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

Evangeline should not have been curious. LaLa clearly thought Chaos was a devil. Jacks didn’t appear to feel the same way, but his expression had instantly soured when she’d said the word vampire.

Evangeline still wanted to know more. She wanted to know if vampires really slept in coffins, if they could turn into bats—or maybe dragons! But Jacks refused to answer any more questions about Chaos and vampires in general.

“These aren’t things to be curious about,” Jacks warned. “All you need to know is that vampires lock themselves away at dawn. So unless we want to be imprisoned with the creatures, we need to get in and out of Chaos’s lair while it’s still dark.”

He probably would have dragged Evangeline out of the flat directly after that, if Evangeline and LaLa hadn’t both insisted that Evangeline couldn’t keep running around without eating or while still wearing her battered wedding dress.

A few breakfast cakes later, LaLa opened up a secret door in the floor. “Let’s get you cleaned up and find the perfect outfit for meeting a vampire!” She stole Evangeline away from Jacks with a surprising amount of enthusiasm. LaLa clearly hated Chaos, but she seemed quite eager to prepare Evangeline for this meeting, which made Evangeline mildly nervous as to what LaLa had in mind.

Their journey down a flight of creaky steps was brief and ended in darkness that smelled of tears and tulle.

“Stay right there while I light some lanterns,” LaLa trilled.

The snick of the match cut through the quiet, and light tripped across the room, flickering from lantern to lantern. They hung from the exposed ceiling beams, swinging blithely back and forth as they cast a warm umber glow on a jungle of dresses.

The gowns came in shades of frost white, pearl pink, romantic blue, and fresh cream. Some were simple sheaths. Others had elaborate trains or hems covered in everything from silken flowers to seashells. None of them looked as if they’d ever been worn.

“Are these all from your weddings?” Evangeline asked.

LaLa shook her head and looked unusually shy as she ran a hand over an off-white gown with a mermaid skirt. “I make the gowns and sell them. It’s a good living, and it helps with the urges.”

“The urges?”

“Fates aren’t like humans, you know. We don’t share all the same emotions, and some humans think we are entirely unfeeling. But it’s the opposite.” LaLa’s face turned sharp as she gave Evangeline a smile reminiscent of one of Jacks’s deviant grins. “When we feel, it’s intense and consuming. It devours us and drives us. And the strongest of our feelings is always the urge to be that which we were made to be. I want to feel loved. I want it so badly that I cry poison tears, even though I know every time I find someone to love me, it never lasts—it always ends with me alone at an altar, bawling out even more damned tears. So I sew.”

LaLa released the off-white gown to run her fingers over a petal-pink dress with a sweetheart neckline trimmed in sparkling bows. “I’ve found that if I can help a bride with her wedding, it feeds some of the urge to have a marriage of my own. But the desire is always there. The same is true for Jacks.”

LaLa looked so pointedly at Evangeline, the hairs on her arms stood up. Evangeline only knew pieces of Jacks’s history, but she knew what he was made to be: a Fate who killed any potential love with his kiss.

“Unlike me,” said LaLa, “Jacks actually has hope of finding his true love someday. His story promises there’s one girl who’s immune to his kiss. So, I imagine the urges he experiences are even stronger than mine.”

“If you’re trying to warn me away, you don’t have to worry,” Evangeline said. “Jacks and I don’t even like each other.”

“I know. But that doesn’t matter. Jacks doesn’t really like anyone.” LaLa ripped off one of the bows she’d been toying with, ruining the gown with one swift tug. “His curse is his kiss, and if there’s even a hint of attraction to someone, he’ll be drawn to that person in the hope that she’s the girl his kiss won’t kill. But he always kills them, Evangeline.”

“LaLa, I promise, Jacks doesn’t feel any attraction toward me. I’m not a threat to the two of you.”

“What?” LaLa laughed, so light and luminescent, a few unlit candles burst into flames. “Humans are so funny. I’d never be foolish enough to develop feelings for Jacks. Jacks’s idea of love is … well, rather terrifying.”

“So you don’t fancy him?”

