Dante answered with a grin, but it wasn’t kind or warm or soft like grins were supposed to be. It was calculated, the slow, teasing way someone curved his lips just before he turned over a winning hand of cards. “Are you saying that because he’s the Prince of Hearts?”
Tella froze, and even the blood spilling from her fingertips stopped as everything inside her panicked, sharpening her senses further. If she wanted to persuade Dante that she had no idea what he was talking about, she’d need to recover quickly, but playing naive would only convince him she was in over her head. And maybe Tella was. She was cursed, her mother was trapped inside a card, and to save them both, Tella was now playing a game involving two infamous immortals—one of whom wasn’t supposed to exist anymore.
Yet even before reaching Valenda, Dante had talked about the Prince of Hearts as if he was still alive. It seemed oddly coincidental, especially as she recalled the opening of Jovan’s welcome speech:
Elantine has invited us here to save the Empire from her greatest fear.
For centuries the Fates were locked away, but now they wish to come out and play.
What if Jacks was one of the Fates who’d come out to—
No. Tella refused to finish the thought. Believing the game was real led straight to madness. The other obvious explanation was that Jacks was playing a role in the game. But the blood dripping from Tella’s fingers and the heart dying in her chest felt like solid proof he was the real Prince of Hearts.
Dante had to be bluffing, gambling with lies just as he’d done with the matron at the palace when he’d first claimed Tella was engaged to Jacks.
“If Jacks really was the Prince of Hearts, I’d already be dead from his kiss.”
“Maybe you’re his one true love. Or he’s allowed you to live because he has other plans.” Dante’s eyes quickly traveled toward the fitted lines of Tella’s lacy sapphire gown, as if he somehow knew Jacks had sent it.
“Don’t stare at me like that,” Tella said. “You’re the one who claimed I was engaged to him.”
A final drop of blood fell to the floor, grimly punctuating her sentence.
Dante looked at it and his entire face shifted. His familiar arrogance fell away as he said, “You’re right. This is my fault. I made a bad choice. But I swear, when I said you were engaged to the heir, I didn’t know he was the Prince of Hearts.”
“Then how did you figure it out?”
“When I saw you dance with him at the ball. The Fates aren’t natural; they don’t belong in this world, just like those of us who have died and come back to life.” Dante swallowed thickly, and when he spoke again his voice was unusually quiet. “Everyone else at the ball might have been oblivious, but after he kissed you I saw him glowing—”
Bustling footsteps sounded in the hall outside.
Dante’s mouth slammed into a line.
The footsteps grew louder and closer.
“You might want to pretend you don’t know me,” he said.
“Why?” Tella asked.
“I’m not exactly supposed to be here.”
“I thought you arranged this!”
Dante’s mouth kicked into a dry smile. “Did I actually say that?”
Bastard!
He pushed off the wall as Tella’s mouth fell open. Though she should have known he hadn’t actually arranged it. He’d just hijacked her note and crossed out the proper time.
Before she could curse him out loud, someone shoved against the other side of the door.
Tella tripped forward as the door crashed against her.
Dante caught her instantly, two solid arms snaking around her hips, right as the seamstress stepped inside the room.
The woman’s eyes landed on their compromising position, before moving to the spatters of blood on Tella’s dress and the floor. “I don’t know what you’re doing in here, young man, but you have half of a second to leave before I tell the heir about this. And I think we all know what will happen then.”
“Be careful,” Dante countered, “you’re making His Deadly Highness sound predictable.”