“Julian.” She said his name like a demand as she wrapped an arm around his feverish back and helped him to stand. “We need to get to the cell door, and then I can use the Reverie Key to get us out of here.”

“I’m afraid your key won’t help you this time.” Every single bar inside the prison caught fire, filling the dungeon with violent tongues of red and orange, as the Fallen Star appeared on the other side of Julian’s cell. Poison, an ever-present goblet of toxins in his hand, stood at his side, with an enthusiastic grin twisted further by the firelight.

Scarlett tried to run with Julian to the door, not caring that it was burning up, but the Fallen Star reached it first. He opened it wide and out of her reach as he stalked into the cell.

He’d taken off his crown, but his regal clothes were still soaked in blood. Red droplets sprayed the stones on the ground as he approached.

Scarlett’s dress immediately shifted. With a flurry of metallic crashes, it changed from raging red leather into a savage gown of steel-plated armor.

Gavriel laughed, star-bright and vicious. “Her Majesty’s Gown—that dress never did like me.”

“Isn’t that what Queen Azane changed into when she died?” Poison asked. “I thought she was more the lover sort than the fighter.”

“Maybe she just doesn’t like either of you,” Scarlett spit out.

“She definitely never liked me. It’s a shame, too. Azane could have been glorious.” The Fallen Star’s fingers lit with flames. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then don’t.” Scarlett tightened her arm around Julian, her eyes searching for another exit, but there were only three impenetrable walls and burning bars before them. “Let us go.”

“I’m trying to help you, auhtara.” He took another step and before Scarlett could evade him, he pressed his burning hands onto her steel-plated shoulders.

Scarlett screamed and let go of Julian. Her dress’s armor grew thicker but it wasn’t enough to stop the pain, and she wasn’t strong enough to break free. When he’d burned her earlier it was nothing compared to this.

“Stop fighting me, I’m saving you, auhtara.” Golden eyes met hers. “If you leave with that boy under your arm you’ll share the same fate as Queen Azane, who turned into that gown, and Reverie, who became the key in your hand. They were Fates who fell in love with humans and let themselves become mortal and die. But magic cannot die. So, when their human bodies perished, their magic was transferred into objects. Is that what you want?”

“If it means I’ll never become like you, then yes,” Scarlett panted; the air was almost too hot to breathe. She kept trying to break free, but his grip was too tight. All she could do was reach back and press the Reverie Key into Julian’s palm. “Go—”

“You can’t ask me to leave you!” Julian gritted his teeth, took her hand, and pulled with more strength than a boy who’d just been tortured should have had. It still shouldn’t have been enough to free her—the Fallen Star gripped her tighter, searing her metal dress and branding her skin until she cried out again—but in that same painful moment, Scarlett’s gown shifted.

During one ragged breath, the magical dress left Scarlett in only a thin chemise as it changed into two metal gloves that latched on to the Fallen Star’s hands.

All around them, the flames on the bars turned to smoke.

Gavriel cursed.

Scarlett coughed, but she was free of his grip. Her dress had smothered his flames. She saw him battling against it, melting the armored gloves on his hands, destroying her dress, which had sacrificed itself so that Scarlett and Julian could escape.

“Stop them!” Gavriel yelled at Poison.

Poison stepped in front of the lock, holding out his lethal goblet, about to toss its contents and turn them to stone, or worse. “It seems we won’t be great friends after all.”

Scarlett and Julian ground to a screeching halt.

The raging Fallen Star was behind them, still batting the gloves. Poison was in front of them, ready to turn them to stone. They were trapped. Scarlett clutched Julian tighter—when suddenly all of the prison bars began to crumble and re-form around Poison. The thick metal poles herded him away from the door as they formed a new cage, trapping him.

Fetid air, full of smoke, turned magical and sweet.

“Legend’s here,” Julian wheezed. “He’s doing this.”

“Use the key now!” Legend roared.

Scarlett couldn’t see him, but she didn’t hesitate to obey. She darted forward with Julian toward the door.

