“Oh no—” She grabbed his solid arm and tugged him back toward her. But she didn’t know how long she could keep fighting him. If Jacks actually chose to lie down, she was not strong enough to pick him up. “You can’t sleep here, Jacks.”
“Just for a bit, Little Fox.” His pale eyelids fluttered up and down. “This is probably just a side effect of the venom,” he murmured. “There’s always a cost to unearned power…”
He swayed toward the ground.
She grabbed his shoulders to steady him once again. Side effect or not, they couldn’t stay here. “We need to get somewhere safe, remember? Tell me where you’re living.”
Instead of answering, Jacks pulled away and sagged against a nearby tree covered in posters with her likeness. They seemed to have multiplied overnight, growing like a paper plague. Only now they didn’t simply say she was missing.
EVANGELINE FOX
WANTED
for MURDER
Princess Evangeline Fox, formerly known as Valenda’s Savior Sweetheart, is wanted for the murder of her husband, Crown Prince Apollo Titus Acadian. Believed to be highly dangerous and possibly in possession of magical abilities. If you spot the princess, do not approach her. Contact the Royal Order of Soldiers immediately.
Evangeline didn’t know if she wanted to scream or cry or just let Jacks curl up with her as if she were his blanket. It wasn’t enough that her parents had died, that her first love had been cursed by her stepsister, that she’d been turned to stone, that she’d lost her father’s curiosity shop, and that she’d married a prince who was cursed and then killed—now they were officially blaming her for his murder.
“Jacks, please come back to your senses! I’m no longer missing, I’m wanted for murder.” She shook him until he opened his eyes. But if she’d expected a coherent reply, she would have been disappointed. Jacks’s only response was to rip down the poster and shut his eyes again.
* * *
It was not easy to get Jacks out of the graveyard, and it was even more challenging to find out where he lived. Whenever Evangeline asked about his home, Jacks just kept shaking his golden head and saying, “LaLa’s is closer.”
Unfortunately, either LaLa’s flat had moved during the night or Evangeline was too anxious to be any good with directions. She climbed back to the spires, but she couldn’t find LaLa’s home among the many shops and stacked cottages. It didn’t help that as they scaled the endless steps, Jacks kept slumping against the nearest doors and walls and muttering about apples.
She risked buying a few pieces of fruit from a vendor, but after taking one bite, Jacks dropped it and leaned heavily against her shoulder.
Her heart fluttered at the contact, which was the absolute wrong response.
A woman carrying a load of wash stared at the two of them a little longer than would have been deemed polite, and Evangeline’s panic increased. They needed to find somewhere to hide. They couldn’t keep wandering around like this. Someone would figure out who they were and call the royal soldiers.
The world was waking up with each passing second. The cries of vendors selling papers and clams and morning sea tonics were filling the bustling streets below. She tried to shut out all the noise and concentrate on finding a safe place to hide. But Evangeline kept hearing the sound of a bell, merrily ring-ring-ringing an endless string of tinkling sounds as if to say, Look at me! Look at me!
Evangeline, of course, knew that bells could not speak. But her mother had told her bells had a sixth sense. She’d said to always polish them, always mind what you say in front of them, and always listen to the bells that ring when they shouldn’t.
Evangeline cast about the spire until she saw the cheery iron bell wildly swinging back and forth above a closed black door with a sign that said Go Away.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
The bell didn’t stop until Evangeline briefly left Jacks, approached the door, and knocked.
No one answered.
The bell kept ringing, more furiously.
Evangeline tried the knob.
It didn’t budge. The door was locked, but no one seemed to be inside. Hoping the bell was doing her a favor and showing her a place to hide, Evangeline pulled out Jacks’s dagger and pricked her finger with the tip. “Please, open.”
The knob turned with a gentle click.
Evangeline quickly found Jacks curled up in front of the nearest door, clutching a scandal sheet to his chest like a blanket.
“Come on now.” She crouched down to slip an arm under his shoulder, and for once, he didn’t fight her or try to drag her with him to the ground. His head lolled against her as she walked him toward the black door, slouching under his weight.