart choked on a beat, and then skipped over several more, dizzying her head and robbing her of breath. Her hand pressed against the nearest wall to keep herself from falling. The blood she’d lost at Minerva’s was a trickle compared to this. It oozed from her ears onto her bodice in thick crimson streams. Another reminder from the Prince of Hearts that she was not playing this game for fun.
* * *
Tella journeyed back to the palace in a blur of damp sounds and hemorrhaging ears. Even after the bleeding stopped she continued to feel weak. Her heart had never beat so slowly.
Beat …
Nothing.
Beat …
Nothing.
Beat …
Nothing.
Soon all that would be left was nothing.
She’d bought a cheap cloak from a vendor on the street. But once she returned to the palace she swore every servant and guard could see her bloodstained bodice through the cloak.
Even after washing and changing into a dress from Minerva’s formed of wild layers of elegant topaz-blue fabrics, all Tella felt was the dry blood inside her ears. It must have been cursed just like her, for she’d not been able to completely wash its stains from her neck or hands. She would have soaked her skin until the blood finally left, but she only allowed herself to rest in the tub’s scented waters until some of her strength returned. She needed to talk to Scarlett about their mother’s criminal past, and Caraval.
Tella put on Dante’s gloves to cover up the stains and set out from the tower. She’d lost track of time, but she imagined it was well after midnight by the time she reached the sapphire wing where Scarlett was staying. Inside all the blues appeared gloriously gilded. A lone servant girl flitted about, checking on and refreshing oversize sconces filled with candles as thick as arms. She didn’t say a word to Tella, but Tella felt her watching as she made her way to her sister’s room.
But Scarlett didn’t answer.
Tella knocked louder in case she was asleep.
Silence.
Tella rattled the door handle, hoping to possibly frighten her sister awake, but nothing happened. Either she was lost in a deep dreaming sleep, or Scarlett still wasn’t there. But she should have been there. It was the middle of the night and Scarlett wasn’t playing the game. Scarlett should have been back from wherever she’d gone by now.
Tella crossed the hall to the young, freckled servant, who was either shamelessly eavesdropping on Tella or relighting a very stubborn candle.
