Evangeline spun around.
The girl was about her age. Her face was round and her long dark hair was tied back, giving a clear picture of a starburst mark the color of currant wine on her left cheek.
“Who are you?” Evangeline asked.
The girl was dressed as a palace servant in a little cap and a wool gown with a cream apron, although Evangeline wondered if the clothes were borrowed, for they were ill fitting and she’d never seen this girl before. Her birthmark was something Evangeline would have recognized.
“What’s going on?” She reached for Jacks’s dagger, tucked into the belt of her mourning dress. It had been seized from her during her arrest, but it was one of the first things she’d taken back.
The girl held up her hands in a peaceful gesture, revealing a tattoo on the underside of her wrist: a circle of skulls that reminded Evangeline of something that her overtaxed mind couldn’t remember just then. “Havelock and I aren’t here to hurt you. We have something we need to show you.”
Evangeline gripped her knife tighter. “Forgive me for being a little dubious on that front.”
“Prince Apollo is alive,” announced Havelock.
Evangeline shook her head. She believed in a lot of things, but not people coming back from the dead. “I saw him die.”
“You saw him poisoned, but it didn’t kill him.” The girl gave Evangeline a taunting smile. One part triumph, one part dare to argue back.
She was definitely not a servant, and Evangeline wanted to ask exactly who she was, but that didn’t seem like the most vital question. “If Apollo is alive, then where is he?”
“We’ve hidden him to keep him safe.” Havelock stepped forward several paces and threw back a carpet to reveal a trapdoor that opened up to a flight of stairs. “He’s down there.”
Evangeline gave him a skeptical look.
But when Havelock and the girl both took to the stairs, leaving her free to go, Evangeline’s curiosity got the best of her. She decided to follow.
The flight of steps was mostly dark, and her heart beat faster with every one. If Apollo was truly alive, then she was still married. They had a chance at the future she’d just been wondering about. She tried to feel excited. But if Apollo cared about her at all, why had he hidden in the palace as she’d been running for her life?
She could understand if he were still upset from the undoing of Jacks’s spell. But hours ago, his brother had almost killed her. And Evangeline would have definitely died the night of her wedding if it hadn’t been for Jacks. Had Apollo not known these things, or did he think she deserved to die?
As Evangeline neared the lower steps, she still hoped Apollo was alive, but it was a complicated sort of hope. Before, when she’d believed everything was a sign and her trip to the North meant finding her happily ever after, she would have been sure that there was a second chance waiting for her just a few feet away. Now she didn’t know what to expect or even what she wanted. If Apollo gave her another chance, would she take it? Did she want him, or just the happily ever after she’d thought that he could give her?
The last step creaked beneath Evangeline’s slippers. The room beyond was small, with a low wooden ceiling and not nearly enough light. The air was stagnant and a little stale, and almost as soon as she entered, Evangeline wanted to leave.
This was a mistake. Just past Havelock and the girl, Apollo was lying down on his back, but he didn’t look right. He didn’t look alive.
Evangeline almost silently called for Jacks to tell him she was in danger.
But the girl quickly said, “Apollo is in a suspended state. I know he looks dead, but you can touch him.”
“Please,” Havelock added softly. “We’ve been trying to revive him, but we think that you might be the only person who can bring him back.”
Evangeline wasn’t even sure she believed Apollo was actually alive. He lay on the heavy wooden table, as unmoving as a corpse. His eyes were open, but even from the distance, they were flat as pieces of sea glass.
She still wanted to flee. But Havelock and the girl looked so expectant as they watched her—they weren’t trying to hurt her or trap her. If she left, Evangeline would be running away from hope, not danger.
Carefully, she approached the table.
Apollo was still dressed as he’d been on their wedding night, in only a pair of pants. The oil had thankfully been wiped from his chest, leaving just his amber pendant and the tattoo with her name. Gingerly, she touched his arm.
His skin was cooler than a person’s should have been. His body didn’t stir. But when she moved her hand to his chest, after a minute she felt it. Just one barely there beat.
Her heart fluttered as well. He really was alive!
