* * *
Evangeline dropped the paper.
It was tempting to close her eyes and curl into a ball as soon as she finished reading. The words about Apollo looked so cold in print, and they made all of it seem even more final. Apollo was dead, and she was never going to see him again. She was never going to have a chance to make things right or start over as she’d planned. Yesterday around this time, they’d exchanged their wedding vows. Apollo had said he’d happily bleed for her, and now she couldn’t help but fear that he’d actually died for her.
She knew his death wasn’t her fault, but she felt responsible, as if Apollo might have been strong enough to fight the poison in him if she hadn’t just shattered his heart by breaking Jacks’s spell on him.
I’m so sorry, Apollo.
Her chest tightened and her eyes burned, but it seemed that she’d shed all her tears last night or she might have started crying again.
With a dry sniffle, she looked back at the cold black-and-white paper that she’d dropped. This time, the words murderess and seductress were the ones that jumped out.
She hoped that people didn’t believe it. But if she continued to stay with Jacks, they most likely would.
“Thank you both for saving me, but I need to return to Wolf Hall and tell Tiberius what really happened. As long as there’s a chance that people think I did this, they may never find who actually poisoned Apollo.”
“Are you mad?” Jacks twisted her around on his lap and glared. “You cannot go back to Wolf Hall. I guarantee you, Tiberius Acadian is not searching for you because he’s worried about you. He wants to find you so that he can blame the murder on you, which shouldn’t be difficult. I doubt Apollo’s body was even cold before I first heard that you’d been arguing in the wedding suite right before he was found dead.”
“I hate to say it, but he’s right,” LaLa chimed, picking up a cup of tea from a low table laden with a great deal of food and several empty bottles of Fortuna’s Fantastically Flavored Water. “You make an excellent murder suspect. Orphan, turned savior, turned bride, turned killer—I’m actually surprised that wasn’t Kristof’s headline today.”
“It will probably be tomorrow,” said Jacks.
“But I didn’t kill him. There should be proof that someone else did—maybe it was one of the other girls who’d wished to marry him.” Evangeline started to stand.
Jacks’s arms tightened around her waist, keeping her captive on his lap. “Tiberius and his guards won’t care about proof once they have you. For all you know, Tiberius poisoned you and his brother so he could take the throne. All he needs is a wife, and then he’s king.”
“I don’t think he did this,” Evangeline argued. She knew the brothers had their differences, and now that Apollo was dead, Tiberius was heir to the throne. But yesterday, she’d really had the impression that Tiberius truly cared about Apollo. And the alternative to trusting Tiberius was trusting Jacks.
“You’d be a fool to put your life in Tiberius’s hands,” said Jacks. “The only way to clear your name is to find who really did this. I’m your best option for that.”
“You expect me to believe that you care about who the real killer is?”
Jacks’s mouth turned sullen. “I’m being accused of this crime as well.”
“I’m fully aware of that, Jacks, but I also know that the Prince of Hearts has been associated with murders long before Apollo died last night.”
Jacks didn’t immediately reply, but Evangeline felt his hand against her back, fisting the fabric of her ruined wedding gown and betraying more of his growing frustration. “What other choice do you have but to trust me?”
“I can search on my own!” But even as she said it, Evangeline knew she wouldn’t get far without help.
Yet trusting Jacks was a horrid idea. Jacks kept his word, but he also did terrible things like having people turned into stone statues. And Evangeline knew Jacks had only offered to help her because he believed she was the peasant turned princess in the Valory Arch prophecy, which would surely lead her into more trouble. She wondered if this prophecy also might have had something to do with Apollo’s death. Was it just a coincidence that her prince died on the night she became the prophecy’s princess? She wanted to ask Jacks more about it. But Evangeline didn’t feel it was wise to bring up anything related to the Valory Arch in front of LaLa in case it incited a violent reaction.