Before, she’d always tried to project a feeling or an image onto another person. But what she needed to do was to push against his feelings. She needed to reach with her magic and twist them until their colors began to shift and shift and shift and—

“No!” Julian thrashed against the strings holding him to the stage. He might not have heard the Fallen Star’s instructions, but he knew the Fate’s ultimate goal for Scarlett. Julian knew this assault against his emotions was because of her magic—magic he’d warned her against. “Don’t do this, Crimson!”

The Fallen Star clapped and sparks shot out from the tips of his fingers.

On the stage, tears tracked down Julian’s cheeks. He was fighting her, battling her powers with everything he had. But even his fighting was helping her magic win. She could see his love shifting to anger.

Scarlett started to shake.

The Fallen Star grabbed hold of her again to keep her from falling off the arm of the throne. She didn’t know if it was from battling Julian, or if it was because she’d finally accessed her full powers, but her body no longer felt under her control.

She could feel the magic she was using, filling her and surrounding her the way her love for Julian had moments ago. It was heady and powerful. Without even trying, she could see more than just Julian’s emotions. Scarlett saw colors across the room. The eager green of several Fates danced around a rainbow of terrified and morbidly curious human colors, and she knew that if she wanted to, she could twist them all with a thought. It was wondrous in all the wrong ways. Every inch of her skin prickled. When she briefly glanced down, her skin was glowing and shining with gold dust—and Fated magic.

“Finally.” The Fallen Star tightened his grip on her arm. “You’re almost there, auhtara.”

Julian screamed again. “Don’t do this, Scarlett!”

The name sounded wrong. He never called her Scarlett. But the name didn’t hurt as much as it should have.

“You’re close,” the Fallen Star said. “Let go of your feelings for him and take hold of the rest of your power!”

Scarlett pushed harder and Julian’s face turned into a snarl. She could see the edges of his emotions turning brown, the way something does after it’s been burned.

Julian bucked against his bindings. “You lied, Scarlett! You said you would always choose me.” His feverish eyes met hers, but for once there was no warmth in them.

She wasn’t saving him. She was destroying him.

Her magic faltered.

She couldn’t do it.

Anissa had said over and over that Scarlett needed to become what the Fallen Star wanted most to defeat him, but the Fate had betrayed her. And Scarlett knew that even if this was the only way to best her father, it was too much of a betrayal to everything she believed in. If she let Gavriel push her into doing this, how much further would he be able to push her once her love was gone and she was a Fate? Would Gavriel threaten to kill Julian again if she refused to take away Gavriel’s ability to love? And would she be able to resist him—would she even want to?

Scarlett leaned into her magic once more and untwisted Julian’s emotions, freeing them until they were no longer tangled and knotted and hateful.

He stopped thrashing and his head sagged, but he still managed to look at her with the most beautiful brown eyes she’d ever seen. They were glassy and red—he was still in pain, but he was also still in love with her.

The Fallen Star squeezed Scarlett’s arm, making blisters break out over the skin that he’d already burned, but it wasn’t enough to change her mind. He could scorch her, torture her, put her in a cage again, but he could never make her hurt Julian.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

Scarlett smiled for the crowd, as if this were part of the show he’d forced her to put on, but she kept her voice low, knowing that defying him publicly could earn Julian a very swift death. “I’m making a new deal. If you want my powers, I will give them to you, but not like this. He goes free right now, or you get nothing from me.”

Blood from the throne gushed faster, coating the Fallen Star’s arms in red. “I could kill him for your disobedience.”

“But then you would never get my powers.” Scarlett continued to smile as more heads turned their way, probably curious as to why the show had suddenly stopped. “Do this now or I will never do anything for you again.”

“Very well. I will give you what you want.” The Fallen Star motioned for Jester Mad and the Priestess to undo Julian’s binds.

“See how generous I can be?” asked Gavriel. “Your precious love will soon be free, but when I see you again, I expect you to make good on your promise. You will accept your power, you will become a true immortal, and you will take away the weakness that makes me able to love. Fail at this and I will torture everyone you care about until you are begging me to save them from their misery and finally kill them.”

52

Scarlett

Scarlett had no idea how long it would be until the Fallen Star came for her that night, but she had no intention of being there when he did. As soon as she was allowed to leave his horrendous party she raced back through the tunnels until she reached her rooms in the Menagerie.

The Lady Prisoner leaped from her gilded perch in a flurry of violet fabric the moment Scarlett stepped inside. “What—”

“Do not talk to me, you duplicitous disappointment of a woman.”

Anissa’s face fell into a pretty frown. “I tried to warn you; I told you that I cannot lie.”

“I said not to talk to me!” Scarlett ripped off her bloody gown once she reached her bedroom and hurried to put on her own enchanted dress. It warmed against her skin, as if it had missed her. Then it grew thicker and stronger as the fabric shifted from soft satin to supple raging red leather, which hugged her chest and flared out at her waist.

“Scarlett, listen to me,” the Lady Prisoner said. “Whatever you’re planning—”

“Stop talking!” Scarlett took out her Reverie Key and headed toward the door. “If you’re not a traitor, then save your words to distract or misdirect Gavriel when he comes for me.”

“But the torture—”

Scarlett ignored whatever Anissa said next. She shoved the Reverie Key in the doorknob, thinking only of Julian, hoping he’d already gotten far away from the palace—as she turned the magical object and opened the door.

At first she thought the key hadn’t worked. She was in a dungeon hallway, far more foul than the one Legend’s guards had used to lock up Tella. The air smelled of damp water and things left to die. Behind the iron bars, Scarlett saw a variety of torture devices, racks and chains and ropes, and then Julian, dangling from a ceiling.

Her legs buckled. She’d seen him wounded, she’d seen him dead, and yet neither of those things made this sight easier.

Julian’s hands were chained over his head and linked to a hook in the ceiling that left him hanging over a bloodstained drain. His shirt was ripped off, his chest was red and sweating, and his beautiful face was half covered in a metal mask that Scarlett could only partially see because his head was bowed, as if he couldn’t lift it anymore.

Her father must have had his Fates grab him as soon as he’d escaped the party, or he’d foolishly come back for her.

“Crimson—” His voice was raw and muffled.

“It’s going to be all right.” She tried to sound confident but her words cracked as her heart tore in half. “I’m—I’m going to get you free.”

“No,” Julian groaned, “you … you … need to get out of here.”

“Not without you.” Scarlett rose up on her toes to get him down from the hook on the ceiling, but it was too high to reach. She needed a ladder or a stool.

Frantic, she ran back into the hall. A few other prisoners called after her, but she ignored them as she searched for and found a short stool that must have belonged to an absent guard. She dragged it back and wasted no time in stepping on top of it.

Julian’s emotions were weak, gray shadows. He swayed as she looked for the lock that held the cuffs on his wrists chained together. Only there was no lock, it was an infinity chain. She’d have to lift him to free his hands from the hook in the ceiling, but his wrists would remain shackled.

His eyes flickered open and shut. “I love you,” he moaned. “If I die … it was…” The colors around him flickered and disappeared completely.

“No!” Scarlett said. “You’re not going to die! We will get through this together or we won’t get through it. Do not give up on me, Julian. I’m saving you, I’m saving you, I’m saving you, I’m saving you.”

Scarlett repeated the mantra as she used all her strength to lift his limp body from the ceiling hook. His skin was clammy from sweat and cold. He slumped against her, nearly knocking them both to the floor with his weight.