“How did the two of you discover this? And why does no one else know?” Evangeline took another look about the room, which was bare save for the table with Apollo and another small stand containing a water bin and some cloths.
“We didn’t know who we could trust,” Havelock said. “I was there the night Apollo was poisoned. I was in the room with you after, when you wouldn’t stop crying. It haunted me, made me think you might not be guilty. I knew that you had nothing to gain, unlike his brother. I didn’t want to think Prince Tiberius had tried to kill Apollo. But when Tiberius became engaged almost immediately, a few other soldiers became suspicious as well. We borrowed Apollo’s body from the royal morgue and reached out to Phaedra.”
“Phaedra of the Damned at your service.” The girl flashed another smile that made Evangeline think she should have recognized the name.
“Have you not heard of me?” Phaedra pouted.
“Phaedra, get on with it,” said Havelock. “Someone will notice the princess is gone soon.”
“Fine, fine,” Phaedra huffed. “I’m rather famous in some circles for having special talents. I can steal the secrets that people take to their graves. Havelock here thought that if I paid our prince’s corpse a visit, I might learn some of his secrets, including who killed him. But Apollo didn’t have any secrets. And everyone has secrets, even if it’s just a secret fear of caterpillars or a tiny white lie they told to a neighbor. That’s when we realized Apollo wasn’t dead. Whatever toxin was used on him didn’t kill him, it put him in this suspended state.”
“What’s a suspended state?” Evangeline asked.
“It pauses life,” Phaedra said. “Unless he’s revived, Prince Apollo could stay like this for centuries without aging. There aren’t a lot of stories about it. It’s believed Honora Valor used to use it as part of her healing—for people who she couldn’t help immediately. Unfortunately, no one knows how she did it or how to wake someone up from it. The practice of it was believed to have been lost with her death. But we thought you might be able to help.” Phaedra looked up at Evangeline the same way people had looked at her right after she’d returned from being stone, as if she were the hero the papers all claimed.
Evangeline felt more worn-out than heroic, but for the first time, she no longer felt the need to deny all the stories about her. What she’d done that day in Valenda had been courageous. Luc really had been under a spell, and she’d stopped him from marrying the girl who had cast it. Then Evangeline had turned herself to stone to save him and the rest of his wedding party. She might have mostly done it because she felt responsible for what had happened to them, but that didn’t mean that what she’d done wasn’t brave. Having faith was brave.
But Evangeline wasn’t sure bravery was enough to save Apollo. What did they think she could do for him?
In some of her mother’s stories, kisses could cure the same way that Jacks’s kiss could kill. But those kisses were almost always ones involving true love.
Of course, those stories were also cursed. So, who knew what was really true?
“I could try to kiss him,” she said.
Phaedra gave her a tentative smile. Havelock nodded soberly.
Evangeline moved her hand to Apollo’s cheek and pressed her lips to his. He tasted like wax and hexes, and he didn’t move or change.
Disappointment twisted inside her. But this was merely her first try. If she couldn’t cure him with a kiss, perhaps she could find another way to heal him. Maybe she could go to Jacks. He had enchanted her kiss before; maybe he could—
Evangeline broke off. She’d forgotten that Jacks had told her that there had never been any magic in her kiss. But what if he knew something? Maybe he could help her.
She almost tried to ask him with her thoughts. But she stopped herself again. She couldn’t repeat the mistakes she’d made with Luc. She couldn’t compromise to save Apollo. If Jacks helped her, he wouldn’t do it for free. Perhaps they weren’t enemies anymore, but she couldn’t forget what he was. At one point, she’d thought Jacks had used her to kill Apollo.
But he hadn’t. Jacks had nothing to gain by killing Apollo, and Tiberius had confessed.
Of course, during his confession, Tiberius had also said that the poison he’d used—LaLa’s tears—was only supposed to work on females. And although Jacks had nothing to gain by poisoning Apollo, he did have a great deal to gain by turning Evangeline into a fugitive and making another line of the Valory Arch prophecy come true.
She will be both peasant and princess, a fugitive wrongly accused, and only her willing blood will open the arch.
Evangeline tried again to push the thought away. She was being paranoid. Jacks hadn’t done this to Apollo for the prophecy. Tiberius had confessed.
