Tella searched the nearby ruins for a while. She even dared to return to the park where she’d stolen the cloak. But there were no signs of him, and her legs were starting to wobble with fatigue.
It was almost sunrise when Tella’s sky carriage neared the palace. Legend’s heart-shaped constellation was gone. Torches dotted the grounds with light, but the air still felt frigid after a night of being separated from the sun. Tella wanted to close her eyes and collapse inside her tower room, but her coach halted. Whoever was in the carriage before hers was taking forever to disembark.
Tella opened her window and poked out her head, as if glaring at the box before her might hasten its occupants’ pace. To her astonishment, it worked.
The carriage door opened, followed by a flash of familiar cerise fabric. Tella couldn’t be positive—other than the dress, all she saw was a curtain of thick dark hair. But from the back, the young woman looked exactly like Scarlett.
Tella continued to watch, but her sister didn’t turn around. She scurried forward, flitting out of the carriage house before Tella’s coach had even moved. Then the door to the carriage before her opened again. Tella only saw the back of this person as well, but she instantly recognized his careless walk, his wrinkled clothes, and his head of golden hair. Jacks.
35
Tella hoped the sun would rise soon because this bizarre night needed to end. If Tella’s world flipped on its head one more time, she would crack.
What had her sister been doing with Jacks?
Of course, Tella still wasn’t certain the young woman who’d stepped out of the coach was Scarlett. Tella hadn’t gotten a clear look at her face. But Tella knew her sister and she knew Jacks, who was low enough to drag Scarlett into this mess.
Tella leaped out of her coach the moment it touched the ground and nearly twisted her ankle. It didn’t stop her from rushing out of the carriage house, but it did delay her long enough to lose her sister.
“Are you running from someone, or chasing after someone?” The Prince of Hearts stepped out from the edge of the stone garden, blocking Tella’s path as he tossed a glowing purple apple back and forth between the tips of his nimble fingers. Again, he didn’t wear a coat and his shirt was only half ironed, as if he’d grown impatient and taken it from a maid before she could finish her job. His pants were unwrinkled, but when the rising sun hit the buttery leather, Tella thought she saw a spatter that looked like blood.
She took several deep breaths, attempting to calm her racing heart. “What were you doing with my sister?”
“Do I detect some jealousy?”
“You’re delusional.”
“Am I?” Jacks sauntered between forever frozen servants deeper into the stone garden, forcing Tella to follow.
“This relationship isn’t real,” Tella groaned. “How could I be jealous?”
“Maybe you’re wishing it was real.”
“You flatter yourself too much.”
“Only because my fiancée doesn’t flatter me enough.” Jacks’s tone was flippant, yet he didn’t take his eyes off Tella as he propped one booted foot against the terrified stone statue at her side. Then he pulled out a dagger from his boot and began to peel the skin off his apple, as if he’d suddenly lost interest in their conversation.
“You still haven’t told me what you were doing with my sister,” Tella demanded. “I want you to stay away from her.”
Jacks looked up from his knife. “She’s the one who came looking for me.”
“Why would she do that?”
“I promised I wouldn’t tell.”
Tella snorted. “Don’t act like you have a conscience.”
Jacks sliced off the last bit of skin from his apple and took a deep bite. “Just because my moral code is different from yours doesn’t mean I don’t have one.”
“Maybe you should reevaluate it,” Tella said. “By most people’s standards, killing someone is worse than breaking a person’s confidence.”
“Have I killed anyone since you’ve known me?” Jacks ran his tongue along the tips of his sharp white teeth before sinking them into the apple once more. Glowing juice, as red as blood, dripped from the corner of his mouth. Mocking her as he ate.
He acted careless and lazy but he was the most calculating and confident of them all. He probably viewed her the same way he saw his apple, as something juicy to take a bite out of and then discard.
Another drop of red fell from his lips and Tella launched herself at him. She knocked the apple from his pale hands. Then she went for his throat.
His hands went around her wrists in a flash. “You can’t kill me.”
“But I can try.” She kicked at him.
He easily dodged it.
“You’re only going to tire yourself out,” he said calmly. “You already look exhausted. Save your strength to win the game tonight.”
She continued to kick.
He effortlessly evaded her again. His cruel face appeared bored.
But Tella swore she felt the blood rushing through his veins, heating the hands still encircling her wrists. He might have appeared indifferent, but his heart was beating as fast as hers.
Tella stopped mid-kick. His heart was beating.
She stumbled back and he let her go.
“You have a heartbeat.”
“No. My heart hasn’t beat in a very long time. You’re the one who’s delusional now.” His voice was colder than she’d ever heard it, yet the chill it brought did not erase the searing memory of his hot hands around her wrists.
“I might be a lot of things, but I know what I felt,” Tella said.
Only one person could make it beat again: his one true love. They said his kiss had been fatal to all but her—his only weakness.…
“I made your heart beat,” Tella crowed. It was wild and absurd, a truly feral idea. But Tella felt the truth in her heartbeat as well, which now sped up rather than slowed. Beat. Beat. Beat. Beat. Beat. Beat. Beat. It had never felt so strong. So free. “I’m your one true love. Your kiss can’t kill me.”
Jacks’s scowl deepened. “You shouldn’t believe every story you hear. Do I look as if I’m in love with you?”
“You always look like a monster to me, but that doesn’t mean the myth’s not true.” And Tella imagined she didn’t have to love him to be his true love. Given that he was a Fate and pure evil, Tella also imagined love for him was not the same as it would have been for a human. But that part didn’t matter. What mattered was that being his true love meant she was immune to his kiss. She no longer needed to win the game to live.
“This changes nothing.” Jacks’s expression turned so sharp that a fistful of knives would have looked soft in comparison.
But Tella was used to his mercurial looks. They couldn’t hurt her, and neither could his poisonous lips.
“No,” Tella said. “This changes everything.”
“Not for your mother.” Jacks crushed the heel of his boot atop the apple Tella had knocked onto the ground, until the fruit was nothing but bleeding flesh and juice. “You still need me if you want to free her.”
“Maybe I no longer care about saving her.” Tella said it as if she meant it, but the words tasted sour in her mouth. Not quite a lie, but not the truth.
Jacks seemed to sense her lack of conviction. He flashed a dimple as he prowled closer. “You called me a monster and even I think that’s cold, Donatella.”
His dimple vanished, and for a moment she saw his face hollow out with terror, the same way it had the first time he’d spoken of being trapped inside of a card. “If any part of you ever wants to see your mother alive again, you’ll rethink helping me. Legend fears the Fates going free and stealing his power, and he wants our powers more than anything. If he ever gets his hands on the Deck of Destiny with the Fates, he will destroy all of us, along with your mother. The only way to save her is to win the game and help me free them. Unless you’re foolish enough to take her place, and based on what you just said, I doubt you’re willing to do that.”
Jacks chucked her chin with one slender finger before sauntering out of the garden as if their conversation had changed nothing at all.