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

Months ago, on a damp, blustery day, when rain clouds did battle with the sun and the clouds came out victorious, Evangeline Fox planned her wedding to Luc Navarro.

She hadn’t meant to plan a wedding. Before that stormy afternoon, she hadn’t even thought about marrying Luc. She was only sixteen then; she wasn’t ready to be a wife. She just wanted to be a girl. But the mighty rain had kept everyone from the shop that day, leaving her alone with a new shipment of oddities that included a fountain pen with a curious label: For finding dreams that don’t exist yet.

Evangeline had been unable to resist trying the pen, and as soon as she did, a fledgling dream had taken form. She didn’t know how long she’d spent drawing, only that when her piece was done, it felt like a picture of a promise. Evangeline and her love were at the end of a dock covered in candles, which made the ocean glow so that it looked like a sea of fallen stars. Only night and her moon watched. No one else was there, just Evangeline and her groom. Their foreheads were pressed together—and she might not have known exactly what they were doing, if not for the words her pen had etched into the sky: And then they will write their vows on their hands and place them over each other’s chests, so they may sink into their hearts, where they will be kept safe forever and always.

It would have been a ceremony her parents would have approved of. It would have been a simple wedding made of oaths and love, and promises of an ever after spent together. It was the opposite of what would happen today.

The enormous wings attached to Evangeline’s bridal gown dragged across her suite as she looked out a window edged in webs of frost.

In the towers at every corner of Wolf Hall, caged doves waited, ready to be released after Apollo and Evangeline exchanged their vows underneath an arch of gold-flecked ice that sparkled in the morning sun. Night and her moon wouldn’t even glimpse this ceremony. But what felt like a kingdom of people would be there. They were already waiting, decked out in their finest furs and jewels. They’d be there when Apollo kissed his bride and then promptly fell out of love with her.

Evangeline’s stomach fell.

There would be no happily ever afters following this wedding.

Last night, she’d felt good about her choice, but today, it broke her heart just a little. She shouldn’t have let Apollo spend the night with her. She shouldn’t have let him hold her. She shouldn’t have let him remind her of everything she didn’t have and might not have again after today.

She didn’t want Apollo to fall out of love with her.

Since he’d proposed, Apollo had been sweet and kind and thoughtful, if a little extreme in his declarations. But who would he be when Jacks’s spell was broken? Would he still be the tender Apollo who had held her all night long? Would he be the vain prince who’d been ready to dismiss her almost as soon as he’d met her? Or would something else happen, something even worse?

Evangeline tried not to think about the Valory Arch prophecy. She’d already decided that she couldn’t trust anything she’d heard about the arch. Yet she couldn’t seem to fully erase her worries. If she was part of this prophecy, what would happen when it was fulfilled?

“Why do you look so nervous?” asked Marisol, coming up beside her. She wore a candied apricot dress with a sugary cream underskirt and a thick pearl belt, and she looked beautiful. No longer dubbed the Cursed Bride, Marisol had spent the last few days enjoying teas and dress fittings and all the delights of Wolf Hall. She looked happy and refreshed, but her eyes were all awe as she took in the extravagance that was Evangeline’s wedding gown.

The gold-tipped wings were outrageous, but Evangeline rather liked the dress. Its heart-shaped neckline was flattering to her smallish chest, while its ball gown skirt was terribly fun, made of endless layers of impossibly delicate white fabric, except for the wide train of golden feathers that flowed from her waist down the back of the dress.

“There’s nothing to be scared of,” Marisol said. “You’re about to marry a prince who adores you.”

He wouldn’t for much longer.

Ding.

Ding.

Ding.

For one moment, the distant bell felt like a warning, until Evangeline remembered. One bell ringer from the choir remained in the courtyard. Not a warning, just the sound of her soft music coming to an end.

“What if he falls out of love with me?” Evangeline blurted. “What if we get married, he decides it was a mistake, and then he tosses you and me out of the North?”

“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Marisol said. “Most girls would have to employ magic to make someone love them the way that Apollo loves you.”

Evangeline stiffened.

“I didn’t mean to imply that you put a spell on him,” Marisol amended, cheeks flushing in a way that made Evangeline more inclined to think it had been an accident and not a barbed insinuation.

“It’s not a surprise that he loves you so much,” Marisol went on determinedly. “You’re Evangeline Fox. You haven’t even married the prince yet, and there are already fairytales about you. You’re the girl who defied the Fates and turned herself to stone, the girl who wasn’t afraid to reject a street of suitors or to bring her cursed stepsister with her to a royal ball, where she then captured the heart of a prince. Just love him the same way you live your life—love him without holding back, love him as if every day with him will be more magical than the last, love him as if he’s your destiny and the world will be better if you two are together, and he won’t be able to ever stop loving you.”

Marisol finished her speech with a hug so warm and earnest it was easy to believe she was right. Evangeline had been so consumed with what Apollo’s feelings for her might be that she hadn’t thought much about her feelings for him. She knew that she didn’t love him now, but she could love him easily. She’d felt glimmers of affection last night, and she felt even more this morning after spending the night in his arms.

They might not have had love at first, but her parents had said that some loves took time. All she needed was for him to give her time, to give her a chance. Maybe it would be rough when Jacks lifted the curse, but if Apollo let her, Evangeline’s love could be strong enough to give them both a happy ending.

Hope was not lost.

In the back of her head, a tiny voice reminded her that she was ignoring the prophecy again, but she chose not to listen. She would worry about that tomorrow.

Evangeline left her wedding suite determined to fall in love with her prince. But the day must have been cursed, or the story curse was affecting it, for she couldn’t seem to hold on to any of the memories of her wedding, even as they happened.

One moment she was stepping into Wolf Hall’s snowy yard, cool air biting her cheeks as a court of scrutinizing faces looked her way. Then she was holding Apollo’s hands as the wedding master tied her wrist to Apollo’s with silken cords. Evangeline felt her blood rushing through her veins. Her skin was on fire, and so was the prince’s, as if they were bound together by more than just a gilded rope.

“And now,” the wedding master said, loudly enough for everyone present to hear, “by my words, I join these two together. I tie not only their wrists but also their hearts. May they beat as one from this moment on. If one is pierced with an arrow, may the other bleed for them.”

“I would gladly bleed for you,” Apollo whispered. He held her hands tighter as his eyes latched on to hers with even more burning intensity, as if the flames she’d lit the first night she’d kissed him had multiplied tenfold.

She just hoped that Apollo’s spark still remained after Jacks broke his spell.