Evangeline believed in love at first sight, she believed in love like her parents’， love like a story. It was the love she’d come to the North hoping to find. But Apollo’s actions and feelings were so extreme, they didn’t feel like love. They felt more like an obsession—hungry and outrageous, and if she were being entirely honest, a little unsettling. Like the work of a spell or a curse—or a Fate.
Like Jacks.
When Apollo had proposed, Evangeline had been so quick to think that Jacks wouldn’t want this marriage. But now she couldn’t help but wonder: Was Jacks the reason for this engagement? What if the blood Jacks had painted on her lips had infused her kiss with magic that made Apollo fall in love with her?
She didn’t want to think it. She didn’t want to think about Jacks at all. But if Jacks had done something to Apollo, it would explain Apollo’s over-the-top behavior.
Why, though?
Evangeline couldn’t figure out any reason why Jacks would want her and Apollo to wed, which gave her hope that her theory was wrong and that Apollo really was experiencing a dramatic love at first sight.
She wanted so badly to believe that they were going to have a fairytale love story. She wanted it all to be real. She didn’t want to go back to Agnes’s house or return to Valenda, where the best part of her day was when a bell rang outside of a bookstore door.
And then there was Marisol. Her stepsister might have started here on rocky footing, but Apollo had made it so the papers wouldn’t say another bad word about her, and if Evangeline married Apollo, she’d be able to do even more for Marisol.
But if Apollo was under a spell from Jacks, none of that mattered, and none of this was real.
Evangeline slowly rolled up the gossip sheet, knowing what she had to do, but dreading it all the same.
She didn’t want to see Jacks again. But if he had done this to Apollo, then she needed to convince him to undo it.
Evangeline doubted that the Prince of Hearts would lift a curse from Apollo out of the goodness of his heart, since all the stories said Jacks’s heart didn’t even beat. But Evangeline didn’t need to rely on Jacks’s goodness. If Jacks wanted her to marry the prince, that gave her leverage, and she planned to use it to get Jacks to fix Prince Apollo, and then to find out exactly what Jacks wanted.
Dear Jacks,
I was hoping you and I might have a chance to speak about an important matter that requires your immediate assistance. If you are not otherwise engaged, I would be very happy to run into you while I take my morning walk in the wood just outside Wolf Hall tomorrow.
Sincerely,
Evangeline Fox
26
Little Fox,
If you were attempting to write a threatening or persuasive letter, your skills need work. I don’t have time to tromp through the woods with you, but you can meet me at noon tomorrow in Capricorn Alley.
—J
Dear Jacks,
I was only trying to be polite. It’s a shame you’re so used to conniving and deception that you cannot even recognize courtesy. Not all of us rely on manipulation to get what we want.
Sincerely,
Evangeline Fox
Of course Evangeline couldn’t send that message, but it had felt good to write it before sneaking out to meet Jacks on the following day.
She’d been a little worried as to how she’d manage it. After the incendiary scandal sheet article about her safety, Apollo had given her a pair of guards to make sure no one hurt her. But he also gave her absolute freedom to do as she wished, and she used that freedom to gain information about Wolf Hall’s secret passages. There was one conveniently located in her room that she’d used to make her escape.
Evangeline didn’t know if anyone would notice she was gone. But she hoped they wouldn’t track her down to the narrow strip of fog and dark that was Capricorn Alley.
She huddled deeper into her fur-lined cape and rubbed her hands together, wishing she’d worn thicker gloves. Away from all the docks and shops, this alley felt like the sort of place a person would only find if they were lost. Snow had fallen across all of Valorfell overnight, but it seemed to have missed this uninviting spot, leaving its grim gray stones untouched. The only door had a ring of skulls emblazed upon it, which made her think the business done here was not the savory sort.
An unmarked black lacquered coach pulled up.
Her heart kicked out several extra beats. She wasn’t doing anything illicit or wrong. She was trying to do something right, something noble. But her heart must have felt a threat, for it continued to race as the door swung open and she slipped inside the carriage.