She glowered at him when his probing gaze traveled from her neck, to her lips, and then—finally—her eyes.
The dungeon suddenly grew very warm. His gaze was still tight and dark, but it was edged in heat that she felt all the way down to her toes.
For months Tella had pondered what it would be like when they met again outside of her dreams. She wondered if he’d touch her at last, if he’d apologize for leaving her on the steps in front of the Temple of the Stars. Once she’d even imagined him asking her to be his empress. She almost laughed at that thought now, but she was wholly serious when she said, “Just because you’re going to be emperor doesn’t mean you can lock me up without reason.”
The corner of his mouth slowly lifted into an arrogant tilt. “Actually, it does. But I didn’t mean for you to be arrested. I only told my guards to collect you and bring you to me once you were found.” His voice was cool, even. Again, another person might not have picked up on the way his sentences turned razor-sharp right at the ends. He was definitely angry, and angry with her.
Tella couldn’t believe it. Her mother was dead. The Fates were awake. Her sister had been kidnapped. His guards had locked her up, and yet Legend kept looking at her as if she was the one who’d done something wrong.
“What crime have I committed?”
“I told you, I didn’t have you arrested. I know how you feel about cages. I was only trying to find you.”
“Did you really have to use your guards?” She tried to keep her voice as even as his was, but it was difficult. She could feel Jacks’s spell cracking. Her chest was tight and her head was pounding. And Legend still hadn’t unlocked her cell door. “If you’d wanted to find me, why didn’t you just visit me in my dreams and ask me where I was?”
A quick clench of his jaw. “I tried to.”
“Then why couldn’t you?” Tella said. Shortly after he’d first showed up in her dreams, he’d taught her how to control parts of them—little tricks to change what she wore and larger tricks in case she didn’t want certain people entering her dreams. But even when she’d been mad at Legend, she’d always let him in. “I wasn’t keeping you out.”
“I know. But something else was.”
Tella didn’t see Legend move—he must have used his magic to hide what he was doing—but suddenly the door between them was open, and Legend was holding something in his hands—two pieces of confetti, one shaped like a spade and the other shaped like a heart.
A sharp memory returned to Tella: Jacks carrying her through his gambling den as card-suit confetti fell from the ceiling. Was this why Legend was mad at her, because she’d been with Jacks?
“Where were you last night, Donatella?”
Again, she hadn’t seen him move, but he was now farther away, leaning against the bars opposite her cell, making it clear that even though they were outside of her dreams, some of the rules hadn’t changed. He was still keeping his distance.
“That’s none of your business,” Tella snapped, “and even if it was, I don’t have time to argue with you about it. I need to find my sister.”
“Tella!” Scarlett’s voice carried down the hall before Tella caught sight of her running forward in a storm of flushed raspberry skirts, bright enough to light up the entire dungeon.
“Where have you been?” Scarlett captured Tella in a hug so tight it cut off Tella’s breath. Or maybe she couldn’t breathe because of the emotions suddenly captured in her throat. Her sister wasn’t dead or injured or kidnapped. She was here and safe and alive. “We’ve been searching the entire city for you and Paloma.”
“I thought something happened to you,” Tella choked out.
“Why would you think that?” Scarlett shot an accusing look at Legend.
He continued to lean against the prison bars, regarding Tella with narrowed eyes. “I didn’t get the chance to tell her you were here.”
“Oh good, you found her.” Julian appeared at the end of the hall, swaggering forward as if the tension in the dungeon wasn’t thick enough to choke on. He was dressed in finer clothes than Tella had ever seen him in, but they looked tired, as if he’d been wearing them since the day before. “Where was she?”