Just thinking the name Dante still hurt a little.

Now, Dante felt more like a character from a story than Legend did. Yet the name always pricked her like a thorn, reminding her how she’d fallen in love with an illusion—and how foolish it would be to completely trust him again. But she still felt compelled to go after him, to ignore the festival and all the excitement buzzing through the streets.

Now that the Days of Mourning were over, the black flags that had haunted the city were finally gone. Dour frocks had been replaced with garments of sky-kissed blue, turmeric orange, and minty green. Color, color everywhere, accompanied by more delicious fragrances—candied citrine, tropical ice, lemon dust. But she didn’t dare stop at any temporary street stalls to buy any treats or imported fizzing ciders.

Tella’s steps quickened and—

She abruptly stopped next to a boarded-up carriage house. Several people rammed into her back, knocking her shoulder against a splintered wood door as she glimpsed a hand with a black rose tattoo. Legend’s tattoo.

The sweetness in the air turned bitter.

Tella couldn’t see the figure’s face as he wove through the crowd, but he had Legend’s broad shoulders, his dark hair, his bronze skin—and the sight of him made her stomach tumble, even as her hands clamped into fists.

He was supposed to be in danger!

She’d imagined he was sick or injured or in some mortal peril. But he looked … entirely fine. Maybe a little more than fine: tall and solid, and more real than he ever appeared in her dreams. He was definitely Legend. Yet, it still didn’t feel entirely real as she watched him confidently weave through the crowd. This scene felt more like another performance.

As the heir to the throne, Legend should not have been sneaking around dressed like a commoner, in ragged brown pants and a homespun shirt. He should have been riding through the crush on a regal black horse with a gold circlet on his head and a cadre of guards.

But there were no guards protecting him. In fact, it appeared as if Legend was going out of his way to avoid any royal patrols.

What was he up to? And why had he so dramatically disappeared from her dreams if nothing was wrong?

He didn’t slow his self-assured steps as he entered the crumbling ruins that edged the Satine District. They were full of decaying arches, overgrown grasses, and steps that looked as if they’d been built for giants instead of human beings, and Tella had to jog just to make sure she didn’t lose sight of her quarry. Because, of course, she was following him.

She kept close to large boulders and darted over the rocky grounds, careful not to be seen by guards as Legend climbed up, up, up.

The sweetness in the air should have grown thinner the farther she ventured from the vendors, but as she ascended, the sugar on her tongue became thicker and colder. When Tella’s knuckles brushed against a rusted iron gate that had fallen off its hinges, her skin turned blue with frost.

She could still see the sun blazing above the festival, but its heat didn’t penetrate this place. Gooseflesh prickled up her arms as she wondered anew what Legend was playing at.

She’d almost reached the top of the ruins. A giant broken crown of white granite columns grayed by decades of rainfall and neglect rested in front of her. But Tella could almost picture the decrepit structure as it had been centuries before. She saw pearl-white columns, taller than masts on ships, holding up curved panels of stained glass streaming iridescent rainbows over a grand arena.

But what she no longer saw was Legend. He’d disappeared, just like the warmth.

Tella’s breath slipped out in white streams as she listened for footsteps, or the low timbre of his voice. Perhaps he was meeting someone? But she didn’t catch any sounds other than the chattering of her own teeth, as she crept past the closest column and—

The sky turned dark as the ruins around her vanished from view.

Tella froze.

After a heartbeat, her eyes blinked and then they blinked some more as her vision adjusted to the new scene. Piney trees. Tufts of snow. Glints of light from animals’ eyes. And air icier than frost and curses.

She was no longer in one of Valenda’s many ruins—she was in a forest experiencing the middle of the Cold Season. She shivered and hugged her uncovered arms to her chest.

Light fell from a moon larger than any she’d seen. It glowed sapphire-bright against the foreign night, and dripped silver stars like a waterfall.

During the last Caraval, Legend had enchanted the stars to form new constellations. But he’d told Tella himself that he didn’t have that much power outside of Caraval. And this didn’t feel like any of the dreams she’d shared with him. If it had been a dream, he’d already be stalking toward her, giving her a fallen angel’s smile that made Tella’s toes curl inside her slippers as she pretended to be unaffected.

In her dreams it was never this cold, either. Sometimes, she felt a brush of frost through her hair, or a kiss of ice down the back of her neck, but she was never actually shivering. If she had been, she could have just imagined a heavy fur and it would have appeared around her shoulders. But all she had were her thin cap sleeves.

Her toes were already half frozen, and icy ringlets of blond hair clung to her cheeks. But she wasn’t about to turn back. She wanted to know why Legend had disappeared from her dreams, why he’d scared her so badly, and why they were now in another world.

She might have thought he’d taken some sort of portal back to his private isle, instead of into another dimension, but the stars pouring out of a crack in the moon made her imagine otherwise. She’d never seen anything like it in her world.

She wouldn’t have believed it at all, except this was Legend. Legend brought people back to life. Legend stole kingdoms with lies. Legend wrangled the stars. If anyone could walk through worlds, it was him.

Not only that, but he’d magically changed his clothes. When Tella caught a fresh glimpse of his dark silhouette through the snowy branches, Legend no longer looked like a commoner, but like the Legend from her earliest dreams, dressed in a finely tailored suit accented by a raven-wing-black half-cape, a sophisticated top hat, and polished boots that the snow left untouched.

Tella considered leaving the safety of the tree line to confront him when he took a few more steps—and met the most stunning woman Tella had ever seen.

6

Donatella

Tella’s stomach went hollow.

The woman was made of things that Tella didn’t possess. She was older, not by much—just enough to look more like a woman than a girl. She was taller than Tella too, statuesque with straight, fiery-red hair that fell all the way down to a narrow waist, which was cinched with a black leather corset. Her dress was black as well, silky and slender with slits down both sides that showed off long legs clad in sheer stockings embroidered with roses.

Tella might not have thought much about the stockings, but there were also roses tattooed on the woman’s arms, black ones, matching the rose inked on the back of Legend’s hand.

Tella instantly hated her.

She might have hated him, too.

Roses weren’t rare flowers, but she doubted these matching tattoos were a mere coincidence.

“Welcome back, Legend.” Even the woman’s voice was the antithesis of Tella’s, slightly raspy and laced with a seductive accent Tella couldn’t place. The woman didn’t smile, but when she looked at Legend she licked her lips, making them deepen to a shade of red that matched her hair.

Tella resisted the urge to pick up a snowball and toss it at the woman’s face.

Was this who Legend visited in his days while he kept Tella confined to his dreams? Legend had always made it sound as if he was busy with imperial business when they were awake, but Tella should have known better than to believe him.

“It’s good to see you, Esmeralda.” The tone of Legend’s voice chilled her to her blood. When he spoke to Tella it was deep and low, but often tinged with something teasing. This was more carnal and a little cruel, a voice that didn’t know how to play. He used it as easily as the voice he taunted her with in her dreams. And for a cracked moment Tella couldn’t help but wonder if this vicious Legend was the act—or if the flirtatious Legend she saw when she slept was the true performance.

“We should get out of the cold.” The woman slipped her arm through Legend’s.

Tella waited for him to shift away, to show a hint of discomfort, but he only pulled her closer, touching her easily when, for the last two months, he hadn’t touched Tella.