Scarlett wished she knew how to fix him, but it seemed as if he was almost as damaged as she was. “Are you still set on revenge?” she asked.
“Would you try to stop me if I was?” He cast his gaze down the hall toward Dante’s dead, twisted body.
Scarlett felt as if her answer should have been yes. She liked to believe there were always options besides violence. But Dante’s murder and Valentina’s disappearance took away any illusions that Caraval was merely a game.
Scarlett had thought her father was vicious, but Legend was just as much of a monster. It seemed her nana hadn’t lied when she’d said the more Legend played the role of a villain, the more he’d become one in reality.
Tentatively, Scarlett reached out and took Julian’s hand. His fingers were tense, cold. “I’m sorry about your—”
The echo of footsteps cut her off. Steady, determined, and close. She couldn’t hear any voices, but she swore she recognized the gait. Instinctively, she pulled her hand from Julian’s. “I think that’s my father!”
Julian’s head jerked toward the sound. In a flash his sorrow was gone. “Your father’s here?”
“Yes,” Scarlett said.
They both started running.
This way.” Julian tugged her toward a corridor lined in bricks and lit with glowing spiderwebs.
“No.” Scarlett urged him left. “I used a path with stones.” She didn’t recall the walls being speckled with radiant rocks as well, but she’d not really been paying attention to that.
Behind them the crush of boots was getting louder.
Julian scowled but followed her. His elbow brushed hers as the tunnel walls grew narrow and knobby stones dug into both their sides. “Why didn’t you tell me your father was here?”
“I was going to tell you, but—”
Julian’s hand clamped over Scarlett’s mouth, salt and dirt pressed against her lips as he whispered, “Shh—”
He grabbed one of the glowing stones dotting the wall, twisted it like a doorknob, and pulled her into a darkened nowhere. The walls hugging Scarlett’s back were like ice, moist and cold. She could feel them soaking through her thin dress while she tried to remember how to breathe.
Anise and lavender and something akin to rotted plums were replacing Julian’s cool scent, moving like smoke under the odd door he’d just pulled her through.
“I’ll keep you safe,” Julian whispered. His body pressed close to hers, as if to shield her, while boot steps landed hard just outside their hiding spot, which seemed to be growing smaller. The frigid walls were digging into Scarlett, pushing her closer and closer to Julian. Her elbows hit his chest, forcing her to twine her arms around his waist as his taut body molded against hers.
Scarlett’s heart raced irregularly. The coarse stubble of Julian’s jaw grazed her cheek as his hands wove low around her hips. Through the insubstantial fabric of her dress she could feel every curve of his fingers. If her father opened the door and discovered her like this she would be dead.
Scarlett tried to push away, her breath coming out quick and fast. The ceiling now seemed to be sinking too, moving closer, dripping cold onto the top of her head.
“I think this room is trying to kill us,” Scarlett said. Outside she heard her father’s steps retreat, until the sound of them faded to nothing. She would have liked to stay hidden another minute or more, but her lungs were being squashed, sandwiched between Julian and the freezing wall. “Open the door!”
“I’m trying.” Julian grunted.
Scarlett sucked in a gasp. Her flimsy gown rose up above her knees as Julian’s knuckles roamed over her backside, his palms searching for their exit. “I can’t find it,” he ground out. “I think it’s on your side.”
“I can’t feel anything.” Except for you. Her fingers brushed places she knew she shouldn’t have been touching, while her hands tried to explore the wall. But the harder she fought, the more the room seemed to push back.
Like the ocean off the island.
The more Scarlett had kicked against it, the more frightened she had been, the more the waters had punished her.
Maybe that was it.
Julian said the tunnels heightened fear, but maybe they fed off of it as well.
“The room is connected to our emotions,” Scarlett said. “I think we need to relax.”
Julian made a strangled sound. “That’s not easy at the moment.” His lips were in her hair, and his hands were just below her hips, clinging to her curves.
“Oh,” Scarlett said. Her pulse kicked up again, and as it did, she could feel Julian’s heart rushing against her chest. A week ago she could never have relaxed in this situation; even now it was difficult. But despite his lies, somehow she knew that she was safe with him. He’d never hurt her. She forced herself to take a calming breath, and as she did the wall stopped moving.
Another breath.
The room grew slightly bigger.
Outside there were still no sounds of her father. No footsteps, no breathing. None of his noxious stench.
A moment later the walls against her back were warmer, a bright contrast to the now damp parts of her dress. As the room expanded, she could feel Julian relax as well. Most of Scarlett’s body still touched his, but not so closely as before. His chest moved in rhythm with hers, slow and even as the walls continued to scale back.
With every breath they took, the chamber heated. Soon there were tiny pinpricks of light, dotting the ceiling like dust from the moon and illuminating a glowing knob above Scarlett’s right hand.