But what if Tiberius’s poison really had only affected her? After Evangeline had kissed him, Apollo hadn’t sobbed the uncontrollable way she had from drinking the tainted wine. What if Tiberius had poisoned Evangeline, but it was actually Jacks who had done this to Apollo to turn Evangeline into a fugitive wrongly accused?
Jacks had said there hadn’t been magic in her kisses, but what if there had been magic in his blood? The first two times she’d tasted Jacks’s blood, it had been sweet. But on the day of her wedding, right before she’d kissed Apollo, Jacks’s blood had been bitter. It had scared away the ghost fox. What if it was Jacks’s bitter blood that had done this to Apollo?
Again, she tried to bury the thought. The idea of it all turned her stomach, and yet Evangeline couldn’t let it go. She wanted to hope that Jacks wouldn’t have gone this far. But he was the Prince of Hearts. According to the stories, he’d left a trail of corpses as he’d searched for his one true love. He would definitely go this far if it gave him what he wanted. And he wanted to make that prophecy come true.
But this still didn’t mean her suspicions were right.
Earlier, she’d been convinced Marisol was the killer. But looking back, Evangeline now wondered if Jacks might have been manipulating her about Marisol as well.
In LaLa’s flat, Jacks had just happened to be reading the same spell book that Marisol owned, revealing that Marisol could be a witch. Jacks had then taken Evangeline to Chaos’s underground kingdom, where Chaos made it sound as if a witch had poisoned Apollo. Then Luc had confirmed that Marisol was a witch.
Evangeline had almost been convinced of Marisol’s guilt after that. But it wasn’t until she’d seen the scandal sheet that Jacks had been clutching—the one with Marisol’s wedding announcement—that she’d been certain her stepsister was a killer.
Maybe it was a handful of coincidences, but Marisol made the perfect scapegoat. If Tiberius hadn’t confessed, and instead it had been revealed that Marisol put a love spell on Tiberius, everyone would have been happy to believe that she’d also killed Apollo.
But suddenly Evangeline wasn’t even sure that Marisol had been the one to put a spell on Tiberius. Jacks could have willed it to frame her.
Was anything as she’d originally thought, or was everything Jacks had done just to make the prophecy come true? But if Jacks had done all of this, why had he left Apollo alive?
Havelock cleared his throat, and Phaedra gave Evangeline a curious look, both no doubt wondering why she was staring at Apollo’s unblinking brown eyes. But Evangeline couldn’t look away. She felt too close to figuring everything out.
Phaedra had said Apollo could stay this way for centuries, not aging, not moving, not quite alive but not really dead. Just like Evangeline had been when she’d been turned to stone.
Her stomach dropped.
And in that moment, she knew.
Jacks would know that Evangeline could never leave Apollo in this state. This was why Jacks had left him alive—Apollo was Jacks’s bargaining chip. If Jacks had done this to Apollo, then he could undo it. And Evangeline knew exactly what Jacks would want in exchange for his help. Jacks wanted her willing blood to open the Valory Arch, and she would have bet anything this was how he planned to get it.
He’d poisoned Apollo to manipulate her.
Evangeline didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry.
She knew what Jacks was. She hadn’t been foolish enough to believe that she was different or special and that he wouldn’t destroy her. But maybe she’d believed it a little. She’d clearly believed it enough to spend a night with him inside a crypt. And just an hour ago, she’d been terrified at the thought that Jacks had been trapped in an enchanted sleep. She’d been ready to race to his rescue because she’d also been silly enough to think that something had changed between them that night in the crypt. When he’d told her the story of Donatella, she’d thought she’d understood him. She’d thought he was opening up, that he was just a little human. But she should have listened when he’d told her that he was a Fate and she was nothing but a tool to him.
Jacks no doubt knew that she’d want to save Apollo. But he was deeply mistaken if he thought she’d ever open the Valory Arch for him. Evangeline would find a way to cure Apollo on her own, then she’d make sure that Jacks never hurt anyone else ever again.
Jacks was not her friend, but he’d taught her that she could open any door she wanted, and Evangeline knew exactly which door she needed to open next.
