“Oh—what’s this?” Paloma asked.

“I was going to put it back,” Tella promised.

“No, my little love, you should hold on to it for me and keep it safe.” She kissed Tella’s fingers, as if that officially made the ring hers. Her mother always sealed things with kisses; another fact Tella had misplaced.

“Now,” Paloma whispered, “I will tell you a secret about the cards I just put away. The Fates pictured on them once ruled on earth, and when they did they were very unkind and very cruel. They used to trap people in playing cards for sport and entertainment. Only a Fate could free them … unless…”

No. Tella fought to hold on to the memory as it began to fade before her eyes and ears. Her mother’s skin shifted from olive to translucent as her lips formed words that Tella could no longer hear. No. No. No! These were words she needed to hear. The answer she was searching for. She didn’t know what her mother was about to say, but Tella was certain that whatever she’d said next was of vital importance.

Tella clawed at the memory, tried to dig her fingers into it. But the harder Tella fought to keep it, the murkier it became, turning to smoke that couldn’t be held on to at all, and then dissipating into nothing.

When she opened her eyes Tella did not feel as if a weight had been lifted. She felt as if something had been lost. As if she’d been cut, but nothing was bleeding. And nothing seemed to be gone, either. The memory she’d expected Aiko to take was still there, and though Tella had been ready to part with it, she felt relieved it wasn’t gone.

So then why did Tella sense that Aiko had stolen something even more valuable?

24

Aiko’s cursed notebook was now firmly shut, but Tella swore it looked fatter than before. There was even a soft glow about it.

What had she taken?

“Don’t look so glum,” Aiko said. “You’ve just earned a fantastic story about one of Valenda’s most infamous criminals.”

Aiko glided back toward the portraits on the wall. “Before she disappeared, Paradise the Lost was a bit of a legend in this city. People were so enchanted with Paradise, they used to write her letters and ask her to rob them or kidnap them. Paradise the Lost was truly criminal royalty. There were even rumors of princes from other continents sending letters to the lords of the Spice Quarter offering to marry her.”

As Aiko spoke, Tella tried to hold on to her anger and frustration at losing one of her memories, but instead she began to picture her mother, as clear as if Aiko were painting the scene in her evil notebook. Tella saw Paloma as a young and spirited thing, leaving trails of glittering tales as she robbed and thieved and stole her way into history until she became a shimmering part of it.

Then she’d married Tella’s father. Out of all the people Paloma could have chosen.

“Why didn’t Paradise accept any of the princes’ offers?” Tella asked.

“I assume she was smart enough to know most princes are cruel, spoiled, selfish beings. And Paradise wanted adventures far more than she desired love. She bragged there was nothing she couldn’t steal. So when she was presented with a challenge, to steal an unstealable item of great magic, she accepted the offer. But the item was far more powerful and dangerous than she’d been led to believe. She didn’t want to put it back and risk that someone else would take it, so she fled, and no one has seen her since.”

But Tella had.

Now it made more sense that she’d ended up on Trisda with Tella’s father. No one would have searched for her on a smallish, unremarkable conquered isle.

“What was the object she stole?”

“If you want the answer to that—”

“No,” Tella interrupted, steel in her tone. “No more deals. I already earned this answer, it’s a part of the story.”

Aiko’s nostrils flared, her usually placid expression pulsing with frustration; clearly she was used to taking more than giving.

Tella snatched Aiko’s enchanted notebook off the table and held it over a burning candle. “Tell me what she stole or this notebook turns to ash.”

Aiko gave her a thin smile. “You have more mettle than your sister.”

“Scarlett and I each have different strengths. Now tell me what the object was.” Tella slowly lowered the notebook closer to the flame until she could smell the heating leather.

“It’s a cursed Deck of Destiny,” Aiko spat out.

Tella dropped Aiko’s book on the desk with a loud thump. All around her posters flapped, as if their paper heartbeats were racing along with Tella’s; it was the fastest her heart had beat since Jacks had kissed her. As if this new revelation possessed magic of its own.

Only the portrait of Paradise the Lost remained unmoved, the calm center of a paper storm.

Tella knew pictures did not have feelings, yet she imagined the portrait of Paradise, the woman her mother had once been, was holding its breath, silently hoping and urging Tella to put all the pieces of her story together.

Tella had always known her mother’s Deck of Destiny was unlike other ordinary decks. But Aiko made it sound as if there was nothing else in the world like it, and she’d called it cursed.

Cursed. Cursed. Cursed.

The word grew louder in Tella’s head, warring with the sound of the posters still flapping on the walls. The Fates had also been cursed by a witch, and according to Jacks, this curse had imprisoned them inside a deck of cards.

I can tell you from experience it’s torturous, he’d said.

It seemed spectacular to believe that her mother had stolen this same deck, but the more Tella thought about it, the more sense it made.

If her mother’s Deck of Destiny had been the one imprisoning the Fates, it explained why her mother had been terrified to find Tella playing with the cards. Tella remembered how they’d been disguised as a foul-smelling sachet until that day. The spell concealing them must have been wearing off when Tella found them.

Tella couldn’t believe she’d touched the deck holding all the Fates—the mythic Fates who’d once ruled the world had been in the palm of her hand.

It seemed impossible, and yet she’d witnessed the proof every time the Aracle had shown Tella images of the future. She’d never seen another card like it, and she doubted she ever would. Because it wasn’t merely a card. It was a Fate, and Tella had it tucked inside of a little trunk.

She squeaked out a laugh at the thought. Her mother must have been a force, to steal the Fates.

But now her mother was powerless, trapped inside of a card, exactly like the Fates.

Tella did not laugh at this thought. Suddenly she regretted having laughed at all.

Since the miserable day her mother had left, Tella had believed it was partially her fault, that if she hadn’t disobeyed her mother and played with her jewelry box, and if she’d never flipped over the card with the Maiden Death, which predicted the loss of a loved one, then her mother would have never vanished. Tella blamed the cards and herself. And she had been right, though not in the way she’d always believed.

Her mother hadn’t left merely because Tella had turned over a particular card; she’d fled because Tella had found the cards, and the cards were even more powerful and dangerous than Tella had ever imagined.

The posters on the walls finally stopped flapping. In their wake the shop went suddenly quiet. Yet Tella still felt the stare of her mother’s poster, giving Tella the feeling that despite what she’d just learned, she didn’t know nearly enough. There was something vital she was leaving out—something she’d forgotten.