She wasn’t sure if she was doing this right; all she felt were nerves as she rose up on the tips of her toes and pressed her mouth to his.
“Finally,” Apollo growled. Then he took her lower lip between his teeth as he kissed her back.
Fireworks burst to life in the distance. Evangeline could hear them explode as Apollo’s hands slid beneath her cloak, pushing it aside as he pulled her closer.
She wasn’t sure if they were spinning toward the edge of the tower or if it was just her head going dizzy. But she could feel the wind rushing at her back, and she knew that the prince’s arms were the only thing that kept her from falling.
Chapter 6
Evangeline
The world had altered overnight, and it wasn’t merely because Evangeline felt butterflies every time she thought of kissing Apollo.
The season appeared to have changed while she’d slept, turning from winter into spring. Instead of looking out her window to see blankets of white, she found eager green trees, happy shrubs and mosses, and glittering rocks. All of it was coated in a fine mist of silver rain that pitter-pattered outside her window.
While it rained that morning, another physician checked in to see if she had remembered anything, which she hadn’t. After that, the seamstresses returned, but they didn’t linger for long.
It seemed there was another appointment on Evangeline’s calendar, although she was unaware of it until an entirely new visitor arrived.
“Hello, Your Highness, I’m Madame Voss. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” The woman dropped into a perfect curtsy, the hem of her emerald-green skirt brushing against the stone floor. Madame Voss’s hair was a beautiful shade of silver and her long face was full of deep smile lines that gave Evangeline an immediate impression of warmth.
“I’m going to be your tutor on all things royal. But first, let’s start with all things you.” Madame Voss set a beautiful blue book in Evangeline’s lap. Inside, the pages were gilded in a shimmering gold that matched the book’s decorative title.
Evangeline read it aloud. “The Greatest Love Story Ever Told: The True and Unabridged History of Evangeline Fox and the Prince of Hearts.”
Madame Voss gasped. “Oh, botheration!” Then she swatted at the volume in Evangeline’s lap until finally the title changed to read: The Greatest Love Story Ever Told: The True and Unabridged History of Evangeline Fox and Prince Apollo Titus Acadian.
“My apologies for that, Your Highness. This book was freshly printed. I was hoping that since it was so new, it would be immune to the story curse.” She gave the book a chastising look. “Hopefully it’s only the title that’s finnicky.”
“Please, don’t be sorry,” said Evangeline.
Until that moment, Evangeline hadn’t really thought much about the North’s story curse, but her mother had told her all about it when she was a little girl. Every fairytale in the Magnificent North was cursed. Some stories couldn’t be written down, others couldn’t leave the North, and many changed every time they were shared, becoming less and less true with every telling. It was said that every Northern tale had started as actual history, but over time, the Northern story curse had twisted them until only bits of truth remained.
“Where I’m from, books just sit quietly on shelves,” said Evangeline. “I find this delightful.”
She stared at the cover a little longer. This was the first time she’d ever seen the words on a book change before her eyes. Madame Voss treated it like a nuisance, but to Evangeline it was magic. Because it was magic.
But it was also curious that the first title mentioned the Prince of Hearts.
In the Meridian Empire, where Evangeline was from, the Prince of Hearts was a myth—a character found inside decks of fortune-telling cards—not a real flesh-and-blood person. She wondered if here, perhaps, the Prince of Hearts could be another nickname for Prince Apollo?
She felt an uncomfortable jolt at the thought and wondered what else she didn’t know about her husband, even as she told herself it didn’t matter. She and Apollo would make new memories, as they had last night.
And yet Evangeline couldn’t shake the strange wedge of discomfort inside her as she opened up Madame Voss’s book.
The end pages were stunning full-color portraits of Evangeline and Apollo staring into each other’s eyes as fireworks exploded in the background. Apollo was pictured dressed in a fine royal suit, a cape, and a great gold crown adorned with large rubies and other gems.
For a second, Evangeline thought she saw a third person in the picture—another man appeared to be watching from the edge of one page. But like the book’s original title, this image was there and then gone.
There were more illustrations on the second page, and nothing moved. The top of the page was decorated with images of a sun and a moon and a sky full of stars that hung above the words:
“Is this true?” Evangeline asked. “Did Prince Apollo swear to never love?”
“Oh yes! Some people thought it was only a jest, but I didn’t think so,” said Madame Voss. “It was a little alarming, really. We have this tradition in the North—a terrific ball called Nocte Neverending.”
Evangeline knew a little about Nocte Neverending, but she didn’t say a word. She still knew nothing about her first meeting with Apollo, and she’d never gotten back to asking him about it last night.
“Apollo had said that once the ball started, it would never end, as he had no plans to find a bride,” Madame Voss went on. “Then he met you. It’s such a shame you don’t remember. It was truly love at first sight. I wasn’t there, of course. The dinner was very exclusive, and the two of you met in a private clearing, protected by an arch.”
She said the word arch differently than all the others, as if it were a bit of magic instead of what Evangeline was probably imagining.
“I take it arches are special?” Evangeline said.
“Oh yes,” Madame Voss replied. “They were built by the Valors, our first king and queen, so that they could travel anywhere in North. But arches are also excellent for guarding things. The prince has one that guards the most magnificent phoenix tree. You should really get him to show it to you sometime. Ah, wait.” She looked down at the book. “I’ll bet there is a picture in here.”
The tutor turned the page, and indeed there was a stunning portrait of Apollo lounging across a tree branch in one of the most magnificent trees that Evangeline had ever seen. Every leaf seemed to sparkle. Half of them were a symphony of warm harvest colors—yellow and orange and russet—but the rest looked like real gold. Glittering, shimmering, dragon treasure gold.
“That’s the phoenix tree,” said Madame Voss. “Once it’s grown and in full bloom, it takes over a thousand years to mature as the leaves slowly turn into real gold. However, if one leaf is plucked before all the leaves have changed, the entire tree goes up in flames. Poof!” she said with a dramatic hand gesture before giving Evangeline a warning look.
“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t dream of picking a leaf,” Evangeline said.
But Madame Voss had already turned the page.
It was Apollo again, but this time he rode a white horse and was dressed more ruggedly in wood-brown breeches, an open-collared shirt, and a fur vest with crisscrossing leather straps that fixed a golden bow and a quiver of arrows to his back.