Finale (Caraval #3)(38)

She regretted it already.

The Reverie Key was still warm in her pocket. She thought about using it to find him, and asking him to visit one more magical place. And maybe Scarlett would have done just that, if a servant hadn’t knocked on the door with a delivery from Nicolas.

Scarlett didn’t even need to open the card that came with it to know the gift was from him. It was a crystal watering can, small enough to fit in her palm, as if it were for pixie-size plants.

Scarlett crashed back to reality. She’d been trying not to think about the competition between Julian and Nicolas. Given everything else that had happened in the last two days, it didn’t seem nearly as important as it had before. But she couldn’t just ignore it.

Scarlett opened the note reluctantly. When she had received letters from Nicolas in the past, she’d always reread them until the paper went thin. But she wished this one had never arrived.



* * *



Dearest Scarlett,

I haven’t stopped thinking about you since you visited. Now that I have met you, my imaginings are no longer adequate. I hope you like the first part of my gift. There’s a second part that goes with it, but I’d prefer to give it to you in person. If you’re available, I would like to see you again tomorrow.

Faithfully yours,

Nicolas



* * *



If Julian had written the words, Scarlett was certain her heart would have raced, or her cheeks would have hurt from the way her smile stretched. She’d have felt something. But not even the dress managed a response.

Closing her eyes, Scarlett lay her head against her pillows.

She used to think Nicolas was her best option for marriage. And maybe he was safer than Julian. Nicolas was attractive, attentive, everything he’d made himself out to be in his previous letters. But Scarlett felt nothing for him. No, that wasn’t true. She felt relieved that they weren’t married.

Nicolas might have been the safer choice, but Julian was whom Scarlett wanted to choose. There was no competition between Julian and Nicolas. Julian had won Scarlett’s heart a long time ago.

She went to her desk to write Nicolas one last letter.



* * *



Dear Nicolas,

Thank you for the watering can—



* * *



Scarlett tried, but she couldn’t write another word. After all of their lost chances, it seemed terribly callous to inform Nicolas in a letter that she’d already made her choice. She wouldn’t want to be dismissed this way.

Balling up her note and tossing it in the trash, Scarlett looked at his letter once again. She couldn’t give him her hand in marriage, but she could give him this final meeting. She owed that much to him.





22





Donatella


Valenda was a city that had been made for the night.

As Tella took a sky carriage back to the palace, the world below her glittered with light. The churches and sanctuaries of the Temple District glowed like bits of moon that had lost their way, while the dimmer lights in the Spice Quarter smoldered like ashes from a fire that refused to die. Then there were the sleeping houses in between the districts, illuminated by guardian lampposts, giving an illusion of safety as people slumbered in their beds.

No one knew how fragile their security was, and Tella wondered if more Fates were waking up now. She probably should have asked Jacks about it before she’d left him. But the Prince of Hearts had looked as if he’d wanted to collect a higher fee for more information.

Tella’s coach came to a gentle halt as it reached the palace carriage house. Mindful of her gown’s ripped hem, she exited carefully.

The air tasted candied, the world glittered, and the stars looked close enough to steal and place inside of her pockets, making Tella feel as if she were inside of one of Legend’s dreams, or back in Caraval. Though the sun had set, servants were still bustling about the palace grounds in preparation for tomorrow’s Midnight Maze. Night dust, which made whatever it touched shimmer under the light of the nearby stars, filled buckets that servants carried around so they could brush everything from the hedges and the fountains lining the walkways to the bunnies that hopped through the gardens.

Most of the palace’s staff didn’t pay much attention to Tella, but she swore a few looked her way with narrowed eyes before turning to each other and whispering things about her.

She knew it was a bad idea to stop and listen—gossip rarely contained compliments. And yet Tella found herself following a pair of chattering servants to the Stone Garden. She ducked behind a female statue on the edge of the garden, with a billowing skirt that created the perfect place for Tella to hide behind as the servants brushed the other statues with more glowing night dust.

“Did you see her?” The first girl’s voice was light and chirping, like a bird’s. Tella had heard it before, her very first night in the palace, when she’d come to Valenda for the last Caraval and Dante had told the staff that she was engaged to Jacks. She hadn’t been that angry until she’d overheard this birdy servant talking about the engagement, or rather about Jacks, and how he was a rumored murderer. They hadn’t known he was actually the Prince of Hearts, and at the time, neither had Legend.

“I thought she was the former heir’s fiancé,” replied a second servant. Tella didn’t recognize her voice. But she decided she didn’t like it when she heard the breathless way she said, “I would think His Handsomeness Prince Dante wouldn’t want her around.”