Finale (Caraval #3)(54)
The massive black dog barked. Then he turned his great head toward the outside, as if he wanted the three of them to follow.
“Do you think he’s telling us Nicolas is somehow still alive?” Scarlett asked.
“No,” Tella answered. But maybe someone else was—like Legend.
The trio started toward the cracked barn doors and out into the late afternoon. Julian clutched Scarlett’s hand as if he never planned to let her out of his sight. Tella hoped he didn’t. Now that Scarlett was back, Tella needed to go to the Vanished Market and do whatever it took to purchase a secret that would show her how to destroy the Fallen Star—before he could get his horrible hands on her sister and turn her into a Fate.
Tella wanted to believe it wasn’t even possible. But it should have been impossible that a Fate was actually Scarlett’s father—or that Scarlett now had the ability to see other people’s feelings. Not that it changed anything. Tella meant what she’d said—even if they didn’t share a drop of blood, Scarlett would still be her sister.
An early-evening breeze cut through the air as Tella continued to follow Timber’s lumbering steps to the back of the estate. She didn’t feel the least bit rested. She felt as worn as the slippers on her feet. But her heart kicked out extra beats as Timber led them to a cobbled path so overgrown with purpling brambleberry bushes that she and Julian hadn’t noticed it during their initial exploration of the grounds.
The dog halted and barked until the trio worked to part the prickly plants.
As soon as there was enough space to run through, the animal raced ahead.
The air turned acrid as Tella followed. Her nose wrinkled at the scent of blood and sweat and embarrassment. Suddenly she hoped Legend wasn’t on the other side. The stench wasn’t nearly as foul as Nicolas’s house had been, but Tella felt a sense of building horror as an aged amphitheater came into view. She saw the steps first; their stones were almost blue in the fading light, the color of cold hands and blood veins under skin. There weren’t many of them. The theater was small, the sort built for family plays or bits of light entertainment. But there was nothing entertaining about the forced masquerade taking place on the center of the stage.
The people were dressed in servants’ clothes, and wearing horrible half-masks that came in sour shades of plum, cherry, blueberry, lemon, and orange. The colors made Tella think of rotted confetti that refused to fall as the servants moved about the stage, their arms and legs strung up with rope that turned them into human marionettes.
Tella cursed.
Scarlett gasped.
Julian looked as if the food he’d eaten in the barn had risen up to scald his throat.
No one appeared to be pulling the servants’ strings. The cords all moved by magic, bobbing them about the stage in a forced dance full of disturbing bows and curtsies.
Tella’s eyes latched on to the youngest forced participant, a boy with ringlets as pretty as a doll’s and a face stained with dried tears.
“No wonder we didn’t find any servants,” said Julian.
“How long do you think they’ve been like this?” Scarlett asked.
No one knew how to answer her. If the servants had been strung up when the count had been killed, it must have been at least a full day. Most of them didn’t even appear to be conscious; their heads stayed bowed as their bodies were jerked about the stage.
Tella raced toward it, hoping it wasn’t too late to save them. “This looks like Jester Mad. He has the ability to animate objects. He must have tied them all up and then used his magic on the ropes to keep them moving.”
“How do we undo it?” Scarlett asked. “When the Poisoner petrified that family, he left a note.”
But no one found a note on the stage.
“I think we just need to cut the cords, or untie them,” said Julian. Which proved easier said than done.
The poor servants’ arms and limbs moved faster with each attempt to set them free. Julian was the only one with a blade; he gave it to Scarlett. But none of them had an easy time of things. They all had to jump back more than once to avoid being kicked in the stomach or punched in the face as they worked to undo the servants’ bonds. Thankfully Nicolas didn’t employ too large of a staff.
There were only half a dozen of them. Their hearts were still beating, but barely. None of them could stand on their own legs very long once they were freed.
“The master has infection remedies for the wounds in his greenhouse,” muttered an older man as he ripped a rotted blueberry mask from his face. Tella imagined he was the butler. His eyes were the saddest of the lot, as he looked over his fellow servants all slumped across the stage.
Julian found the remedies while Tella fetched water, and Scarlett procured bandages from a small closet for the servants’ raw wrists and ankles. The entire ordeal was terribly somber. Neither Scarlett, Julian, nor Tella told any of the servants what had happened to Nicolas, and none of them asked, making Tella suspect that they must have already known. Or they’d experienced enough terror and they didn’t want to know.
There were lots of murmured thanks, but no one met her eyes, as if they were ashamed of what had been done to them. Only the boy with the ringlets looked at Tella directly. He even managed a crooked smile, as if she were some sort of hero, which she wasn’t, not at all. She was part of the reason all of this had happened. But in that moment, she vowed that she would make up for the part she’d played in freeing the Fates. “I’ll find who did this to you, and make sure he never hurts anyone again.”