“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.