But there was no blood.
Only smoke poured from the Handmaiden’s wound.
Tella staggered backward as the Handmaiden then vanished before her eyes. “Dirty hells!”
A few seconds later, the Handmaiden was back, hazy around the edges, as if she was a little less corporeal than before. But definitely not a ghost. Ghosts weren’t supposed to be able to claw and wound.
Now fighting for breath, Tella kept swinging and kicking. “What are you?”
“I’m disappointed you have to ask.” The Undead Queen formed a fist.
A second later one Handmaiden punched Tella’s stomach with bruising force. Tella’s back hit the hard ground, and the air knocked out from her lungs in one aching surge.
Crunch.
A slipper found her wrist and ground down impossibly hard.
Tella screamed. Her bones were shattered. Her heart was sluggish and her head was spinning. But even with her back pressed against the ground she kept swinging with her other hand, harder than before. She scratched and clawed and swiped. Every time she managed to wound a Handmaiden the maiden would magically vanish only to reappear seconds later. Tella wanted to deny it—she’d had enough life-altering realizations for one day—but clearly these were not actors or participants who’d taken the game too far. These were the real Fates.
They didn’t bleed because they weren’t human.
Tella’s knees might have buckled if she wasn’t already lying on the ground. How were all these Fates breaking free? Jacks should have warned her there were more running around, with murder on their minds.
Why don’t you just give in? Death’s voice twisted its way into Tella’s thoughts.
“Never!” Tella gritted out.
“What was that?” said the Undead Queen.
“Those cards you want will never be yours,” Tella groaned. “Once I give them to Legend, he’ll make sure you all vanish for good.”
Her Handmaidens hissed again, increasing the ferocity of their attack, but for a moment Tella felt no pain as she realized the truth behind what she’d just said: Her mother’s Deck of Destiny wasn’t merely the item that had been imprisoning the Fates. According to the Undead Queen, her mother’s deck was also the object capable of destroying the Fates.
Tella’s world was a blur of pain, but what she needed to do was suddenly clear. To win Caraval, Tella just needed to find her mother’s Deck of Destiny. That was the object Legend wanted.
But whatever victory this thought brought was short-lived.
“If you will not help us we will use you to show others what happens to those who defy the Fates,” said the Undead Queen.
“No wonder a witch put you inside a card, I’d imprison you just to shut you up,” Tella slurred. Her entire body was screaming, she was still on the ground, but until this point her claws had kept the Handmaidens from fully grabbing and subduing her. She just needed to keep fighting long enough for someone else to come.
Why hadn’t Dante followed her this time?
Or maybe he had but wasn’t there yet. If he appeared, she’d be nicer this time.
Dark whorls swam in her vision. Tella swiped harder, slashing someone’s calf. But again it only made the Handmaiden disappear briefly.
“Finish her,” said the queen. “We’re running out of time.”
The slipper ground harder against Tella’s shattered wrist, pulverizing her bones to dust and making her want to cry tears of pure pain as both Handmaidens bent toward her, lowering their claws closer to her face. She knew they’d planned to maim her, but now it seemed they wanted her dead.
Tella ceased swinging her uninjured arm for one precious moment and then, crying through the pain, she raised both arms and drove her claws deep into both of their ankles.
The Handmaidens howled and turned to smoke. A ragged heartbeat was all Tella had before they’d reappear again. With her uninjured arm she shoved up from the rocky ground, gasping with every breath, and ran straight off the edge.
It felt like a mistake the minute she hit the water.
She missed the rocks, but it was too cold. Her wrist was too broken. Her heart was too weak. Her dress was too cumbersome. But she fought like a demon trying to break out of hell and into the heavens. She ignored things that sucked at her ankles and anything that slithered against her now-bare feet. Tella didn’t escape her father, a trio of Fates, and every other trial in her life to allow herself to be killed by some cold water and a shattered wrist.
Death would have to try harder if he wanted to take her back, and she was not about to let him do that. If she perished there’d also be no one to take care of Scarlett, to make sure her sister had all the proper adventures and kissed more boys than just Julian. Scarlett deserved all the kisses. Maybe Tella wanted more kisses too, ones that wouldn’t end in death.
Tella didn’t wash along the muddy shore, she raged her way out of the water in a tangle of wet curls and skirts and bruises, chest heaving, blue skin shivering, but she was still standing and breathing and living.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t doing any of those things alone.
The Undead Queen and Her Handmaidens of Horror were waiting.
Tella told herself she could outrun them. But she could barely stagger forward as they closed in. Her limbs were liquid, shaking from the pain, the exertion, and the misery of it all. Her lungs could barely swallow the damp air. A lick of wind could have knocked her over.
If she were Scarlett, someone would have come to her rescue by now. Julian would have probably flown in on a hot-air balloon, and then sprouted wings to soar down and carry her away. Unfortunately Tella wasn’t the sort of girl people saved—she was the one they left behind.
But she was also the sort they underestimated.
She reminded herself she was the daughter of two dangerous criminals.
She’d once bet her life on her sister’s love.
She’d kissed the Prince of Hearts and still lived.
These Fates would not kill her tonight.
Every Fate had a weakness. Jacks’s weakness was his one true love; the one who could make his heart beat again. Her Handmaidens were merely puppets of the Undead Queen, who possessed the terrifying ability to control those pledged in service to her. To best Her Handmaidens, Tella needed to best the queen. The queen had mentioned running out of time, and from the way Her Handmaidens turned to smoke whenever Tella wounded one, she wondered if perhaps they were still tethered to her mother’s cards. If these Fates weren’t as free as Jacks. Maybe if Tella attacked the queen, all three would return to their paper prison.
Thankfully Tella knew the Undead Queen’s weakness: It was said she’d traded her eye for her terrible powers.
All Tella needed to do was stab the Undead Queen in her jeweled eye patch and Tella would hopefully live to see another night.
“If you’re really an all-mighty Fate, come fight me yourself.” Tella flashed the remaining razors on her gloves. There were only four left.
The Undead Queen cocked her head to the side, unimpressed.
Another razor fell, leaving only three.
And then Tella was done. She could have possibly kept standing, but she’d been struck enough times in her life to know when to pretend.
She fell to her knees, and then crumpled into the water. A graceless heap of sodden clothes and failure.
Reeking water sloshed against Tella’s face as one of them moved closer. Tella’s eyes were still closed. She couldn’t risk opening them. Not yet. She could only hope it was the Undead Queen moving closer, finally willing to get her hands dirty. Tella could feel a set of cool hands fumbling for her in the rank water. Long, prodding, invasive. Searching for her pulse.