“Not at all.” She looked genuinely horrified.

“Then why—why are you warning me about him? And why did you save my life for him?”

Something like hurt danced across LaLa’s pretty face, and the candles that had just burst to life died out.

“I did it because you and I are friends.” Her voice was almost childlike in its sincerity, and Evangeline felt a pang of guilt and sheer stupidity for having so badly misjudged her. LaLa had just been saying that Fates emotions weren’t like humans’. Evangeline needed to get better at understanding them if she was going to try to read them. But one thing she could read was LaLa’s actions, and they had been one of a friend.

“I understand if you feel differently, now that you know I’m…” LaLa trailed off to pick up a jeweled veil as if the object could complete the sentence she seemed scared to finish. “I won’t curse you or anything if you don’t want to be friends with a Fate. Curses aren’t really my bit anyway—I just have the toxic tears and the excessive engagements.”

“And you have a friend as well,” Evangeline said. “As long as you don’t mind that I’m a fugitive who has a habit of making terrible deals with Jacks.”

“Everyone makes terrible deals with Jacks!” LaLa squealed, and suddenly Evangeline found herself tangled up in a hug that she hadn’t realized she’d needed. Without any shoes on, LaLa was more than several inches shorter than Evangeline, but her hug could not have been mightier. “You won’t regret being my friend. We make excellent allies, you’ll see!”

LaLa started pulling clothing out of trunks and wardrobes. Most of the items were covered in dragon scales, sequins, or other pieces of ornamentation. But she didn’t choose any of those for Evangeline. “We need a different sort of dramatic,” she said.

When LaLa finally finished with Evangeline, she stood before a tall mirror and stared at a reflection that seemed as if it should not belong to her.

LaLa had disguised Evangeline’s hair with shimmering golden powder and dressed her in a ruffled cape that, instead of fastening around her neck, attached to the thin straps of her shapely black-lace corset, which fed into a tiered midnight-blue skirt made of tulle that only went to her knees, making it easier to move and giving a clear view of the daring black leather boots that went up to her thighs. LaLa had also given her a knife that she could place in the sheath attached to the skirt.

Evangeline looked like a fugitive princess. And even though that was exactly what she was, it was not what she’d been yesterday, and she felt a strange pit in her stomach as she realized that she would never be that girl again. She wasn’t the person she had been before. Maybe she hadn’t been that girl for a while. She’d known the day she’d entered Jacks’s church that whatever she did would change her, and now she was seeing the effect of that choice.

She still believed in love at first sight, but she no longer believed it meant forever love—if it had, she would still be with Luc, living out her happily ever after. But now it was tempting to wonder if there really was a happy ending waiting for her.

Months ago, Poison had warned: Even if you never want to see Jacks again, you’ll gravitate toward him until you fulfill the deal you’ve made with him.

And now, here she was. She’d come to the North because she’d thought this was her chance at finding love and happiness, but she wondered if she’d really just been drawn toward Jacks.

“A dark wig would probably be a better disguise, but your hair is too pretty to completely cover up.” LaLa added another dusting of gold powder to Evangeline’s cheeks and then to her hair, concealing any last remaining hints of pink and completing her transformation.

Her friend had done a wonderful job, but Evangeline felt a slight stab of worry as she took in the way her cape fastened to leave her neck and décolletage intentionally exposed. She might not have received answers from Jacks about vampires, and her mother had never talked about them. But Evangeline had read a few stories, and they all said that vampires liked blood and biting, and they usually preferred to drink straight from their victims’ throats.

“All this skin will drive Chaos mad,” said LaLa. “But trust me, he deserves far worse than being a little tortured.” With that, LaLa trotted up the stairs as if turning Evangeline into vampire bait was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Jacks had also cleaned up while Evangeline had dressed. Once she was upstairs again, she found him in the leather chair beside the crackling fire. He’d changed into a steel-gray doublet with silver matte buttons, which he’d acquired from some unknown source. His sharp face was freshly shaved, and his hair was damp. Blue locks curled haphazardly across his forehead while he idly tossed a pale pink apple, the same soft color as the book in in his hand. He looked up, and then directly at her, as soon as she entered the room.

