did, my love. But we need to get out of here now.” Jacks held her tighter as he tugged her away from Scarlett. Tella had seen her fall to the floor with the Fallen Star, but she hadn’t gotten up. She remained slumped against his lifeless body.
“Wait, my sister—”
“Look at me, Donatella.” Jacks twisted her around until she was facing him. “Do you still want to spend the rest of your life with me?” He asked the question as if it were the only thing that mattered in the world. Never in her life had Tella felt a question with so much power. Though Jacks looked almost powerless as he asked it. He was a mess of gold hair, sea-salt blue eyes, and bitten lips, beautiful in a way only broken things could be, and Tella wanted him exactly how he was. She wanted him fractured and chaotic and completely untamable. The feeling was as consuming as what she felt from him whenever he kissed her—as if it would never be enough, even if she gave him everything.
“You are the only thing I want right now.”
A ghost of Jacks’s smile returned, and yet it looked so much more real than every other smile he’d given her. He looked happy. Despite the death and the wreckage and the smoke in the air, he glowed in a way she’d never seen him glow before. “You’re all I want as well. But we need to leave right now or someone might try to stop us from being together.” He released her shoulder to capture her hand.
He roughly pulled her through the disastrous throne room as if their lives depended on leaving. Jacks stormed past Jester Mad’s abandoned stage, spilled puddles of wine, and a mirror that looked as if it had a person trapped inside. He barely stopped to open the massive doors that led to the sparkling glass courtyard.
Night had taken over and winking stars reigned from above, reflecting on the glassy ground as—
“Tella!” Legend’s voice cut through the night, loud enough to startle the sky and tie her stomach into a knot.
Tella closed her eyes, as if she could undo the effect Legend had on her. She didn’t want him anymore. She couldn’t even look at him when he’d been in the cage; one glance at him and feelings she didn’t even know she possessed had erupted. She hated Legend. She hated everything about him. But somehow the low sound of his voice still tangled her up.
“Don’t stop.” Jacks jerked her hand so she was flush against him once more. She willed her feet to run with him. To go wherever Jacks went. He was the boy she wanted to follow to the ends of the earth. But her body was betraying her to Legend, again. Her legs wouldn’t move, and her toes had dug into her slippers, as if begging for purchase against the ground.
Jacks yanked harder on her hand, his icy grip tightening around her fingers. But Tella couldn’t even look away as Legend approached.
He looked like the ending of a doomed love story. His dark clothes were ripped, there were fresh burns on his chest, and eyes that had once been full of stars were desolate, black with desperate gray cracks, and painful red lines snaking through the whites.
Her throat went tight. It shouldn’t have hurt her. She hated him—she hated him for all those months he’d played with her heart. Even now he still held a piece of it. He’d always hold a piece of it, said a tiny voice inside of her. But Tella ignored the voice. She wanted to take her heart back and give it fully to Jacks.
“Why can’t you leave us alone?” she cried. “Haven’t you tormented me enough?”
Legend’s eyes met hers, wide and pleading.
But Tella was done giving in to him.
“Undo whatever you’ve done to her!” Legend roared at Jacks.
“He hasn’t done anything,” Tella said. “You’re the one who keeps hurting me!”
“I think that’s her way of asking you to leave.” Jacks smirked and gave Tella’s hand a gentle squeeze. He no longer held her as tight—he knew that she belonged to him.
“Tella, listen to me,” Legend begged. “You can fight what he’s done to you.”
“The only one I want to fight is you!” She pulled free from Jacks, prepared to finally shove Legend away forever. But as soon as she let go of him, Jacks vanished and the world shifted. Magic filled the air, thick and sweet. The glass courtyard beneath