At least he wasn’t laughing. Evangeline didn’t think she could have borne it if he’d teased her for letting him get so close or for gasping as he’d licked her neck.
Her cheeks were suddenly burning, and she was grateful he didn’t look at her when he bent down to grab his dagger.
She took a moment to turn, smooth her hair, and take a deep breath, inhaling the cool, crisp morning instead of him.
“Here.” Jacks’s voice was right behind her. And then she felt her ruffled cloak. He placed it across her shoulders and quickly secured the straps to her corset. “If you freeze to death, the trouble I’ve gone to keeping you alive will be wasted.” His mocking tone was back, clipped and cutting, and yet she felt the soft brush of his fingertips lingering against her neck before he pulled away.
Evangeline tried not to react. She wasn’t even sure he realized he’d done it. When she spun to face him again, he was back to being indifferent as he strode toward the mausoleum exit.
She started to follow, when she saw it, glittering against the ground. The dagger he’d tossed at her last night. The one with all the broken gems. He’d picked up her cloak, but he’d left the little knife. “Wait—”
Jacks looked at her over his shoulder.
She picked up the blade and held it out.
A ghost of a frown turned down his mouth. She couldn’t read the look in his eyes, but his tone was brusque. “Leave it.”
He disappeared through the door without another glance.
Evangeline closed her hand around the dagger’s jeweled hilt.
She was going to keep it, but she didn’t let herself wonder why.
* * *
A layer of icy dew covered the cemetery grounds, and an army of tiny dragons covered the tops of the tombstones, snoring little sparks that tempered the air from frosty to chilled.
Jacks scrubbed a hand over his face. There were bruising circles beneath his eyes that hadn’t been there before. “We need to get somewhere safe,” he said.
“What if we went back to Wolf Hall?” she suggested.
He gave her a look that could have withered a forest. “Do you want to be locked up in a dungeon?”
“You didn’t let me finish. I’ve been thinking about what Chaos told us. If Apollo was actually killed by this malefic oil and not LaLa’s tears, then the witch who bought the oil from Chaos and poisoned Apollo with it might have been my stepsister.”
Jacks narrowed his eyes—or were they drooping? He really did look exhausted. She was weary, too, but it was piled deep beneath a number of far more urgent feelings and needs like figuring out who had killed Apollo.
After Luc’s revelation, Evangeline was becoming more inclined to think that the murderer was her stepsister. But did she only think this because Luc had said that Marisol had cursed him, or was it because Marisol was actually guilty?
“I’m not entirely sure why Marisol would have wanted to poison Apollo,” Evangeline admitted, “but I keep wondering about that spell book she bought. I was thinking we could sneak back into Wolf Hall, and you could use your powers on her to compel her to tell us the truth.”
“Even if I thought this was a good idea, which I don’t, I couldn’t help youuu…” Jacks trailed off, slurring his words at the end.
“Are you all right?” Evangeline asked.
He met her gaze and yawned. “I—I—” He struggled briefly before pausing to rub his eyes. “I’m fine. Just tired from—” He swayed on his feet.
“Jacks.” She reached out a hand to steady him.
He flinched away. “I’m fi—ne,” he repeated, but even those words were marred by a yawn.
“You’re falling asleep on your feet.”
“I don’t—” Jacks yawned again, mouth stretching wide as his eyes fell all the way shut.
“Jacks!” She quickly shook him awake.
He blinked at her, fuzzy-eyed, as if he were intoxicated. Nothing about him was sharp. He was all soft around the edges, with his tousled golden hair and his drowsy blue eyes. It might have been amusing under other circumstances—and it was a little comical now. She pictured it as a scandal sheet headline. THE PRINCE OF HEARTS SLAYED BY SLEEP! DISPATCHED BY A NAP! DESTROYED BY DREAMING!
But this fatigue did not seem natural. “Jacks, I think there’s something wrong with you.”
“That’s not anything new.” He gave her a slow, impish smile. “I just need to … find a bed.”
He staggered from her to the closest cemetery plot, as if it would suffice.