“I would have thought you liked bad ideas.”
“Only when they’re mine.”
He stood very still as her fingers reached for the bottom button and carefully slid it through the hole. For a second, there was no rain, there was no breathing. There was just the two of them.
Carefully Evangeline parted the fabric of his doublet.
Then she felt Jacks’s hand braceleting her wrist.
“My turn,” he said hoarsely. And she swore she could feel his voice on her skin as he reached for the ties of her cloak.
His bare hands were hot from the gold dust. Evangeline could feel the burning tips of his fingers as he carefully undid the knot at her neck. He barely grazed her skin, but she was suddenly on fire as he pushed the cloak off her shoulders.
She wore a dress underneath, but it could have been nothing for the tortured way he looked at her. She didn’t want to breathe. Didn’t want to move, for fear that his hands would stop there, that he would leave her in the damp dress, that he wouldn’t reach for the ties at her breasts.
He took a deep, ragged breath and then his hands were on her waist, gently guiding her onto the bed, pressing until she was lying on top of the quilt. She could feel the flower petals clinging to her damp skin as Jacks hovered over her, his knees on either side of her legs.
His eyes lowered.
Her stomach dipped as he reached for the straps of her gown and slowly slid them over her shoulders. She felt even more light-headed as his hand moved to the velvet bodice of her gown. He carefully undid the hidden clasps that held it together, and eased it down over her hips, leaving her in nothing but a silky chemise. It should have made it easier to breathe, but instead she forgot how.
What was breathing? What were words? The only thing Evangeline knew was Jacks’s hands were on her, hot and curious as they slid up her hips to her waist. She might have sighed when they grazed her breasts. His hands were so hot, she could feel them through her slip. Then she could feel them on her skin as he slid one hand under her chemise and rested it on her heart.
The room spun faster, and this time it had nothing to do with golden dust.
The only magic in the room was that of touch and heartbeats and Jacks. And for a moment it was perfect. He felt like hers and she felt as if she was his.
Evangeline didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to speak for fear of breaking whatever enchantment was on them now. But she also wanted to touch him, she wanted to be closer. If this was all the time she was going to have with him, if in the morning he said goodbye again, she wanted more.
She reached up for his shoulders. “My turn again.”
She pressed her hands against him, guiding him to lie down, to let her be the one to touch him as she started with his doublet, which he still hadn’t taken off.
She slid her hand under the damp fabric, ready to take it off of him. And that’s when she felt it. Her fingers brushed against a slip of paper.
Jacks murmured something that sounded like don’t.
Or maybe she only heard the word in her head.
His eyes were shut, dusted in a perfect layer of gold. And he was suddenly still, save for the rise and fall of his chest.
He’d finally fallen under the sleeping spell of the gold dust.
Her hand was still inside his doublet touching the edge of the paper. Was this why he’d stopped her before?
She felt a little guilty as she tugged the edge of the page, but not nearly enough to stop her from pulling it out of the doublet. It was miraculously dry, although it looked rather worn, like something he’d folded and unfolded in order to read over and over. And immediately she recognized the faded handwriting.
It was hers.
She quickly reread the words, hoping she might have a memory of writing them. But there was nothing. She opened the note, careful not to tear it, as the paper was so worn and thin.
It must have been important if it was something Jacks carried with him and reread again and again.
The page was covered in more of her handwriting—but it wasn’t a letter to Jacks, it was a letter to her. A note she’d written to herself.
Why would Jacks be carrying this around?
Like the outside of the note, the writing was so faded, she almost couldn’t make it all out.
It might have been the magic of the letter, of past Evangeline telling herself to remember over and over, as if she’d known that someday she’d forget.
Or it might have been another type of magic that arose inside Evangeline as she wondered why Jacks would have carried around this letter. It wasn’t a letter of love. In fact, it was quite the opposite. And yet he’d read it again and again. He’d carried it with him, close to his heart. Her words—or rather, the words of the girl she’d been. And she wanted to be that girl again. She wanted to remember!
And at long last . . . she did.
She remembered.
Chapter 30
Evangeline
The memories started out like rainfall, slowly falling over Evangeline and blurring everything else as she remembered writing the letter to herself in the first place. She’d been sitting in her royal suite on the verge of angry tears, but she’d also been heartbroken. She hadn’t recognized the emotion at the time, but present-day Evangeline immediately knew the feeling.
It was the same ache she’d felt in her heart ever since she’d lost her memories. She’d thought it would go away when they eventually resurfaced, but the hurt seemed to grow as her recollections turned from a misty trickle into a steady downpour.
She remembered Jacks again. She remembered visiting his church and meeting him for the first time, thinking he was horrible. Then realizing who he was—that he was actually the Fated Prince of Hearts, and then still thinking he was awful.
Every time she met Jacks, Evangeline thought he was a little worse. He was always eating apples and taunting her, and even when he was rescuing her, he was wretched. She remembered the night she’d been poisoned by LaLa’s tears. He’d held her like a grudge. His body had been rigid and tense, as if he really didn’t want her there, and yet his arms were tight around her waist as though he had no intention of ever letting her go.
She’d still thought he was awful then, but as Evangeline relived that night, something inside her shifted. It happened again when she relived spending the following night with him in the crypt.
Suddenly she understood why thinking of Jacks made her think of biting.
There were other memories of biting as well—of wanting to sink her teeth into him when she’d been infected with vampire venom, and then actually biting down on his shoulder when she’d been in excruciating pain—the night that she’d killed Petra.
Evangeline remembered it all in a backward rush. How she and Petra were both prophesized keys capable of opening the Valory Arch. Evangeline had been trying to find all four of the arch stones to do so, and Petra had tried to murder her in order to stop her.
Evangeline had killed Petra in self-defense. Jacks had found her afterward, covered in blood. Then he’d taken Evangeline to the Hollow, and she’d finally admitted to herself that she was hopelessly in love with him.
She’d been in love with him for quite some time. Evangeline wasn’t sure if that part was a memory or just a thought she was presently having.
Her memories didn’t feel so much like her past as they felt like their story. The story of Evangeline and Jacks. And it was a beautiful story, her new favorite story. She hated that she’d forgotten it. That it had been lost and Apollo had tried to rewrite it, to tell her that Jacks was the villain.