Scarlett bit back her first five responses.
“Scar, I know I’ve prayed for some awful things, the types of things angels don’t do, but I’ve also prayed for something exactly like this. I might be able to get a boy to follow me into the barrel room, but until Daniel, no one had ever actually cared about me.”
“I’m sure this Daniel person seems wonderful,” Scarlett said carefully. “And I want to be happy for you, I really do. But doesn’t this seem a little coincidental? I keep thinking, maybe Legend is just playing a different game with you, and what if this Daniel is part of it?”
“He’s not,” Tella said. “I know you don’t have a lot of experience with men, but I do, and trust me when I say my relationship with Daniel is very real.” Tella took a sharp step back, feet pale against the dark onyx floor as she plucked a silver bell from one of the cushioned lounges.
“What are you doing?” Scarlett asked.
“I’m ringing for Daniel so you can meet him and see for yourself.”
The door opened and Jovan appeared, looking like a rainbow in the same colorful outfit she’d worn the first night, on the unicycle. “Oh, hello.” She perked up when she saw Scarlett. “You’ve finally found your sister.”
“You can’t trust her,” Scarlett whispered to Tella. “She works for Legend.”
“Of course she works for Legend,” Tella said. “Forgive my sister, Jo, she’s still caught up in the game. She thinks Legend is out to kill us both.”
“Are you certain she’s wrong?” Jovan winked as if she was joking, but when her eyes cut to Scarlett her playfulness vanished.
“Did you see that?” Scarlett said. “She knows!”
Tella ignored her. “Can you fetch Lord DeEngl for me, please?”
Before Scarlett could protest, Jovan nodded and disappeared the way she’d come, through a hidden door tucked into the back wall.
“Tella, please,” Scarlett begged. “We need to get out of here. You have no idea how dangerous this is. Even if you’re right about Daniel, it’s still not safe. Legend won’t let you be together.”
Scarlett paused and held out her hands, showing her sister all the precious blood once more. “See—this?” Her voice cracked. “This is real. Before I came up here, I watched Legend kill someone—”
“Or you thought you did,” Tella interrupted. “Whatever you believe you saw, I’m sure it wasn’t real. You keep forgetting, what happens down there is all part of the game. And I’m not running from Daniel because you got too caught up in it.”
Tella’s mouth formed a soft downward curve. “I know no one loves me more than you do, Scar, I’d be desolate without you. Please, don’t leave me now. And do not ask me to leave Daniel.” Tella’s lips shifted into a deeper frown. “Don’t make me choose between the two loves of my life.”
Two loves. Scarlett’s heart ached at her sister’s choice of words. Suddenly she was on the steps again, watching Julian’s head fall before his breathing stopped. She needed to find a way to bring him back, but she also had to get her sister safely out of this tower and far away from this balcony.
“Now,” Tella said brightly, as if everything were settled, though Scarlett had not uttered a word. “Help me become beautiful for Lord Daniel!” Tella skipped off toward her dressing area. “You might want to clean up as well,” she called. “I have some gowns that would look stunning on you.”
The night grew even darker as Scarlett remained rooted in place.
She knew she looked halfway to dead, and she was tempted to keep it that way. She liked the idea of frightening Tella’s fiancé. Scarlett liked the idea of leaving even more—but Tella was not the sort who’d run after Scarlett if she left. And what if Tella was right? Perhaps it was grandiose to assume the entire game revolved around the two of them. If her sister was correct, and Scarlett ruined this, Tella really would never forgive her.
But if Scarlett wasn’t crazy, and Julian was really dead, then Scarlett needed to retrieve her wish and save him.
Behind Tella’s dressing curtain, one wardrobe and multiple trunks were opened, overflowing with an assortment of clothes. Scarlett watched as her sister debated between several gowns.
Hopefully after she met this Daniel person, Scarlett could figure out a way to convince Tella to leave with her. In the meantime she would stay by her side and discover a way to collect her wish from Legend.
“The periwinkle,” Scarlett said. “Blue is always the most becoming on you.”
“I knew you’d stay,” Tella said. “Here, this one’s for you, it will look so dramatic with your dark hair and that new little streak. Sorry, I don’t have any slippers your size, you’ll just have to let your boots dry.” She gave Scarlett a cranberry dress with a frothy ball-gown skirt, longer in the back than in the front, and covered in teardrop-shaped red beads.
The dress matched the blood on Scarlett’s palms. As Scarlett finally washed it away, she vowed to herself once more that she’d find a way to bring Julian back. No more wounds would stain her hands that night.
“Promise me one thing,” Scarlett said. “Whatever happens, swear you won’t jump off any balconies.”
“Only if you promise me not to say strange things like that when Daniel arrives.”
“I’m being serious, Tella.”
“So am I. Please don’t spoil this—”
A knock at the door.
“That must be Daniel.” Tella slid into a pair of silver slippers before spinning around in her periwinkle dress. The color of sweet dreams and happy endings.
“You look beautiful,” Scarlett said. But even as she dared to hope her sister was the one who’d been right all along, Scarlett could not ignore the bitter yellow puddle of dread in her stomach as Tella swept out from behind the dressing curtain and toward the hidden door against the back wall.
The world swayed as Tella opened it, everything tilting as Scarlett watched the man on the other side reach around her sister’s waist and reel her in for a kiss.
Two spots of pink colored Tella’s cheeks as she pulled away. “Daniel, we have company.” Tella drew the man she called Daniel back toward the cushioned lounges where Scarlett stood, immobile.
“I’d like you to meet my sister, Scarlett.” Tella beamed again, so brightly, she didn’t notice the way Scarlett had involuntarily taken a step back, or how the young man at her side ran his tongue over his lips when Tella wasn’t looking.
“Donatella, step away from him,” Scarlett said. “His name is not Daniel.”
37
He no longer wore a top hat, and he’d traded his dark tailcoat for a crisp white frock coat, but his eyes still sparked with the same mad gleam, as if there was something unhinged behind them, and he didn’t care about hiding it.
“Scar,” Tella hissed. Acting weird again, she mouthed.
“No, I know him,” Scarlett insisted. “That’s Legend.”
“Scarlett, please stop acting crazy,” Tella said. “Daniel’s been with me, all night, every night of the game. It’s not possible for him to be Legend.”
“It’s true.” Legend hooked his arm around Tella’s shoulder; she looked childlike under his heavy grip as he possessively pulled her short frame closer.
“Get your hands off her!” Scarlett launched herself at Legend.
“Scar! Stop!” Tella grabbed Scarlett’s hair, yanking her away before she managed more than a scratch.
“Daniel, I’m so sorry,” Tella said. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her. Scarlett, end this madness!”
“He lied to you!” Scarlett’s scalp burned as she struggled with Tella. “He’s a murderer.”
Though Legend didn’t look like a killer just then. Dressed in white, and without his mad smile, he looked as innocent as a saint. “Maybe we should tie her up before she hurts herself.”
“No!” Scarlett shouted.
A flash of unease crossed Tella’s face.