“All right. But I will only give you my sleep as long as we are on this boat. You cannot take anything from me while we’re in Valenda.”
“I can work with that.” Nigel retrieved a brush along with a tiny pot full of burning orange liquid from the stand beside his bed. “I’ll need your wrist to complete the transaction.”
Tella hesitated. “You’re not going to paint anything permanent on it, are you?”
“Whatever I draw will disappear as soon as you pay me in full.”
Tella stretched out her arm. Nigel moved with practiced skill; his cold brush swirled and twirled along Tella’s skin, as if he often used body parts as a canvas.
When he finished, a pair of eyes, exactly like hers, peered back at Tella. Round and hazel-bright. For a moment she swore they pleaded with her not to make this choice. But losing a little sleep felt like a small sacrifice if it would give her the information she needed to fulfill the debt to her friend and finally end the last seven years of torment that had begun the day her mother had left.
“Now,” said Nigel, “what is it you wish to know?”
“I want Legend’s true name. The one he was called before he became Legend.”
Nigel ran a finger over his barbed-wire lips, drawing a drop of blood—or was the blood tattooed on the tip of his finger?
“Even if I wanted to, I could not tell you Legend’s name,” said Nigel. “None of his players can reveal this secret. The same witch who banished the Fates from earth centuries ago gave Legend his powers. His magic is ancient—older than he is—and it binds us all to secrecy.”
Though no one was certain why the Fates had vanished and left the humans to rule themselves, there were mumblings they’d been vanquished by a powerful witch. But Tella had never heard anyone say this was the same witch who had given Legend his powers.
“That still doesn’t tell me anything about Legend’s true identity.”
“I’m not finished,” Nigel said. “I was going to tell you: Legend’s magic prevents his true name from being spoken or revealed, but it can be won.”
Spider legs danced over Tella’s skin, and one of the painted eyes on her wrist began to close. It fell swiftly, in a way that made her feel as if she was running out of currency, but also very close to the answer she needed.
“How do I win the name?” she asked quickly.
“You must participate in the next Caraval. If you win the game, you will come face-to-face with Legend.”
Tella swore one of the stars tattooed around Nigel’s eyes fell as he finished. It was probably all the ginger smoke and pungent incense addling her brain, giving her visions of living tattoos.
She should have left then. The eyelids on her wrist were more than halfway closed now, and she had the answer she needed—if she won Caraval, she’d finally have Legend’s name. But something about Nigel’s last words left her with more questions.
“Is what you just said a prophecy, or are you telling me that the prize for the next Caraval is the real Legend?”
“It’s a little of both.” The tattoos of barbed wire piercing Nigel’s lips turned to thorns, and black roses bloomed between them. “Legend is not the prize, but if you win Caraval, the first face you see will be Legend’s. He plans to personally give the next winner of Caraval their reward. But, be warned, winning the game will come at a cost you will later regret.”
Tella’s skin frosted over as the painted eyes on her wrists closed shut, and her mother’s familiar warning flashed back: Once a future is foretold, that future becomes a living thing and it will fight very hard to bring itself about.
Then it hit her. A wave of fatigue so intense it knocked her down against the cushioned bed. Her head spun and the bones in her legs turned to dust.
“What’s happening?” she panted, her breathing abruptly labored as she fought to sit up. Was there more smoke in the room, or was it her vision blurring?
“I probably should have clarified,” Nigel said. “The spell on your wrist does not take your ability to sleep, it makes you fall asleep so that you can transfer the rest you receive to me.”
“No!” Tella swayed as she pushed up from the bed, vision narrowing until all she could see where glimpses of scoffing tattoos and snickering candlelight. “I don’t want to sleep all the way to Valenda.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late. Next time, do not agree to bargains so easily.”
6
There were shipwrecks more graceful than Tella. As she stumbled away from Nigel’s quarters her legs refused to walk a straight line. Her hips continued to bump into walls. Her head knocked against more than one hanging lantern. The journey to her room was so perilous she lost her slippers, yet again. But she was almost there.
The door wobbled before her eyes, one final obstacle to conquer.
Tella focused all her strength to pull it open. And—
Either she’d entered the wrong room, or she’d already begun to dream.
Dante had wings. And, holy mother of saints, they were beautiful—soulless jet-black with midnight-blue veins, the color of lost wishes and fallen stardust. He was turned toward his nightstand washing his face, or maybe he was kissing his reflection in the mirror.
Tella wasn’t entirely sure what the arrogant boy was doing. All her blurring eyes could see was that his shirt and coat were gone and a massive pair of inky wings stretched across the ridges of his back.
“You could be an angel of death with those things.”
Dante tossed a look over his shoulder. Damp hair the color of black fox fur clung to his forehead. “I’ve been called many things, but I don’t know if anyone has ever said I’m an angel.”
“Does that mean you’ve been called death?” Tella slumped in the doorway, legs finally giving out. She hit the floor with a graceless thud.
A laugh, delicate and light and very female, came from the other side of the room. “I think she swooned at the sight of you.”
And now she was going to throw up. There was another girl in the room. Tella got a noxious glimpse of a jade-green dress and shining brunette hair before Dante’s body stepped into her line of her vision.
He slowly shook his head. “What did—”
Dante’s gaze landed on the closed pair of eyes painted on her wrist.
He made a jagged sound that could have been a chuckle. But Tella wasn’t sure. Her hearing was nearly as muddled as her head. Her eyes gave up and closed.
“I’m surprised he got to you.” Dante’s words were very close now, and low.
“I was bored,” Tella mumbled. “It seemed like an interesting way to pass the time.”
“If that’s true you should have just come to me.” Dante was definitely laughing now.
* * *
The next several days were a blur of unfortunate hallucinations. Nigel took all of Tella’s dreams, but he left her with the nightmares. There were terrifyingly realistic images of her father forever taking off his purple gloves, as well as visions of shadows and shades of dark that did not exist in the mortal world. Cold, damp hands stroked her hair and others ripped out her heart, while bloodless lips drank the marrow from her bones.
Before experiencing death during Caraval, Tella would have said the dreams felt like dying over and over again. But nothing felt like death, except for Death. She should have known better than to think Death wouldn’t haunt her after she’d escaped. Tella was amazing; of course Death would want to keep her.