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“You already have,” Tella said. And then she slashed his chest with the dagger.
45
Donatella
It was only supposed to hurt him, but Tella doubled over in agony as the knife pierced Jacks’s skin and she said the words to free herself. Her ribs and heart were suddenly on fire. She couldn’t breathe. It felt as if someone had ripped into her chest and taken something vital.
Her vision blurred, and when it finally returned, the entire card room was out of focus, except for Jacks. For the rest of her life, whenever she thought about heartbreak, she would see the way he looked at her. His arms had fallen away from her. His face was twisted in pain. Bloodred tears leaked from his eyes. But he wasn’t clutching his open wound, or doing anything to stop the blood traveling down his chest and puddling on the floor.
Tella knew she’d made the right choice, but it didn’t feel at all as she’d expected.
“Why are you still here?” He fell back onto a chair, still letting the blood from his chest drip everywhere. It wasn’t a fatal wound, but it was deeper than she’d intended. Tella didn’t like the idea of killing him, even if it was temporary.
“You should do something about that.” She stepped toward him, ready to stop the flow herself.
“Don’t.” Jacks shoved out a shaky hand, the look in his eyes now cold as frost and curses. “You should leave. You got what you wanted.”
But Tella was no longer sure what she’d just gotten.
She should have felt triumphant. She’d never wanted to be connected to Jacks. And yet her legs shook with every step she took away from Jacks and his house.
For a split second, it was tempting to go back and undo what she’d just done. She had, without realizing it, felt just a little bit less alone when they’d been connected. But he wasn’t the person she wanted to be connected to.
A tremor racked her body and something like a cramp tore at her stomach. There was an emptiness inside that she’d never felt before.
With every house Tella passed she pictured the people sleeping inside. She imagined husbands and wives huddled close. She saw sisters sharing rooms, and boys with dogs at the foot of their beds.
But Tella didn’t have a dog.
Tella had a sister, but her sister now had someone else.
And Legend would never be Tella’s husband. In truth, Tella wasn’t even sure that she wanted a husband—she just wanted him. She wanted everything about him. She’d always wanted everything about him. Even before she’d known him, she’d fallen in love with the boy who’d had the passion to make his one wish come true and the audacity to call himself Legend.
Then she’d fallen in love with him again when she’d met him. She’d loved him as Dante, but she loved him even more as Legend. Dante had helped her forget, but Legend had taught her how to dream again, and she loved all the dazzling dreams they shared and the exquisite lies he told with his illusions. But she loved the imperfect truth of him just as much. She loved how protective he was, and how playful he could be. She loved the boy who’d called her an angel and a devil in the same conversation.
She loved the way he teased her, and she didn’t want him to ever stop. She wanted to hear the rest of his stories—and to become a part of those stories. But more than any of those things, she wanted to forever be by his side, whether he was with her as she was fighting a nightmare or chasing a dream, or if it was the other way around, and she was helping him achieve a new dream. Even if that meant sacrificing one of her dreams.
Maybe that was love. All this time, she’d wanted him to love her, and she’d hurt knowing that he hadn’t, but maybe she hadn’t really been loving him. She’d chosen him, she’d fought for him, she’d felt for him, but she hadn’t been willing to sacrifice what she wanted for him.
Tella started running toward the coast, racing back toward Legend’s house, her heart beating faster when she was finally near enough to hear the crashing ocean waves. It was past the middle of the night, on its way to dawn but not there yet. It was that peculiar period of time that wasn’t quite night or morning, but something in between.
If Scarlett had been there, she would have urged Tella to think on it longer. But what if Tella didn’t have time to waste? That week alone she’d seen her mother murdered, Legend die, her sister kidnapped, and the empire overrun by Fates. She couldn’t even imagine what the coming days would bring if the Fallen Star ascended to the throne. But she’d rather go through them knowing that no matter what, she had a present and a future—a forever—with Legend.
Tella slipped inside the house and quickly darted into a bathing room to wash the blood from her hands. She thought about putting on a new dress as well. The mirror showed a girl with wild curls and a hastily thrown on sapphire-blue gown, but Tella was too impatient to change.
She raced up staircase after staircase. By the time she reached the fourth floor, she was breathless. The hallway leading to Legend’s room was dim with night, but she could see delicate strands of light sneaking out of the cracks beneath his door.
She knocked softly. Then a little louder.
Somewhere in the distance, waves were still crashing, but there was no sound coming from inside Legend’s room.
She tried the doorknob, not actually expecting that someone as private or secretive as Legend would keep his door unlocked. But the glass knob turned easily.
Tella felt a thrill race across her shoulders. She’d never been in any of his private rooms. Not during Caraval, not at the palace, not since he’d brought her to any of his houses. She was almost positive he’d cast an illusion over her own bedroom to suit her tastes. But as she entered his rooms, the only glamour she saw was the light.
There wasn’t a single lit candle in sight, yet globes of soft yellow and white lights danced around, making everything glow.
From where she stood, Tella could see his illuminated bedroom and his sitting room. His suite was well appointed, but simpler than she would have expected. Before knowing him, she might have imagined Legend’s sitting room lined with sumptuous red velvet curtains and full of low cushions for seductive rendezvous. But there wasn’t a speck of velvet in sight. There weren’t any low cushions or curtains, either. Impeccable floor-to-ceiling windows provided a spellbinding view of the ocean while letting waxy moonlight slide over the ebony floors, the neat desk, the full bookshelves, and the wide charcoal couches.
