Once Upon a Broken Heart (Once Upon a Broken Heart)

Horror raced through Evangeline’s veins.

The fly buzzed off, and a gray bird, the same dull color as the statues, found the wreath of flowers in Marisol’s hair and began peck-peck-pecking.

Evangeline and Marisol might not have been close—and maybe Evangeline was more jealous of her stepsister than she’d wanted to admit—but Evangeline had only wanted to stop her wedding. She hadn’t wanted to turn her to stone.

It hurt to breathe when Evangeline faced Luc’s statue. Usually, he appeared so carefree, but as stone, his face was frozen in alarm, his smooth jaw was rigid, his eyes were tight, and—a crease formed between his granite brows.

He was moving.

His stone lips parted next as if he were fighting to speak, to tell her something—

“In another minute, he’ll stop twitching.”

Evangeline’s gaze shot toward the back of the gazebo.

Jacks leaned casually against a trellis covered in cloudburst-blue flowers and bit into another brilliant white apple. He looked half–bored young noble, half–wicked demigod.

“What have you done?” Evangeline demanded.

“Exactly what you asked.” Another bite of his apple. “I made sure the wedding didn’t happen.”

“You need to fix it.”

“Can’t.” His tone was laconic, as if he’d already grown tired of this conversation. “A friend of mine who owed me a favor did this. The only way it can be undone is if someone takes their place.” Jacks cut a look toward a patch of grass next to the gazebo, where a brass goblet rested on an aged tree stump.

Evangeline stepped closer to the drink.

“What are you doing?” Jacks shoved off the trellis, no longer indifferent as Evangeline eyed the chalice.

If she drank from it, would it fix everything?

“Don’t even think about it.” His voice turned sharper. “If you drink that and take their place, no one is going to save you. You’ll be stone forever.”

“But I can’t leave them like this.” Although part of Evangeline agreed with Jacks. She didn’t want to become a garden statue. She couldn’t even bring herself to pick up the goblet as she read the words etched onto its side.

Poison
Do Not Drink Me

The smell of sulfur wafted from it, and she wasn’t even sure she could drink the foul liquid. But how could she live with herself if she let them all remain cursed?

Evangeline’s eyes shot from the bird still pecking at Marisol’s wedding crown, then back to Luc and his frozen plea for help. Luc’s parents stood on either side of him. Then there was the unfortunate marriage minister, who’d picked the wrong union to officiate. Evangeline didn’t want to feel bad about Luc’s three friends or about Agnes. But even though her father had not married Agnes for love, he would have hated all of this. Both of her parents would have been so disappointed that this was where Evangeline’s faith in magic had led her.

“This wasn’t what I wanted,” she whispered.

“You’re looking at this the wrong way, pet.” Jacks dropped his half-eaten apple, letting it roll across the gazebo floor until it hit Luc’s stone boot. “Once this story spreads, everyone in the Meridian Empire will want to help you. You’ll be the girl who lost her family to the horrible Fates. You might not get Luc, but you’ll forget about him soon. With your stepmother and stepsister stone, I’m guessing you’ll inherit some money. By tomorrow morning, you’ll be famous, and not poor.”

Jacks flashed both dimples as if he really had done her a favor.

Evangeline felt sick again.

In the stories, the Fates were wicked gods that only wanted mayhem and chaos. But this was what people should have been scared of. Evangeline looked at these human statues and saw it as a horror, but Jacks saw it as helpful. The Fates weren’t dangerous because they were evil; the Fates were dangerous because they couldn’t tell the difference between evil and good.

But Evangeline knew the difference. She also knew that sometimes there was a murky space in between good and evil. That was the space she’d thought she’d entered that morning when she’d gone into Jacks’s church to pray for a favor. But she’d made a mistake, and now it was time to fix it.

Evangeline picked up the goblet.

“Put that down,” Jacks warned. “You don’t want to do this. You don’t want to be the hero, you want the happy ending—that’s why you came to me. If you do this, that will never happen. Heroes don’t get happy endings. They give them to other people. Is that what you really want?”

“I want to save the boy I love. I’m just going to have to hope he’ll decide to save me, too.” Before Jacks could stop her, Evangeline drank.

The poison tasted worse than it smelled—like burnt bones and lost hope. Her throat closed as she struggled to breathe and then to move.

She thought she saw Jacks shake his head, but it was difficult to be sure. Her vision was breaking. Black veins were filling the garden, spreading like escaped ink. Darkness, darkness everywhere. It was night, without any moon or stars.

Evangeline tried to tell herself she’d done the right thing. She’d saved nine people. One of them would save her, too.

“I warned you,” Jacks murmured. She heard him take a frustrated breath, heard him mutter the word pity. And then …

She heard nothing.