A muscle jumped in his jaw. The color deepened in his eyes. For a fraction of a second, he looked murderous.
Then suddenly, without warning, Jacks tossed her his apple and his expression cleared. “You should bring a snack, it’s going to be a long night.”
The pink fruit landed gently in Evangeline’s hands. It was heavier than an apple should have been. But before she could puzzle that out or consider what had just happened with Jacks, her thoughts shifted their course as she noticed the title of the pink book in his hands. Recipes of the Ancient North: Translated for the First Time in Five Hundred Years.
It was the same volume that had been on Marisol’s nightstand. Evangeline didn’t know how she managed to recall the title. She’d only seen the book once, and it had been over a week ago. She shouldn’t have remembered it so well. But she should have remembered her stepsister before now.
“I forgot about Marisol!”
“Who’s Marisol?” asked LaLa.
“Her stepsister, but I don’t understand why we’re talking about her now,” Jacks said.
Evangeline nodded to the book in his hands. “That volume was on Marisol’s nightstand, and it made me realize how defenseless she is. She’s at Wolf Hall, unless the royal soldiers have taken her somewhere else for questioning about me.”
Jacks laughed. Because, of course, the idea of someone in danger was amusing to him. “I don’t think you need to worry about your stepsister.”
“She doesn’t have anyone here besides me. If the soldiers have taken her—”
“Your stepsister can take care of herself,” Jacks said, “especially if she was reading this book.”
“Are you certain she had that book?” LaLa worried her lip between her teeth as her eyes darted to the volume in question.
Nothing could have looked more innocuous. The fabric on the cover was pretty pink with lovely foil titling. It looked like the sort of tome one would wrap in a bow and give as a gift, but LaLa eyed it as if it would jump from Jacks’s hands and cross the room to attack her.
“Why are you looking at that book as if it’s dangerous?”
“Because it is,” Jacks said.
“It’s a very nasty spell book,” LaLa explained. “After the Valors were killed, most magic was banned in the North. So those who still wanted to traffic in it changed the names of their spell books. It’s much easier to get away with buying or possessing books of forbidden arts when no one knows what they are.”
“Marisol must have bought it by mistake. She’s terrified of magic, and she loves baking.”
“You don’t pick that book up by mistake,” Jacks said. “No reputable bookshop would carry it.”
“Then Marisol stumbled into another kind of store accidentally,” Evangeline argued. She’d doubted her stepsister before, and she was determined not to do it again.
Evangeline knew that Kristof Knightlinger had accused Marisol of visiting several high-tiered spell shops to turn Evangeline back to stone. But Evangeline wasn’t stone. And she wasn’t dead. Someone might have tried to poison her last night, but she couldn’t believe it was Marisol. Marisol wasn’t a killer, and if Marisol had really wanted to murder her, she’d had plenty of opportunities.
Evangeline looked at LaLa, who tugged at the sequins on her sleeve, a little embarrassed at having the book in her possession. “What types of spells are in there? Does it have a recipe for the poison I consumed?”
“No. There are no spells that can mimic my tears.”
Evangeline felt a bright surge of relief. It couldn’t have been Marisol, then.
“However,” LaLa added, “if your stepsister is reading that book, I would agree with Jacks. She is far from helpless, and she’s probably up to something.”
“But you own it, too, and, Jacks—you were reading it!”
“Which proves her point.” Jacks shrugged.
“We’re not saying your stepsister killed Apollo and poisoned you,” LaLa said, “but she might not be who you think she is.”
“She’s definitely not who you think she is,” Jacks muttered. “But if you want to really find out if she’s involved in this murder or if it’s someone else, we need to leave now and talk to Chaos.”
39
It looked like the sort of night that one would plan on meeting a vampire. Everything was damp mist and white snow and wan light from a moon lost somewhere in the silver fog. Luckier people were probably telling stories before warm fires or tucked away in blanketed beds, not freezing as they crossed a rickety bridge and reached an isolated cemetery where dogs howled like wolves and a vampire lord hid his underground court.