TO POSSESS THE SECOND ONE,
VENTURE SOMEWHERE PRETTY.
THIS REGION OF VALENDA WAS ONCE SO TRAGIC,
BUT NOW IT PROMISES FAITH AND MAGIC.
* * *
He paused. “It sounds like the Temple District.”
“Am I supposed to thank you for that insight?” Tella snarled.
“I’m attempting to save you time.” His tone took on more of a bite. “I might have delayed the full power of my kiss, but you will still experience some of its effects. The game ends at dawn on Elantine’s Day, giving you five more nights to find the remaining clues. I’m the only one who can free your mother. If you lose the game and fail to bring me Legend, she will remain trapped inside this card forever, and you will die—”
He cut off as the coach landed heavily on the ground.
Tella reached for the door.
“One more thing.” Jacks nodded toward the card with her mother. “Keep her safe. If anything happens to this card, not even I will be able to save her. When you win the game, make sure you have the luckless coin I gave you and I’ll find you before Legend arrives. Until then, my love, try not to die.”
Jacks blew Tella a kiss as she stepped out into the biting night.
15
Death visited Tella while she slept. The tips of his claws stroked the back of her neck, while his shadow followed her into pristine dreams, poisoning all the colors until everything tasted of dust and withered to ash.
Soon you will be mine once more.
The rasp of Death’s rotting voice woke Tella with a start. She shot up in bed, her tongue heavy, wet hair clinging to her scalp. Yet her heart didn’t pound. If anything, it felt as though it worked a touch more slowly than it had the night before.
Beat … beat … beat.
Nothing.
Beat … beat … beat.
Nothing.
Beat … beat … beat.
Nothing.
Damn Jacks and his cursed lips.
Tella clutched her damp sheets with one hand and the card imprisoning her mother with the other. She’d bent its edges during her nightmarish sleep, wrinkling the corner right above her mother’s dark head. Clearly it was not indestructible like the Aracle. Tella would have to be more protective of it.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered to her mother. She didn’t want to part with the card, but it felt a little too risky to keep on her person.
Tella shuffled to the tiny chest where she stored the Aracle and slipped the card with her captive mother inside. Then she pulled out the Aracle.
So much had happened, Tella needed to see if the new deal she’d made had changed her mother’s future yet.
The Aracle felt hotter than usual. But the future it showed had not shifted. The vision of her mother’s empty eyes stared back at Tella, as dead as they’d been the last time.
But her mother wasn’t dead yet. For now she was only trapped. Tella refused to be discouraged. She would win Caraval, and she would fix this. “No matter what it costs.”
As soon as the words left Tella’s lips the Aracle burned the tips of her fingers. Magic. Tella felt it, heating her entire hand as the Aracle’s image flickered and shifted from Paloma lying dead, to Scarlett and Tella embracing their mother with the same abandon they had as little girls.