She was alive again!
“Welcome back.” A solid arm wrapped around Evangeline’s waist as her wobbly legs adjusted to being muscle and bone.
Her vision came into focus next.
Perhaps it was just that she hadn’t seen a face in a while, but the young man who’d wrapped an arm around her was extraordinarily handsome—dark brown skin, eyes fringed in a thick rim of lashes, a smile that hinted at an arsenal of charm. His shoulders were cloaked in a dramatic green cape lined in copper leaves as dazzling as his face. “Can you speak?” he asked.
“Why—” Evangeline coughed to clear some gravel from her throat. “Why do you look like a forest mage?”
She cringed as soon as the words were out. Clearly some of her senses—like the filter on her mouth—weren’t doing their job yet. This stranger had saved her. She hoped she hadn’t offended him.
Thankfully, the man’s brilliant smile widened. “Excellent. Sometimes the voice doesn’t return immediately. Now tell me your full name, darling. I need to make sure you have your memory before I let you go.”
“Go where?” Evangeline tried to take in the rest of her surroundings. She seemed to be in a laboratory. Every worktable and apothecary shelf was littered with bubbling beakers or foaming cauldrons that filled the air with something like resin. This wasn’t her mother’s garden. The only familiar thing in the room was the Meridian Empire’s royal crest painted on one of the stone walls. “Where are we? And how long was I a statue?”
“Only about six weeks. I’m the palace potion master, and you’re in my most excellent lab. But you can leave as soon as you tell me your name.”
Evangeline took a moment to collect her thoughts. Six weeks meant they were in the middle of the Hot Season. Not too devastating a loss. It could have been six years, or sixty.
But if it had only been six weeks, why was no one there to greet her? She knew her stepmother didn’t care for her, and she wasn’t very close to her stepsister, but she had saved their lives. And Luc … but she didn’t want to imagine why Luc wasn’t there. Could it be none of them knew she had been revived? “I’m Evangeline Fox.”
“You may call me Poison.” The potion master’s arm left her waist to make a magnanimous gesture.
And Evangeline immediately knew who this young man was. She should have realized it right away. He looked remarkably like his fortune-telling card from Decks of Destiny. He wore a long flowing cape, jeweled rings on all his fingers, and clearly worked with potions. Poison was the Poisoner. A Fate, just like Jacks.
“I thought all of the Fates had disappeared,” Evangeline blurted.
“We recently made a grand return, but that’s not what this story is about.” Poison’s face drew eerily still, warning her this was not a subject he wanted to discuss.
Evangeline might have still been groggy, but she knew better than to push, despite all the questions this revelation prompted. Poison’s reputation wasn’t as deadly as Jacks’s. According to the myths, he didn’t usually hurt anyone directly, but he created toxic tonics, peculiar potions, and strange serums for others, who sometimes put them to terrible use.
Evangeline peered at the goblet still in her hands.
Poison
Do Not Drink Me
“Mind if I take that?” With one jeweled hand, Poison extracted the cup.
Evangeline took a wary step back. “Why am I here? Did Jacks ask you to help me?”
Poison laughed, turning his expression friendly once again. “I’m sorry, darling, but Jacks has probably forgotten all about you. He found some trouble during the weeks you were stone. I can assure you he won’t be returning to Valenda.”
Evangeline knew she shouldn’t be curious. After her last encounter with Jacks, she didn’t want to ever see him again and give him a chance to collect on the debt she owed him. But Jacks didn’t seem like the sort to run away. He couldn’t be killed—unless that part of his history wasn’t true and Fates weren’t entirely immortal?
“What type of trouble did Jacks get into?” she asked.
Poison squeezed her shoulder in a way that made Evangeline think the word trouble was putting whatever happened with Jacks mildly. “If you have any sense of self-preservation, you’ll forget about him.”
“Don’t worry,” Evangeline said. “I have no desire to see Jacks ever again.”
Poison raised a skeptical brow. “You may say that, but once you step through the door to our domain, it’s nearly impossible to return to the ordinary. Most of us have fled this city, so you probably won’t run into any other Fates by chance. But now that you’ve gotten a taste of our world, your life will start to feel bland. You’ll be drawn to our kind. Even if you never want to see Jacks again, you’ll gravitate toward him until you fulfill the deal you’ve made with him. But if you desire a chance at happiness, fight the pull—Jacks will only lead to your destruction.”