Julian’s arm tightened around her. “It’s all right, Crimson, you’re safe now. We won’t let him find you.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Scarlett confessed. “The Fallen Star said he wanted to cultivate my powers and turn me into a Fate.”

Julian stiffened beside her.

“You don’t have to worry, he doesn’t have you anymore,” Tella said.

“What if it happens without him? I’ve always seen my emotions in colors. But lately I’ve been seeing the feelings of other people as well.”

“Like our feelings?” Julian asked.

Scarlett nodded. “At first it was just glimpses. But I can feel the ability becoming more powerful—”

She cut off at the sound of a bark, near, and loud enough to draw everyone’s attention to the mouth of the barn, where Nicolas’s dog, Timber, barked again, more urgently this time.

30

Donatella

Tella loved dogs. Back on Trisda she’d even gone so far as to steal a puppy once. She’d cleverly named him Prince Tuckleberry the Dog. But after her father found her, Tella had never seen Prince Tuckleberry again. She’d spent such a short time with the animal that Tella had a limited understanding of the way dogs communicated. But clearly Nicolas’s pet was trying to tell them something.

The massive black dog barked. Then he turned his great head toward the outside, as if he wanted the three of them to follow.

“Do you think he’s telling us Nicolas is somehow still alive?” Scarlett asked.

“No,” Tella answered. But maybe someone else was—like Legend.

The trio started toward the cracked barn doors and out into the late afternoon. Julian clutched Scarlett’s hand as if he never planned to let her out of his sight. Tella hoped he didn’t. Now that Scarlett was back, Tella needed to go to the Vanished Market and do whatever it took to purchase a secret that would show her how to destroy the Fallen Star—before he could get his horrible hands on her sister and turn her into a Fate.

Tella wanted to believe it wasn’t even possible. But it should have been impossible that a Fate was actually Scarlett’s father—or that Scarlett now had the ability to see other people’s feelings. Not that it changed anything. Tella meant what she’d said—even if they didn’t share a drop of blood, Scarlett would still be her sister.

An early-evening breeze cut through the air as Tella continued to follow Timber’s lumbering steps to the back of the estate. She didn’t feel the least bit rested. She felt as worn as the slippers on her feet. But her heart kicked out extra beats as Timber led them to a cobbled path so overgrown with purpling brambleberry bushes that she and Julian hadn’t noticed it during their initial exploration of the grounds.

The dog halted and barked until the trio worked to part the prickly plants.

As soon as there was enough space to run through, the animal raced ahead.

The air turned acrid as Tella followed. Her nose wrinkled at the scent of blood and sweat and embarrassment. Suddenly she hoped Legend wasn’t on the other side. The stench wasn’t nearly as foul as Nicolas’s house had been, but Tella felt a sense of building horror as an aged amphitheater came into view. She saw the steps first; their stones were almost blue in the fading light, the color of cold hands and blood veins under skin. There weren’t many of them. The theater was small, the sort built for family plays or bits of light entertainment. But there was nothing entertaining about the forced masquerade taking place on the center of the stage.

The people were dressed in servants’ clothes, and wearing horrible half-masks that came in sour shades of plum, cherry, blueberry, lemon, and orange. The colors made Tella think of rotted confetti that refused to fall as the servants moved about the stage, their arms and legs strung up with rope that turned them into human marionettes.

Tella cursed.

Scarlett gasped.

Julian looked as if the food he’d eaten in the barn had risen up to scald his throat.

No one appeared to be pulling the servants’ strings. The cords all moved by magic, bobbing them about the stage in a forced dance full of disturbing bows and curtsies.

Tella’s eyes latched on to the youngest forced participant, a boy with ringlets as pretty as a doll’s and a face stained with dried tears.

“No wonder we didn’t find any servants,” said Julian.

“How long do you think they’ve been like this?” Scarlett asked.

No one knew how to answer her. If the servants had been strung up when the count had been killed, it must have been at least a full day. Most of them didn’t even appear to be conscious; their heads stayed bowed as their bodies were jerked about the stage.

Tella raced toward it, hoping it wasn’t too late to save them. “This looks like Jester Mad. He has the ability to animate objects. He must have tied them all up and then used his magic on the ropes to keep them moving.”

“How do we undo it?” Scarlett asked. “When the Poisoner petrified that family, he left a note.”

But no one found a note on the stage.

“I think we just need to cut the cords, or untie them,” said Julian. Which proved easier said than done.

The poor servants’ arms and limbs moved faster with each attempt to set them free. Julian was the only one with a blade; he gave it to Scarlett. But none of them had an easy time of things. They all had to jump back more than once to avoid being kicked in the stomach or punched in the face as they worked to undo the servants’ bonds. Thankfully Nicolas didn’t employ too large of a staff.

There were only half a dozen of them. Their hearts were still beating, but barely. None of them could stand on their own legs very long once they were freed.

“The master has infection remedies for the wounds in his greenhouse,” muttered an older man as he ripped a rotted blueberry mask from his face. Tella imagined he was the butler. His eyes were the saddest of the lot, as he looked over his fellow servants all slumped across the stage.

Julian found the remedies while Tella fetched water, and Scarlett procured bandages from a small closet for the servants’ raw wrists and ankles. The entire ordeal was terribly somber. Neither Scarlett, Julian, nor Tella told any of the servants what had happened to Nicolas, and none of them asked, making Tella suspect that they must have already known. Or they’d experienced enough terror and they didn’t want to know.

There were lots of murmured thanks, but no one met her eyes, as if they were ashamed of what had been done to them. Only the boy with the ringlets looked at Tella directly. He even managed a crooked smile, as if she were some sort of hero, which she wasn’t, not at all. She was part of the reason all of this had happened. But in that moment, she vowed that she would make up for the part she’d played in freeing the Fates. “I’ll find who did this to you, and make sure he never hurts anyone again.”

“He wore a mask,” offered the boy. “But it wasn’t like this.” The child kicked at the scrap of cherry fabric that had been tied to his face. “His was shiny, like porcelain, and one side was baring teeth while the other side winked and stuck out half a tongue.”

“Jester Mad,” said Tella. “He’s a Fate.”

Several of the adults suddenly looked her way as she spoke; at least one appeared to think she shouldn’t be saying any of this to the little boy. But after what they’d just experienced, none of them contradicted her.

Tella didn’t go into the history of the Fates, or how they’d been freed from a Deck of Destiny, but she said enough so that once the servants and the boy recovered, they could warn others about the danger Valenda was now in.

It felt like an insignificant effort, but hopefully it would save a few other people from being turned into human toys, or from being murdered—like her mother, and Legend.

Tella’s eyes scanned the dusky horizon, as if Legend finally might appear on it, shining brighter than the stars that were beginning to sneak out. She kept searching for signs of his return after all the servants were fed and bandaged and helped back to their quarters in the rear of the estate, which didn’t possess any of the rot that had clung to the count’s library.

Tella was ready to follow the servants inside and wash up. But Scarlett lingered outside the door on an overgrown path covered in peculiar faisies.

“Do you want to come inside with me to wash up?” Tella asked.

The air was still, but Scarlett’s skirts rustled around her ankles. Tella hadn’t noticed when the gown had shifted colors. Earlier, it had been a brilliant ball-gown red. Now it was mourning-black.

“I’m sorry about Nicolas,” Tella said. “He didn’t deserve to die like that.”

“No, he didn’t. I should never have tried to find him. Then he’d still be alive.” Scarlett’s eyes glistened with tears as she looked up at Tella. “We can’t let the Fallen Star do this to anyone else.”

“We won’t.” Tella reached out to take her sister’s hand.