Oh, how she wanted to believe.
Inside the gleaming glass-like walls, guests were given shining silver goblets of mulled wine and individual forest-green cakes that tasted like luck and love. Instead of musicians, a grand music box opened and life-size clockwork players stepped out to perform an endless stream of ethereal sounds. The notes were like threads of gossamer and tails on kites, springy and enchanting in a way that made Evangeline think of warning fables of boys and girls so bewitched with magic songs that they danced until they died.
Apollo downed the contents of a goblet in one draft before turning his attention to the chattering crowd of courtiers and Northern nobles. “Thank you all for being here to celebrate the greatest day of my life. I didn’t actually have a wish to be married until meeting my beloved Evangeline Fox. In honor of my bride, you’ll notice there are ghost foxes here.” He waved his empty goblet toward a merry fox made of smoke perched atop an ice sculpture of a stag. “These are special creatures. Charm one and you’ll receive a gift, so that you may find love, too.”
“To love and to foxes!” cheered the crowd, voices echoing against the sparkling ice.
Evangeline took a drink from her goblet, but she could barely swallow. Her throat was too tight with so many fears lodged in it as she waited for Apollo to fall out of love with her.
Why wasn’t he falling out of love?
She didn’t want him to stop loving her, but this waiting felt like torture as well.
Apollo graced her with a dreamy smile as a slower song drifted from the clockwork players and floated across the glistening ice. “Are you ready to finally have our first dance?”
Evangeline managed to nod as her eyes darted over his broad shoulders to search for Jacks’s face among the crowd. What was he waiting for?
Was Jacks’s magic broken? Had he forgotten? Was he even at the wedding?
Evangeline forced herself to keep dancing, to keep smiling. But the wings at her back grew heavier with every twist and twirl. Jacks didn’t appear to be in the crowd. He wasn’t there to fix Apollo. Unless …
What if Jacks wasn’t there because the spell had already broken? And maybe it didn’t feel as if it had broken because Apollo had actually come to love her. It was probably too much to hope for, but Evangeline had always had a weakness for hoping in things others thought impossible.
She dared to meet her husband’s eyes. In the past few days, she’d seen stars shine in his gaze and infatuation cloud his vision. But right now, Apollo’s eyes were just eyes. Brown and warm and steady.
“How do you feel?” she asked. “Do you feel any differently from this morning?”
“Of course, my heart. I’m married to you.” He pulled her closer, the hand at her waist sliding under her wings as it traveled up her spine, sending fresh shivers over her skin. “I feel the confidence of a hundred kings and the passion of a thousand princes. I could do battle with Wolfric Valor tonight and come out victorious.”
His gaze might have smoldered then.
Undoubtedly still enchanted.
But, like last night, it didn’t feel quite so terrible. Wasn’t this the way that a groom was supposed to look at his bride right after their wedding? She knew Apollo was still under a curse, but Evangeline hoped that he was also starting to fall a little in love with her.
He twirled her around the floor once more, and Evangeline didn’t look for Jacks. She would look for him again, but not yet. Not now. Not during her first dance. She would just enjoy this one moment. Then she’d find Jacks and get him to break the spell.
Apollo brushed his lips to Evangeline’s temple.
Excited murmurs ebbed their way through the crowd. It sounded like a moving smile, like joy and bubbles. And then. Hush.
A wave of quiet moved across the glittering ice castle.
Evangeline looked away from her groom, expecting that Jacks had finally arrived. But everyone was staring at another young man dressed in a striped green doublet.
He wasn’t particularly tall, and his build was rather slight, but he glided through the crush like a person in possession of power, shoulders straight, head tipped high, eyes daring anyone to tell him not to interrupt the bride and groom’s first dance.
Evangeline watched whispers die on lips and jaws of shocked faces hang open. By the time this young man reached Evangeline and Apollo, the entire ballroom was silent, save for the odd chime of music box instruments and the soft pitter-patter of ghostly fox feet.
“Hello, brother,” the stranger said, his voice soft and a little damaged as if it had been recently lost and only just recovered.