But Poison was still too close. He was caged, but that didn’t stop him from throwing out the contents of his goblet.

Julian shoved Scarlett behind him, blocking her from the toxin and letting it cover his chest and arms.

“No!” Scarlett screamed, grabbed Julian, and thrust the Reverie Key in the lock, as she thought of her sister and safety.

She found only one of them.

53

Scarlett

Scarlett fell through the doorway in a screaming blur of agonizing color. Blistering orange, searing yellow, and violent garnet. Her shoulders were burning. She’d felt the pain before, but now it was all she could feel.

“Get her damp towels and cold water.” A pair of strong hands picked her up and carried her to a cloud-like bed.

“No,” Scarlett choked. “Take care of Julian first.”

“I’m fine, Crimson.” Then he was next to her, holding a cold cloth to her shoulder, easing a bit of the burn as her head fell against downy pillows and the world went in and out of focus.

She didn’t know how long she lost consciousness for, but when it returned, she was in a cloud of pink and gold, back in her bedroom at the Menagerie, surrounded by marble columns, disturbing frescoes, and familiar faces. But Julian’s was the only face she truly saw.

The horrible mask was still covering half of his face. But the chains around his wrists were gone. He was standing up without any help. His chest was smooth and brown instead of red and sweating, and he was taking even breaths as he unfolded a damp cloth to cover her neck and her chest.

“Is this real?” she asked.

“You tell me.” He pressed an affectionate kiss to her forehead with the side of his mouth.

“But … how are you unharmed?” Scarlett sputtered.

“You told me that we were getting through this together, or we weren’t getting through. And”—Julian’s brow wrinkled in something like confusion—“whatever was in Poison’s goblet healed me.”

“I wish some would have been poured on Scarlett,” Tella said.

Scarlett turned to see her sister. She was perched on the other side of the bed, her delicate hands pressing another cold cloth to Scarlett’s other shoulder. At first glance, she looked stunning in a gown covered with dark blue ribbons and pale blue lace. But when Scarlett looked closer, she saw her sister’s eyes were puffy and her cheeks were splotchy, as if she’d been fighting back tears all day.

“Tella? How did you get here?”

“I had a little help.” She nodded toward the columns flanking the window, and the room’s other guests. Fates.

Scarlett jolted back.

Tella had gone insane. She’d brought the Maiden Death, along with another cloaked Fate who looked extraordinarily out of place, as gauzy curtains fluttered behind him. He wore a rough woolen cape over slouched shoulders and a hood that kept his entire face concealed. Scarlett had to run through the list of Fates until she remembered the Assassin, the mad Fate who could travel through space and time.

“It’s all right,” Tella said, though Scarlett swore her sister’s voice was higher than usual, as if she was still convincing herself of this. “They want the same thing we do.”

Scarlett didn’t want to trust any of them. But, she knew her sister hated the Fates as much as she did. Tella wouldn’t have trusted these two without a good reason, and Poison had probably saved Julian’s life with whatever he’d thrown on him.

“Is Poison working with you two?” Scarlett asked.

“We have no alliance with Poison,” answered the Maiden Death as the Assassin shook his head.

“Poison works for himself,” called the Lady Prisoner.

Scarlett shot up in bed. She’d forgotten all about the other treacherous Fate on the opposite side of the open doorway. “We need to get out of here!” Scarlett yelled. “She’s a spy.”

“Of course I’m a spy,” the Lady Prisoner said. “That’s why he put me in here. But I’m also on your side.” She hopped off her perch in a dramatic whirl of lavender skirts and clutched the bars in front of her. “I want out of this cage. Why do you think I sliced his throat that day?”

“Maybe you were bored.” Scarlett knew the Lady Prisoner couldn’t lie, but she really didn’t want to listen to her.

She wanted to hate all the Fates. She didn’t want to look in the Maiden Death’s sad eyes and remember how awful it had felt to be inside of a similar cage.

Scarlett didn’t know why the Assassin would be aiding their cause—he was more powerful than anyone and yet the sooty-charcoal emotions swirling around him conjured feelings of brokenness and misery.