her tastes. But as she entered his rooms, the only glamour she saw was the light.
There wasn’t a single lit candle in sight, yet globes of soft yellow and white lights danced around, making everything glow.
From where she stood, Tella could see his illuminated bedroom and his sitting room. His suite was well appointed, but simpler than she would have expected. Before knowing him, she might have imagined Legend’s sitting room lined with sumptuous red velvet curtains and full of low cushions for seductive rendezvous. But there wasn’t a speck of velvet in sight. There weren’t any low cushions or curtains, either. Impeccable floor-to-ceiling windows provided a spellbinding view of the ocean while letting waxy moonlight slide over the ebony floors, the neat desk, the full bookshelves, and the wide charcoal couches.
Everything looked so perfect, Tella imagined she might smudge it if she stepped fully into the room. She tiptoed past into what was clearly Legend’s bedroom.
His bed took up nearly half the space, and with its heavy iron frame and black silk sheets, it was exactly what she would have expected. Legend lay in the middle of it; his shirt was gone and he was on his stomach, sheets low enough to reveal the exquisite wings tattooed on his beautiful back.
Tella couldn’t have held back her smile. She knew many of his other tattoos had disappeared, but she’d so badly wanted this one to be real.
The wings were as mesmerizing as she remembered. Soulless jet-black with midnight-blue veins the color of lost wishes and fallen stardust. And they were one of her favorite things about him. She itched to reach down and trace them, to run her fingers down his spine and wake him up. But while she’d shared countless dreams with Legend, she’d never seen him sleep, and she was curious.
Her eyes left the wings and trailed to his face. It looked as if he’d fallen asleep while reading. One bronzed hand held a book near his slumbering head, while hair black as raven feathers fell across his forehead. It was a very human pose, and yet his skin faintly glowed with inhuman light. He looked perfect and tempting, and in that moment Tella felt like a girl from a fairy tale who’d stumbled upon a sleeping god that would give her a prize if she woke him with a kiss.
And she was tempted to do just that, to sweep his hair back and press her lips to his brow, when something behind him caught her attention. She’d been so drawn to seeing Legend asleep on his own bed that she hadn’t even noticed the enormous mural painted on the wall behind it.
Tella took a couple steps away to take it all in. Haunting and bright and sad all at once, the artwork almost covered the entire wall.
From the distance, it looked like an overwhelming picture of a night sky on fire. But as she drew closer again, Tella could see that this wasn’t a depiction of sky or fire, but a series of smaller images; a kaleidoscope of stars and night and hourglasses, hot-air balloons and top hats, skulls and roses, death and canals, waterfalls of tears and blood and ruins and riches. It was beauty and horror and pain and longing.
Legend’s soul was painted on this wall.
She didn’t imagine he’d want it seen by anyone, and yet she couldn’t tear her eyes away. She swore the mural moved as she drew even closer and looked until it was no longer a picture at all—it was a story.
Tella saw images from Caravals past as well as some that appeared to be from Legend’s life outside of the game.
During the last Caraval, he’d told her that his tattoos were there to help him remember what was real. After the game was over and some of his tattoos had disappeared, she’d imagined that was a lie. But now she wondered if there had been something honest behind what he’d told her, because he’d clearly painted his past on his walls.
Her eyes traveled to the lower right of the wall, where the mural abruptly stopped. She imagined the images right before that naked patch would either be from the last Caraval or the past two months of Legend’s life.
Her pulse sped up as she found the final image. It was of her and Legend during Caraval. They were in front of the Temple of the Stars and he was holding her close. It must have been the moment right after