“Wait.” Jacks jumped up from his seat and grabbed her arm. “What’s this?”
She tried to pull away, but Jacks’s nimble fingers were quick. He shoved up the edge of her sleeve to reveal one arm of Apollo’s crudely carved words. I DON’T WANT TO KILL YOU.
Jacks’s nostrils flared. “Looks as if your husband has gotten worse at his love letters.”
“It’s nothing.” Evangeline yanked back her arm. But Jacks was far stronger.
He pulled her to him with one quick tug. So close, suddenly she could see details she hadn’t noticed before. The shirt under his doublet was incredibly wrinkled, and there were tired circles under his eyes that made her wonder what he’d been off doing over the last ten days.
“Where were you?” she asked.
“I was killing innocent maidens and kicking puppies.”
“Jacks, that’s not funny.”
“Neither is what’s carved into your arm.” He glared at the words. “When did this happen?”
Evangeline pursed her lips.
If Jacks was upset by the sight of the wound, she didn’t want to think about how he would react if she told him she’d received it during a visit with Tiberius. Jacks would probably shackle her to one of the walls to keep her from leaving again.
What she needed to do was distract him with something else.
Evangeline finally wrenched her hand away, took out the scandal sheet that mentioned LaLa’s engagement celebration, and thrust it into his hands.
Jacks took one look at the paper, and his expression turned hard. “No. You’re not attending a party at House Slaughterwood.”
“That’s not your decision to make.” Evangeline stabbed her finger at the page. “I know the first word is blurry, but it says mirth, as in the mirth stone!”
“That doesn’t mean the stones will be there.”
“But I think they will be. See the part where it mentions that members from all the Great Houses will be in attendance? I suspect that the arch stones have been hidden among the Great Houses and that they will have the remaining stones with them at the party.”
Jacks looked down on her imperiously. “Even if your theory is right about the Houses having the stones, why would they bring them?”
“While you were away, I learned that the stones call to one another—they long to be reunited. When Chaos showed me the luck stone, I felt its power, and I wanted it more than I have ever wanted anything in my life. So I think whoever has the stones will be wearing them at this party because they won’t let them out of their sight.”
Jacks worked his jaw. He no longer looked entirely opposed to the idea, but he didn’t seem very happy about it, either. “Chaos can’t know we’re going to House Slaughterwood.”
“Why?”
“Because if he knows, he won’t let us go.” Jacks crumpled the sheet of newsprint in his hand. And Evangeline couldn’t be sure, but it looked as if his fingers were shaking.
“What’s wrong with House Slaughterwood?”
“House Slaughterwood is the reason we’re all in this mess, Little Fox.”
21
Evangeline did not know what lie Jacks had told Chaos about their plans. But the following evening, she found that Chaos had filled her bedroom with an exciting assortment of elegant gowns and slippers and hats and cloaks and jewels. So much pink silk and cream satin and hand-stitched flowers sewn onto trains.
The sight of it all made Evangeline feel unexpectedly guilty that they were concealing the truth from Chaos.
When Evangeline had been infected with vampire venom, he had been there to make sure she didn’t feed on anyone and complete the transformation into a vampire. She’d never thanked him because she still felt embarrassed about the way they’d been tangled together that night. And she had no idea what to think of the way Chaos had smoothed her slip down before leaving. He was a monster for sure, but it seemed he was also a gentleman. A gentleman monster.
What could have made him so opposed to a visit to House Slaughterwood? She had tried again to look it up in his library, but then she’d remembered there were no books on House Slaughterwood, and when she’d first asked Chaos about it, he’d steered her in another direction.
She’d tried to ask Jacks more about what he’d told her: House Slaughterwood is the reason we’re all in this mess. But he’d refused to say more on the matter, and Evangeline had the surprising impression that it was out of loyalty to Chaos. It was uncomfortable to imagine Jacks as capable of loyalty and friendship. It was much easier to believe he had no honor whatsoever. Although given how driven Jacks was, if he were to be loyal, she could see him being loyal to the death.