Caraval

Ready to play the game without Julian, Scarlett chases after Dante into the cold night air. Dante crosses a covered bridge and Scarlett finds herself at another dead end. The only thing nearby is a little boy with a monkey on his shoulder stationed at a cider cart. The boy offers her some cider that will help her see things more clearly. Scarlett refuses and asks if he’s seen Dante. The boy recalls him buying some cider the previous night.

Scarlett searches for Dante again in the crowd and catches sight of him heading up a flight of stairs. She follows him and crosses a bridge, and once again finds herself at another dead end with the same boy, monkey, and cider cart. Scarlett is confused, and the boy tells her he hasn’t moved, but the bridge moves. This time, Scarlett buys cider by telling the boy the last lie she told, the clue she offered the patrons in the tavern. The boy is disappointed the lie isn’t juicer but gives her the cider anyway. Scarlett drinks it and starts to feel strange. Suddenly, the world shifts to black and white, which is hugely disruptive for Scarlett, who sees all her emotions in color.

Aiko finds Scarlett and asks if everything is okay. Scarlett tells Aiko she just made a huge mistake in drinking the cider, and Aiko directs her to “make it into something better” (190). Then, she realizes everything isn’t black and white. Most things are, but some things, like Aiko’s journal, are in color. This aligns with the fourth clue: Scarlett sacrificed something valuable (seeing the world in color) for clarity.

Scarlett asks to see Aiko’s notebook, but she closes it. Just like everyone else who looks at Aiko’s notebook, Scarlett will have to give her something. Scarlett asks what she wants, and Aiko is annoyed by Scarlett’s obsession with cost. Aiko heads down the road towards a carousel where a man stands before a pipe organ. Aiko donates money for a pretty song, and the organist plays a sad song that causes the carousel to spin, rose petals flying everywhere. The roses are red, and Scarlett isn’t sure if the cider’s effect is wearing off or if the roses are important.

Still in black and white, a man with an eyepatch walks by, but his cravat is crimson. He’s handsome, and Scarlett feels drawn to follow him but feels equally drawn to Aiko’s notebook. The carousel accelerates as the pipe organist’s song goes faster, and the rose petals turn to blood. The people watching in the street clap at the performance. Scarlett doesn’t understand it and looks back in the direction of the young man with the crimson cravat. Scarlett only has moments to decide which lead she wants to chase before she loses sight of him. Aiko gives Scarlett a sneak preview of her journal, which contains pictures of her and Julian from the night they arrived on the island, barely clothed and soaking wet. Aiko tells Scarlett that the whole history of Caraval is in her journal and that this particular game revolves around Scarlett. To see more of the notebook, Scarlett must buy two dresses.

Scarlett agrees, and they browse dresses in the shop. Scarlett picks two. To purchase them, she either has to pay the prices on the tag or days of her life. Scarlett opts to pay the prices on the tag, which are merely truths about herself. As directed by the shopgirl, Scarlett places her fingers on a brass scale. The first truth Scarlett must give is her greatest fear, which Scarlett says is that “something bad will happen to [her] sister, and [she] won’t be able to protect her” (200). The scale creaks and balances itself, which confirms Scarlett is telling the truth.

Next, Scarlett must tell the shopgirl her greatest desire. Scarlett answers that her greatest desire is to find Tella, but the scale shakes. She’s not being honest. Scarlett insists something is wrong with the scale. The shopgirl lets her try again, and Scarlett repeats her desire to find her sister, but even after saying it a third time, the scale doesn’t move. The shopgirl states the scale doesn’t lie and collects payment from Scarlett in the form of two days of her life. The shopgirl has Scarlett cut her finger with a little sword and let three drops of blood fall on the scale. Suddenly, she feels light-headed. There are only two days until her wedding. She can’t die now. Aiko helps her out and tells her she needs to get back to the inn. Aiko promises she’ll find Scarlett in her dreams and show her the journal. Scarlett staggers forward, and Aiko ushers her to get back to the hotel before she dies because whatever harm befalls her body in public is permanent.

Scarlett is in a daze as she feels her life force leave her body and tries to make her way back to the hotel before the effects of her deal fully set in. A “uselessly pretty” young man takes Scarlett’s arm and helps her back to the hotel, and though she’s so out of it she can’t place him at first, she can sense that whoever is helping her doesn’t like her because he’s being rough with her. She tries to get away, but he won’t let go. He drags her into the hotel, and she realizes it’s Dante. She desperately begs him to take her back to her room, but Dante insists they need to talk and corners her in the stairwell. Scarlett apologizes for lying to him, but that’s not the real reason why he’s upset. He wants Scarlett’s help because his sister went missing, and he knows she understands what that feels like. Scarlett is in such a bad way from the deal she made that she can’t help him now, but she offers to meet him in the tavern after she’s slept. Dante knows she’s dying for two days and starts yelling at her because he needs her help now.

Out of nowhere, Julian smacks Dante and knocks him down the stairs away from Scarlett. He yells at Dante and tells him to stay away from her before he helps Scarlett back to their room. When Julian learns that Scarlett gave up two days of her life, he blames himself. He won’t tell Scarlett where he was, but he wants to give her a day of his life, so they still have a chance in the game. They each trade drops of blood and place them on each other’s lips, so now, they will each die for one day and wake up together on the second to last day of the game. This moment is intimate, and Scarlett thinks she is in love with him. Though Scarlett feels herself slipping away even more, Julian assures her she’ll be fine and kisses her neck before she dies.

When Scarlett dies, she sees nothing but the color purple, a color she associates with death. As her vision in her dream comes into focus, Scarlett sees Tella sitting in a purple chair. Tella opens Aiko’s journal, and the images suck Scarlett inside. Tella joins her in Aiko’s journal. Scarlett asks Tella where she is, but Tella is playful as always and says telling Scarlett would be cheating.

Tella leaves when the scene before them focuses on their grandparents in a moment of passion. Their grandfather calls their nana Annalise, and Scarlett thinks the name sounds familiar. Before Scarlett can place why, mourning bells sound out. Black rose petals fill the street where a funeral procession is taking place. Scarlett recognizes it as the funeral for the woman who died during Caraval. She overhears the crowd talking and realizes the woman’s name was Rosa. Tella reappears next to Scarlett and tells Scarlett that when she dies, she wants everyone to wear brighter colors. Scarlett panics and asks Tella if she’s going to die, but Tella vanishes before she can answer.

Scarlett is left alone in the midst of the tragic scene as the crowd swaps rumors about how Legend manipulated Rosa and pushed her into dying by suicide by toying with her feelings for him. Rosa was engaged, and her fiancé won the game. She called off the wedding because she had such strong feelings for Legend, but Legend said she’d gotten too carried away with the game. She jumped out the window, and Legend didn’t try to stop her. In fact, observers seemed to think he enjoyed it, and her fiancé still mutters her name in his sleep to this day.

Scarlett recognizes the man at the end of the funeral procession, Rosa’s fiancé, as Dante. Scarlett realizes his objective in the game: He wants the wish to bring Rosa back to life. Scarlett catches sight of a top hat in the crowd and knows without a doubt it’s Legend. Even in her dreams, his face has never been clear to her, but this time, he turns around, his face totally unobscured and emotionless: Julian.