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

Evangeline kept her head turned toward the window, watching the icy glass as the carriage rambled back to Wolf Hall. She acted as if Jacks weren’t there, even as she kept replaying his last words. A dusty prophecy you don’t understand.

Now Evangeline could think of nothing else. She knew most Northern stories were not entirely reliable, but was a prophecy considered a story?

Her mother had never spoken of prophecies. Were they one of those pieces of magic that couldn’t leave the North? A prophecy seemed more like its own type of magic than a story. Anything could be turned into a story, but by definition, every part of a prophecy had to be something that would come to pass or it wasn’t a true prophecy.

Evangeline would have asked Jacks more about it, but she didn’t want to engage with him anymore. She didn’t expect he’d give her any answers anyway.

Jacks had acted as if Evangeline didn’t have much of a choice, that her only option was to marry Apollo. But Evangeline rarely believed there was only one option. She believed what her mother had taught her, that every story has the potential for infinite endings.

Although Evangeline couldn’t imagine leaving Apollo forever brokenhearted by calling off the engagement now.

But what if Evangeline really was the girl with the rose-gold hair mentioned in this prophecy? And what if marrying Apollo set off a chain of events that would open up this Valory Arch and release something horrific into the world? She didn’t know what the arch actually contained, but the Fortuna matriarch left her with the impression it was nothing good.

Evangeline hugged her arms to her chest and continued to stare out the window at the frosty Northern streets.

When the empress had first invited Evangeline here, she had thought this was her chance at stepping into a fairytale, at finding new love and a happily ever after. But now she wondered if it was actually fate manipulating her path. She wished she could talk to Marisol, but that was out of the question.

If either of her parents were still alive, Evangeline tried to imagine what they’d say. They’d probably gently reassure her that her future was determined by her choices, not her destiny. They’d say she was not part of any calamitous prophecy. But since they were the sort of people who would have believed in things like prophecies, they’d have also gone behind her back and looked into it in secret. Which was exactly what Evangeline planned to do.

Wolf Hall was more fortress than storybook castle, with sturdy slate-gray stones, tall towers, and crenelated parapet walls.

Evangeline took an airy breath and pretended that she wasn’t sneaking about as she reentered via the same secret passage she’d used earlier. Someone had probably noticed her absence by now, but Evangeline planned to say she’d gotten lost in the vastness of the castle. It was easy enough to do.

Wolf Hall was enormous, filled with stretching corridors and high-ceilinged chambers that fires were always working hard to keep heated. The rooms had all looked similar when Apollo had first given her a tour. Lots of wood and pewter and tufted carpets in rich earthy shades that made her think of damp forests and enchanted Northern gardens.

Thankfully, the castle was also full of helpful little signs with cheery pointing arrows that showed where everything could be found.

Evangeline followed one sign to the Scholar’s Wing and the royal library. It was cooler here than everywhere else, void of windows that might let in book-damaging light.

Evangeline softened her steps as she entered, hoping to go unnoticed as she passed librarians in long white robes and scholars penning on parchments.

Apollo had told her she could visit any part of Wolf Hall, but she didn’t want a soul to know what she was looking for, in case it triggered a reaction like the one by the Fortuna matriarch.

You cannot marry the prince! The Valory Arch can never be opened …

Evangeline took a shaky breath as she scanned the shelves for any books on arches, the Valors, or prophecies. She didn’t really expect to find volumes full of prophecies, and given what the matriarch had said about arches being destroyed, Evangeline was unsurprised there didn’t appear to be any books on Arches of the North, or An Arch with a Deadly Secret. But it did seem peculiar that she couldn’t find a single book on the Valors, who had created all the arches.

Evangeline found volumes on botany, puppetry, auctioneering, blacksmithing, and nearly everything else. But not one spine mentioned the Valors.

It made no sense. The Valors were the famed first royal family. There were enormous statues of them just outside the harbor. The capital city, Valorfell, was named after them. There should have been at least one book mentioning them.

The light became fainter and the air thickened with the scent of dust as she ventured deeper into the library, where the shelves grew closer together and the volumes looked more impacted by age.

“Is there something I can help you with, Miss Fox?”

Evangeline startled at the scratchy voice, and she turned to find a diminutive librarian who looked as old as Time.

“Forgive me for frightening you. My name is Nicodemus, and I could not help but notice that you seem to be searching for something.” The smile he gave her was framed by a long silver beard with threads of gold that matched the trim on his white robes.

“Thank you, I’m just a little lost,” Evangeline hedged, and she almost left it at that. But if she walked out of the library now, she’d be leaving with more questions than she’d come in with. She still didn’t think it was wise to ask about the Valory Arch, but maybe she could dance close enough to the subject without raising alarms that might lead to another attack on her life. “I was actually looking for books on your Valors, but I haven’t been able to find any.”

“I’m afraid that’s because you’ve been looking in the wrong place.”

For someone so old, Nicodemus moved swiftly, rapidly disappearing down a nearby hall, giving her only a moment to decide and follow.

She had no reason to hesitate, but clearly she wasn’t past her recent experience with the matriarch. No one had ever tried to kill Evangeline before, and it left her feeling as if death was a little too close.

She had to stop herself from turning around several times as Nicodemus guided her deeper into the library, past more bookshelves, broken up by the occasional striking portrait of Apollo. A few steps later, the tiled floors shifted to aged green stones, and the walls changed from shelves of books to a series of curious doors labeled with symbols of weapons and stars and a few other figures she couldn’t quite make out.

Finally, Nicodemus stopped in an alcove harboring a rounded door that was branded with the head of a wolf wearing a crown.

“It is believed that every story about the Valors is on the other side of this door,” he said. “Unfortunately, no one has been able to open this door since the Age of the Valors.”