“They did?”
“Did you think they were as blameless as the stories say?” Chaos laughed, but there was nothing happy about it. “The Valors made a great number of mistakes. But you don’t have to worry, Evangeline. I have not been a monster for a long time. I just want to unlock the Valory, and get this helm off.”
The carriage reached the snow-kissed grounds of Wolf Hall seconds later.
Then it was as if Evangeline blinked and they were at the royal library, opening the door to the room with the Valory Arch.
45
The room was just as Evangeline remembered: crumbling floors, gray walls, fossilized air that scratched at her throat, and a giant arch guarded by a pair of warrior angels, one sad and one angry. Both had their stone swords drawn over the center.
The last time Evangeline had been here, the angels had not moved, but this time, she swore they flinched when Chaos stepped into the room.
With a click, he unlocked the small iron trunk holding the first three stones.
The air immediately changed, glitter swirling through the room like dust.
The stones in the box were glowing, gleaming, shining, practically singing in their splendor. So was the mirth stone in her hand. Evangeline hadn’t even realized she’d lifted the lid on her jar, but now the stone was in her palm.
For a second, time seemed to pause, and she wondered what would happen if instead of placing the rock in the arch, she placed it in the box with the other stones and used them to go back in time.
Jacks had said the stones could only be used once for that purpose. If she did it first, he would never have the chance.
She knew that Chaos had warned that Time was vindictive and didn’t like to be changed, but with the mirth stone in her hand, it was hard to feel truly afraid. Her skin prickled with magic as she pictured going back in time and meeting Jacks before he found Princess Donatella. Then she saw her parents. She imagined going back and saving both their lives. If her mother had lived, Evangeline’s father might not have died of a broken heart. Her family would be whole again.
For a dazzling minute, she saw images of her parents alive again and smiling. She saw the curiosity shop open and Jacks holding her. She pictured a happier life where she never had a stepmother or a stepsister. A life where she never had to go North to look for love. Where Apollo was never cursed and she was never hunted. Where Luc never turned into a vampire. She could change her life and find one of the many infinite endings she’d always believed in.
“Don’t forget what we’ve come here for,” said Chaos.
“Don’t worry.” Evangeline closed her palm over the mirth stone. She was still tempted, but as much as she hated the choice that Jacks was making, she didn’t want to take it away. Instead, she hoped, one final time, that he would make a better one.
With a deep breath, she put the mirth stone in the arch. For a second, she waited for something magical to happen, for the stones to glow brighter or the angels to attack, but everything stayed just as it was before.
She put the luck stone in next. Again, nothing changed.
Her palm started to sweat when she placed the youth stone in the arch and the only thing that moved was a swirl of glitter-dust.
“I don’t know if it’s working,” Evangeline said.
“It will work.” Chaos’s voice was tight, and his fingers were tense as he handed her the final stone.
Evangeline felt like a bundle of nerves as she held the final stone in her hand. Everything that she’d done and experienced since coming North had led to this moment. If she believed in fate, she might have thought her entire life had led her here. She didn’t like that idea at all, and yet she couldn’t deny the sense of inevitability that seemed to fill the ancient room, as if Destiny were somehow standing silently behind her, holding its breath as it waited for the end of a story that it had set in motion centuries ago.
She put the last stone in.
Finally.
The word was whispered in her thoughts from the arch. She could feel it breathing, brushing wind against her skin. It was waking up. It was working.
Chaos held out a small gold dagger, and Evangeline carefully pricked her finger.
As soon as she touched her blood to the stones, the room exploded in light, brighter than the first time she’d touched the arch. The angels glowed like a slice of sun. Evangeline had to shield her eyes until the angels dimmed.
When she could see again, the warrior angels had lowered their swords, and behind them waited a thick wooden door with an iron knocker shaped like a wolf’s head.
Chaos pressed one gloved hand against the door, as if to test that it was real. Then he turned his head back to her. “Thank you, Evangeline.”