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“How can I help you?” said the girl, turning from her task before Tella could so much as clear her throat. Definitely an eavesdropper, and far bolder than most of the mousy servants Tella had encountered.
The servant leaned closer.
Tella flinched back, but the freckled girl wasn’t noticing any flecks of dried blood staining Tella’s neck.
“If you’re searching for the handsome performer with all the tattoos, I can tell you when he comes back. He didn’t leave with the others.” The servant’s eager eyes went bright in a way that Tella was unfortunately familiar with.
“I’m sorry,” Tella said, “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Don’t worry.” The girl gave a high-pitched titter. “I know you’re engaged, I won’t tell anyone you were looking for him.”
Which meant she would probably tell everyone. But Tella had greater concerns at the moment.
“I’m actually searching for my sister.” She pointed back toward Scarlett’s room. “Her name is Scarlett. She’s tallish, with thick brown hair and—”
“I know who she is,” the girl cut in. “I haven’t seen her since yesterday.” Some of the color left the girl’s cheeks as she dropped her voice to a whisper. “I heard her ask someone for directions to Idyllwild Castle, but she never came back.”
Idyllwild Castle was Jacks’s castle. Tella could not think of a single good reason her sister would go there.
“Of course, I’m sure nothing horrible has happened to your sister,” the freckled servant added hastily, as if suddenly remembering who she was speaking with. “I don’t believe all the stories about the heir. I know how people like to talk.”
“And what do people say???? Tella asked.
“Just that he murdered his last fiancée. But they also say he’s very handsome,” she tacked on, as if that made up for murder. “Lots of the other servants say they’d still marry him.”
Tella wanted to say they were fools. She wanted to brush back her hair and scare the girl with the blood still staining her ears and her neck. But Scarlett was missing. Rather than frightening servants, Tella needed to use her waning energy to find her sister.
She tossed the freckled girl a coin, but even that simple act felt weaker than it should have. The coin barely flipped in the air.
When Tella reached the carriage house, bells tolled three in the morning. Time was moving too fast and she was moving too slow. Her floating carriage seemed to be taking longer than necessary as well, gliding sluggishly across the starlit sky.
Legend’s blue constellations were still everywhere, except for above Idyllwild Castle, as if warning her not to go there.
On the night of the Fated Ball the castle looked like something stolen from a young girl’s fantasy. But after Tella left her carriage and reached the stony stronghold, she wondered if the castle’s gleaming white sandstone exterior had been a costume, an illusion put on by Legend. Tonight the stones looked as dark as kept secrets, lit by dim red-orange torches that appeared to be losing their battle against the night.
She halted to catch her breath at the edge of the bridge, grateful she’d brought along Dante’s gloves. Not that she saw any threats. In fact, if anything, the castle was too still.
Aside from the wind knotting her hair and ruffling the layers of her wild topaz skirts, everything was steeped in quiet. The sort of silence usually reserved for tombs, cursed ruins, and other places abandoned by the living. Tella suppressed a shudder but it managed to turn into a chill. She wasn’t afraid of danger, though she preferred it in the form of swaggering young men. For the second time that night she found herself wishing that Dante had followed her.
Not that she needed him.
But maybe Tella wanted him there just a little. She took a heavy step forward and felt an uncomfortable stab of lackluster victory that he’d finally decided to leave her alone. She’d known he’d only been following her as part of his role, and even if his interest had been real, she had no doubts he’d give up on her eventually. Everyone gave up on her, except for Scarlett—who couldn’t seem to stop caring about Tella.
Tella supposed it was another thing the sisters had in common—never knowing when to walk away. Maybe if Tella had a better sense of when to abandon an ill-fated pursuit she’d have turned around just then, or she’d have questioned if the freckled servant really had told the truth when she’d claimed Scarlett never returned from the castle—a castle that now looked emptier than a broken doll’s eyes.
The bridge leading to it was even narrower than Tella remembered, taller, too, towering above black waters that weren’t quite so still as the first night she’d visited. But Tella remembered what Dante had told her and refused to think about Death this time, unwilling to give him additional power.
Her steps were more unsteady than usual and her breathing was on the labored side, but she was not going to fall, or jump, or do anything else that would land her in the treacherous waters beneath. She was going to reach the end, knock on the door, and retrieve her sister. If Scarlett was there.
Tella finished crossing the bridge. For a slow heartbeat she swore she heard phantom footsteps, but there was not a guard or ghoul in sight.
Fisting her hands, she focused her strength and knocked against the heavy iron doors.
“Hello!” she started out cheerfully.
Nothing.
“Is anyone here?” she called a little sharper.
