“Tella?” Scarlett started running, kicking up a flurry of pink sand.
“Don’t!” Julian warned. “That’s not your sister.”
But Scarlett ignored him. She knew her sister’s voice. It sounded only a few feet away; she could feel it vibrating. Louder and louder, it echoed off the sandstone walls until—
“Stop!” Julian’s arm snaked around Scarlett’s waist, pulling her back as the sandy path abruptly ended. A few unfortunate grains skittered off the edge, falling into foamy blue-and-green waters churning more than fifty feet below.
All the air rushed out from Scarlett’s lungs.
Julian’s cheeks were flushed with color, hands shaking as he continued to steady her. “Are you all—”
But the end of his words were sliced off by evil laughter. A sour sound of nightmares and other foul things. It poured out of the walls as pieces of it twisted into tiny mouths.
It was another trick of the maddening tunnels.
“Crimson, we should keep moving.” Julian gently touched the edge of her hip, guiding her back to a safer path, while the tunnels continued cackling, a warped version of her sister’s precious laugh.
For a moment Scarlett had felt so close to finding Tella. But what if she was already too late to save her sister? What if Tella had fallen so madly in love with Legend, given herself to him so completely, that once the game ended she would want her life to end as well? Tella loved danger the same way candlewicks loved to burn. It never seemed to scare her that some of the things she lusted for might consume her like a flame.
As a girl, Scarlett had been drawn to the idea of Legend’s magic. But Tella always wanted to hear about the master of Caraval’s darker side. A part of Scarlett couldn’t deny there was something seductive about winning the heart of someone who’d vowed to never love again.
But Legend wasn’t just jaded; he was demented, adept at making people fall not only in love but also into madness. Who knew what sort of twisted things he was leading Tella to believe? If Julian hadn’t stopped Scarlett just now, she might have run straight off that cliff, and crashed to her death before she even realized her mistake. And Tella leaped forward without thinking far more often than Scarlett.
Tella had been only twelve the first time she’d tried to run off with a boy. Thankfully Scarlett had found her before their father noticed her absence, but ever since then Scarlett had feared that one day her sister would run into trouble that Scarlett could not rescue her from.
Why couldn’t it be enough for him to ruin Scarlett’s engagement?
“We’ll find her,” Julian said. “What happened to Rosa won’t happen to your sister.”
Scarlett wanted to believe him. After everything that had just occurred, she ached to break down and fold into him, to trust him again like before. But the words he meant as reassuring forced to the surface a question she’d been too afraid to think about since he had made his earlier confession as to why he was there.
She peeled away from Julian’s hand, forcing herself to create distance. “Did you know when you brought us to Caraval that Legend would take Tella the way he took your sister?”
Julian hesitated. “I knew there was a chance.”
In other words, yes.
“How much of a chance?” Scarlett choked out.
Julian’s caramel eyes filled with something like regret. “I never said I was a good person, Crimson.”
“I don’t believe that.” Scarlett’s thoughts raced back to Nigel, the fortune-teller, how he’d told her a person’s future could shift based on what he wanted most. “I believe you could be good if you wanted to be.”
“You only believe that because you’re so good. Decent people like you always believe other people can be virtuous, but I’m not.” He cut off. Something painful crossed his face. “I knew what would happen when I brought you and your sister here. I didn’t know Legend would kidnap Tella, but I knew that he would take one of you.”
Scarlett’s legs were boneless, thin skin wrapped around useless muscles. Her lungs ached with the pressure of unshed tears. Even her gown looked tired and dead. The black fabric had dulled to gray, as if it no longer had the strength to hold color. She didn’t remember ripping the lace, but the hem of her bizarre mourning-nightdress hung in tatters around her calves. She didn’t know if its magic had stopped working or if it just reflected how exhausted and unraveled she felt. She’d left Julian at the base of the mahogany stairs, asking him not to follow.
When she returned to her guestroom with its roaring fire and massive bed, all she wanted was to lose herself underneath the covers. To tumble into oblivious sleep until she was able to forget the horrors of the day. But she couldn’t afford sleep.
When she’d first arrived on the isle she’d only been concerned about making it home in time for her wedding. But now that Legend had killed Dante and her father was here, the game had changed. Scarlett felt the press of time, heavier than the crush of all the red beads in Castillo Maldito’s hourglasses; she had to get to Tella before her father found her, or Legend consumed her like a flame burning a candle. If Scarlett failed, her sister would die.
In less than two hours, the sun would set, and Scarlett would need to be ready to start searching again.
So, she only gave herself one minute. One minute to cry for Dante and sob for her sister and rage because Julian was not who she thought he was. To fall on the bed and whine and moan over all the things that had churned out of her control. To pick up Legend’s stupid vase of roses and dash them against the mantel of the fireplace.