Evangeline’s stomach tumbled. She told herself it was because she was starting to feel hungry, not because of the way Jacks slowly took in every inch of her black thigh-high boots, her shortened skirt, and the form-fitting lace corset cinching her waist and—

He abruptly stopped when he reached all the skin that went from her chest to her neck.

A muscle jumped in his jaw. The color deepened in his eyes. For a fraction of a second, he looked murderous.

Then suddenly, without warning, Jacks tossed her his apple and his expression cleared. “You should bring a snack, it’s going to be a long night.”

The pink fruit landed gently in Evangeline’s hands. It was heavier than an apple should have been. But before she could puzzle that out or consider what had just happened with Jacks, her thoughts shifted their course as she noticed the title of the pink book in his hands. Recipes of the Ancient North: Translated for the First Time in Five Hundred Years.

It was the same volume that had been on Marisol’s nightstand. Evangeline didn’t know how she managed to recall the title. She’d only seen the book once, and it had been over a week ago. She shouldn’t have remembered it so well. But she should have remembered her stepsister before now.

“I forgot about Marisol!”

“Who’s Marisol?” asked LaLa.

“Her stepsister, but I don’t understand why we’re talking about her now,” Jacks said.

Evangeline nodded to the book in his hands. “That volume was on Marisol’s nightstand, and it made me realize how defenseless she is. She’s at Wolf Hall, unless the royal soldiers have taken her somewhere else for questioning about me.”

Jacks laughed. Because, of course, the idea of someone in danger was amusing to him. “I don’t think you need to worry about your stepsister.”

“She doesn’t have anyone here besides me. If the soldiers have taken her—”

“Your stepsister can take care of herself,” Jacks said, “especially if she was reading this book.”

“Are you certain she had that book?” LaLa worried her lip between her teeth as her eyes darted to the volume in question.

Nothing could have looked more innocuous. The fabric on the cover was pretty pink with lovely foil titling. It looked like the sort of tome one would wrap in a bow and give as a gift, but LaLa eyed it as if it would jump from Jacks’s hands and cross the room to attack her.

“Why are you looking at that book as if it’s dangerous?”

“Because it is,” Jacks said.

“It’s a very nasty spell book,” LaLa explained. “After the Valors were killed, most magic was banned in the North. So those who still wanted to traffic in it changed the names of their spell books. It’s much easier to get away with buying or possessing books of forbidden arts when no one knows what they are.”

“Marisol must have bought it by mistake. She’s terrified of magic, and she loves baking.”

“You don’t pick that book up by mistake,” Jacks said. “No reputable bookshop would carry it.”

“Then Marisol stumbled into another kind of store accidentally,” Evangeline argued. She’d doubted her stepsister before, and she was determined not to do it again.

Evangeline knew that Kristof Knightlinger had accused Marisol of visiting several high-tiered spell shops to turn Evangeline back to stone. But Evangeline wasn’t stone. And she wasn’t dead. Someone might have tried to poison her last night, but she couldn’t believe it was Marisol. Marisol wasn’t a killer, and if Marisol had really wanted to murder her, she’d had plenty of opportunities.

Evangeline looked at LaLa, who tugged at the sequins on her sleeve, a little embarrassed at having the book in her possession. “What types of spells are in there? Does it have a recipe for the poison I consumed?”

“No. There are no spells that can mimic my tears.”

Evangeline felt a bright surge of relief. It couldn’t have been Marisol, then.

“However,” LaLa added, “if your stepsister is reading that book, I would agree with Jacks. She is far from helpless, and she’s probably up to something.”

“But you own it, too, and, Jacks—you were reading it!”

“Which proves her point.” Jacks shrugged.

“We’re not saying your stepsister killed Apollo and poisoned you,” LaLa said, “but she might not be who you think she is.”

“She’s definitely not who you think she is,” Jacks muttered. “But if you want to really find out if she’s involved in this murder or if it’s someone else, we need to leave now and talk to Chaos.”