“I think you already did. I finally figured out that the cookbooks on your night table were really spell books.”
“It’s not what you think,” Marisol cut in.
“Stop lying to me.” It took everything Evangeline had to keep her voice low so that the guards outside wouldn’t hear. “I saw your spell books. I know you gave Tiberius a love potion just like the one you gave to Luc.”
Marisol’s jaw went slack, her shoulders fell, and she stumbled back, spine hitting one of the bed’s posters as she shook like a ribbon blown by the wind, undone by this single accusation.
50
It felt like all the confirmation that Evangeline needed, and yet there was no sense of triumph as she watched her stepsister struggle for words.
Marisol opened her mouth, and a sob ripped free. Dry and tearless.
But Evangeline knew she couldn’t let herself be fooled again just because Marisol looked like a kicked baby lamb.
“I—I’m sorry about Luc. But I swear, I—I didn’t put a spell on Tiberius.” A flicker of hurt crossed her fragile features. “I learned my lesson after what happened to Luc and after all the names the papers called me, though I suppose I really did deserve that. But you have to believe me, Evangeline. I never meant to hurt you.”
“You stole the boy I loved, then you framed me for murder. How was that not supposed to hurt?”
“I didn’t frame you for murder! How could you even think that? I was trying to hide you just now. I’m still hiding you—if I wanted you caught for murder, I would just have to yell for the soldiers outside my door. But I’m not doing that, and I’m not going to.” Marisol clamped her mouth shut, more determined than Evangeline had ever seen her.
But just because Marisol wasn’t completely heartless didn’t mean she was innocent. She’d admitted to putting a spell on Luc. Evangeline couldn’t be tricked into feeling sympathy for her stepsister because of her shaking chest or her pleading eyes or the way her voice cracked when she spoke.
“I know you don’t trust me, and I don’t blame you after what I did to Luc, but I really didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Then why did you do it?” Evangeline asked. “Why did you pick him if it wasn’t to hurt me?”
The fireplace crackled, filling the suite with a surge of fresh heat as Marisol breathed a ragged exhale.
“I’d never done a spell before, and I didn’t even think it would work. But I suppose I was jealous of you,” she admitted. “You had so much freedom and confidence in who you were and what you believed. You didn’t even try to fit in the way my mother always told me I needed to—you kept your hair that strange color and talked about fairytales as if they were real and everyone else believed in them, too. You should have been a pariah, but people loved you and your odd little shop, and even though your father was gone, he’d been so proud of who you were. I just had a mother who wanted me to sit straight and look pretty. But I was never pretty enough because I couldn’t catch the attention of any suitors, and my mother couldn’t stop reminding me of it day after day after day.”
Marisol swiped at a few errant tears. She’d looked so lovely in the hall, but now she appeared miserable. She was hugging her chest, curling further into herself as her body was racked by sobs. And Evangeline couldn’t help but feel some sympathy.
Her words stung—no one liked to be called strange or a pariah—and Marisol’s choices had been terrible. But Marisol’s mother was awful, and she’d been feeding her daughter poisonous ideas for her entire life.
“One day, I couldn’t take it anymore, so I decided I’d try to be a bit more like you. I looked into … magic,” Marisol said it on a whisper as if it still made her nervous. “One of the cooking books you had gifted me was actually a spell book, and I suppose I picked Luc because he was so good to you. I knew you would sneak out to see him. One day, I followed you, I saw the way he looked at you, and I wanted that. I wanted someone kind and someone my mother would be impressed with. But I didn’t think it would work, and I didn’t think it would be so potent.”
“Then why didn’t you undo it?” Evangeline asked.
“I wanted to, but the book I had said the only methods of undoing the spell were vampire venom or killing the person. My only choice was to marry him or leave him miserable.”
Evangeline felt her first stab of guilt, and it became a little harder to stay angry with Marisol. Evangeline wasn’t sure her stepsister was being entirely honest, but she couldn’t argue with this reasoning or judge her for this part of the story, as Evangeline had done something very similar with Apollo.