Caraval (Caraval, #1)(38)

No! Scarlett shook her head and took a deep, heavy breath. None of those thoughts were true. She loved Tella, more than anything. She wanted to find her, more than everything.

This is the fountain’s doing, Scarlett realized. Whatever despair she felt was the product of some sort of enchantment, most likely meant to keep anyone from lingering there too long.

This garden was hiding something.

Maybe that was why Nigel had told her to follow Julian and his black heart—because Nigel knew that it would lead her here. This must be where the next clue was hidden.

Scarlett’s boots clicked against dull stone as she moved closer to where she’d spied the button. It was the second one she’d seen that night. It had to be part of a clue. Scarlett used a stick to fetch it out. And that’s when she saw it.

It was so insubstantial she almost missed it—eyes that cared less might have overlooked it. Beneath the grim brown water, etched into the edge of the basin, was a sun with a star inside and a teardrop inside of the star—the symbol of Caraval. It did not feel as magical as the silver crest on the first letter Legend had sent her; of course nothing felt charmed in this awful garden.

Scarlett touched the symbol with her stick. Immediately, the water started draining, taking every feeling of wretchedness with it, while the bricks of the fountain shifted, revealing a winding set of stairs that disappeared into a dark unknown. It was the type of staircase Scarlett was reluctant to venture down alone. And she was running dangerously low on time if she wanted to get back to the inn before sunrise. But if this was where Julian had disappeared and if he was the boy with the heart made of black, Scarlett needed to follow him to discover the next clue. Either Tella could be the thing Scarlett chased after, or Scarlett’s fear could be what chased Scarlett away.

Trying not to worry that she was making an immense mistake, Scarlett darted down the steps. After the first damp set, sand circled around her boots as she spiraled farther down the stairs, which reached much deeper than the steps to the barrel room back home.

Torches lit her descent, casting dramatic shadows against light-gold bricks of sand that grew darker with each flight. She imagined herself to be three stories below; it felt as if she’d entered the heart of the Castillo. A place she was becoming quite certain she did not belong.

The concerns she’d tried to bury resurfaced as she plunged farther down. What if the boy she’d followed wasn’t Julian? What if Nigel had been lying? Hadn’t Julian warned her about trusting people? Each fear squeezed the invisible chain around her neck, tempting her to turn around.

At the foot of the steps, a corridor stretched out in multiple directions, a snake with more than one head. Dark and tortuous, magnificent and frightening. Cold air blew from one tunnel. Warmth breezed out of another. But no footsteps sounded down any of them.

“How did you get down here?”

Scarlett spun around. Dim light flickered over the mouth of the cold corridor, and the red-lipped girl who’d been unable to keep her eyes off Julian as she’d rowed Scarlett and Julian to La Serpiente the night before stepped out.

“I’m looking for my companion. I saw him come down—”

“No one else is down here,” said the girl. “This isn’t a place you should—”

Someone screamed. As hot and bright as fire.

A weak voice inside her reminded Scarlett it was only a game, that the shriek was just an illusion. But the red-lipped girl across from Scarlett appeared genuinely scared, and the wail sounded incredibly real. Her thoughts flashed back to the contract she’d signed in blood, and the rumors of the woman who’d died during the game a few years ago.

“What was that?” Scarlett demanded.

“You need to leave.” The girl grabbed Scarlett’s arm and wrenched her back to the steps.

Another scream rocked the walls, and dust shook off the corridors, mixing with the torchlight, as if flickering to the wretched sound.

It was only for a trembling second, but Scarlett swore she saw a woman being tied up—the same woman in the dove-gray dress who Scarlett had witnessed being carried away earlier. Jovan had told her it was only a performance, but there was no one in this place to hear this woman’s wails, aside from Scarlett.

“What are they doing to her?” Scarlett continued struggling with the red-lipped girl, hoping to get to the other woman, but this girl was strong. Scarlett remembered the force she’d used to row the boat the night before.

“Stop fighting me,” warned the girl. “If you go deeper into these tunnels, you’ll end up mad, just like her. We’re not hurting her; we’re stopping that woman from hurting herself.” The girl pushed Scarlett a final time, knocking her to her knees at the bottom of the staircase. “You will not find your companion down here, only madness.”

A fresh scream punctuated her sentence; this one sounded male.

“Who was—” A sand-slate door slammed in front of Scarlett before she could finish. It cut off the girl, the stairs from the corridor, and the screams from Scarlett’s ears. But even as Scarlett climbed back up to the courtyard, echoes lingered in her head like damp on a sunless day.

The last scream hadn’t sounded like Julian. Or that’s what she tried to tell herself as she caught a boat to take her back to La Serpiente. She reminded herself it was only a game. But the madness part was starting to feel very real.