Finale (Caraval #3)(81)

Sweat slicked the jeweled hilt in Tella’s hands. She wanted to do this. She wanted to slash him and be done. But something about the words sever everything that ties us gave her pause.

Maybe he’d known all along that as soon as she found out they were married she’d come here demanding that he end it. Maybe that’s why he was giving in so easily, because that’s what he actually wanted—to sever everything that tied them together. She was supposed to be his true love. She was the one who made his heart beat again—which meant she was also his greatest weakness.

“If I do this, if I sever our connection, will I still be your true love?”

“Why would you care?” Jacks’s lips thinned as if he couldn’t wait to be rid of her, but the look in his eyes said he wanted to devour her. “I imagine after today you won’t be kissing me again.”

“Just answer the question, Jacks.”

In a flash, he wrapped his cool hand around her shaking one and dragged the dagger lower, creating a line of pink skin as he moved it to the center of his chest. “I don’t know if you’re my true love, Donatella. All I know is that I want you to be.”

His hands left the dagger and slid around her waist. For a moment she couldn’t move. His fingers were colder than they had ever been, creating chills that went deep beneath her skin.

“I know what I did was wrong. But if you’re looking for a sad story where I justify what I’ve done, you’re not going to find it. I’m the villain, even in my own story. But you were supposed to play a different role.” Misery filled his eyes. “You were supposed to be my true love. You were supposed to want me, not him. You were supposed to be as obsessed with me as I am with you.” He gripped her even tighter, the dagger threatening to pierce his skin, as he leaned his cool forehead against hers.

“If you’re holding back from ending this because you think I’ll kill you or hurt you once our connection is severed, that thought could not be further from the truth. When I told Legend I’d kill you if he didn’t give me the power I needed, I didn’t mean it—I wouldn’t have done it. A part of me even hoped he’d say no, so that you would walk away from him and choose me. I’m selfish, and I want you, but I would never harm you.”

“You already have,” Tella said. And then she slashed his chest with the dagger.





45





Donatella


It was only supposed to hurt him, but Tella doubled over in agony as the knife pierced Jacks’s skin and she said the words to free herself. Her ribs and heart were suddenly on fire. She couldn’t breathe. It felt as if someone had ripped into her chest and taken something vital.

Her vision blurred, and when it finally returned, the entire card room was out of focus, except for Jacks. For the rest of her life, whenever she thought about heartbreak, she would see the way he looked at her. His arms had fallen away from her. His face was twisted in pain. Bloodred tears leaked from his eyes. But he wasn’t clutching his open wound, or doing anything to stop the blood traveling down his chest and puddling on the floor.

Tella knew she’d made the right choice, but it didn’t feel at all as she’d expected.

“Why are you still here?” He fell back onto a chair, still letting the blood from his chest drip everywhere. It wasn’t a fatal wound, but it was deeper than she’d intended. Tella didn’t like the idea of killing him, even if it was temporary.

“You should do something about that.” She stepped toward him, ready to stop the flow herself.

“Don’t.” Jacks shoved out a shaky hand, the look in his eyes now cold as frost and curses. “You should leave. You got what you wanted.”

But Tella was no longer sure what she’d just gotten.

She should have felt triumphant. She’d never wanted to be connected to Jacks. And yet her legs shook with every step she took away from Jacks and his house.

For a split second, it was tempting to go back and undo what she’d just done. She had, without realizing it, felt just a little bit less alone when they’d been connected. But he wasn’t the person she wanted to be connected to.

A tremor racked her body and something like a cramp tore at her stomach. There was an emptiness inside that she’d never felt before.

With every house Tella passed she pictured the people sleeping inside. She imagined husbands and wives huddled close. She saw sisters sharing rooms, and boys with dogs at the foot of their beds.

But Tella didn’t have a dog.

Tella had a sister, but her sister now had someone else.

And Legend would never be Tella’s husband. In truth, Tella wasn’t even sure that she wanted a husband—she just wanted him. She wanted everything about him. She’d always wanted everything about him. Even before she’d known him, she’d fallen in love with the boy who’d had the passion to make his one wish come true and the audacity to call himself Legend.

Then she’d fallen in love with him again when she’d met him. She’d loved him as Dante, but she loved him even more as Legend. Dante had helped her forget, but Legend had taught her how to dream again, and she loved all the dazzling dreams they shared and the exquisite lies he told with his illusions. But she loved the imperfect truth of him just as much. She loved how protective he was, and how playful he could be. She loved the boy who’d called her an angel and a devil in the same conversation.