Evangeline flashed back to the words he’d spoken silently, shortly after he’d first stepped into the room. “You—tried to tell me that I was happy to see you.”
Jacks didn’t answer, but the brutal way he looked down at her made her suspect that she should not have been able to hear his words.
“Something unnatural is amplifying your feelings,” he said gruffly. “There’s another Fate who cries poisoned tears with the power to kill someone by breaking her heart. I think someone has poisoned you with those tears, and if we don’t get you the cure soon, you’ll cry yourself to death.”
Evangeline wanted to keep arguing. Just because his powers didn’t work on her didn’t mean she was poisoned. She was hurting—her husband had died before her eyes. But before she could speak, she was hit by a new wave of uncontrollable sobs, and they did feel like poison. She’d never cried so hard in her life.
Her body felt as if it were being weighed down with every sorrow she’d ever had. Each tear burned as it streaked her cheeks. And she remembered the taste of the salty wine she’d almost spit out. Was that how she’d been poisoned? Could the wine be what had killed Apollo as well? He hadn’t cried, but the last look on his face had been one of utter heartbreak.
Jacks finally dropped Evangeline’s ankle. Then he finished slicing off the other ropes before he slid an arm under her shoulder to help her to her feet.
“Let me go!” She tried to pull away. Even if Jacks hadn’t killed Apollo, Evangeline wanted nothing to do with Jacks’s cold hands, or his cold arms, or the rock-solid ice that was his chest. But her legs were about as strong as limp thread, and she found herself leaning into him instead of fighting.
He went rigid as if she’d pressed a knife to his side rather than her body. And then he picked her up and slung her over his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” she squeaked between sobs. Even as a savior, he was still wretched.
“You can barely stand, and we need to move quickly if we want to get out of here.”
“Can’t you”—she tried to wriggle free, but his arm was like iron as it kept her bent over his shoulder—“just magic everyone we pass?”
“My magic doesn’t work the same in the North as it would elsewhere,” he gritted out.
In other words, no. His power to control people’s emotions had a limit. She combed her frantic thoughts, recalling the moment his magic had ceased working on the Fortuna matriarch. Evangeline thought she’d broken the spell with her question about the stones. But it must have been Jacks’s control that had slipped. He’d probably needed a great deal of power to make Apollo love her so intensely, and there hadn’t been enough magic left to manage the matriarch for long.
Perhaps Jacks could only control a few people at once. Otherwise, she imagined he’d have been using his magic on everyone. Tonight, he’d manipulated two guards, and then he’d been upset when he couldn’t control her. So he could at least command three, but perhaps not more.
Jacks ripped the cape from his shoulders and covered Evangeline with it. She didn’t see anything as he carried her out of Wolf Hall or set her in a waiting sled that felt like the coldest part of the night.
“We’re almost there” were the only words he said during the journey, unless she didn’t hear his other words between her unending sobs. They left icicle trails down her cheeks until they started to freeze her eyelids shut.
The sled came to a halt, and Jacks scooped her up into his arms again.
She couldn’t see where they went. Jacks kept her covered with his cloak and pressed her tight against his chest. It was the first time his body had ever felt warm. Evangeline shuddered to think what that said about her.
Months ago, she’d turned to stone, but now she felt as if she were turning to ice as Jacks trudged across what sounded like snow and then began to ascend what felt like an endless flight of stairs. She hoped that he was taking her somewhere warm. Warm would be very good. Although even if Jacks managed to thaw her eyes open and free her of the poison breaking her apart, it wouldn’t be enough to erase the fact that she was now a fugitive and a widow and an orphan. All she had was a Fate who she didn’t even trust or like—
“Do not start giving up,” Jacks growled. “Giving in to the poison makes it work faster.” His words were followed by a swift knock on a door. Then another and another and another—
The door finally groaned open.
“Jacks?” The voice was feminine and slightly familiar. “What in Fate’s name—”