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

Gasps and wails and a few harsh grunts consumed the amphitheater.

“Stop them!” Evangeline cried.

“None of them would be pleased if I did that,” Chaos said. “All the humans have been waiting for this night.”

“Why would anyone want this?” Evangeline watched helplessly as chains rattled and a number of human-size cages were lowered to the checked ground.

A girl about her age, with long spirals of red and copper hair, fought against the vampire who’d bit her as he shoved her in one of the cages and closed it with a heavy lock.

Everything was clattering metal and pained pleas as some people were dragged out of the amphitheater. Other humans filled the rest of the cages, which were then raised back toward the ceiling. And any lingering romantic notions of vampires that Evangeline had completely disappeared.

“Let them out,” she demanded. She might have done something terribly reckless then, like grab for anything with weapon potential and toss it toward the cages, but Jacks’s hand slid across the rail and twined his cold fingers with hers. He didn’t hold her back, he just held her hand, stunning her into silence.

“You don’t want any of them out of their cages,” Chaos said. He sounded faintly amused, but it was difficult to be sure when his bronze helm concealed most of his expression.

“This is the final phase of our initiation process to join the Order of Spies and Assassins. There are two different types of vampire bites. We can bite a human merely to feed from them. Or we can infect our bites with vampire venom to turn a human into a vampire. Every human on that floor received a bite infected with venom.”

“So they’re all turning into vampires now?” Evangeline hazarded a look toward the cages. The captives were rattling the bars and ripping at the locks, looking close to feral. Yet they also appeared more attractive than before. Their skin glowed. Their movements were knife-quick, and even matted with blood, their hair shone like curtains of silk.

“The venom has fixed their human imperfections, but they won’t become vampires unless they drink human blood before dawn,” Chaos said. “At sunrise, the vampire venom will dissipate. Until that happens, the changelings will fight with all their power to get out of their prisons and feed. The ones that succeed in breaking free of their cages and drinking human blood will become full-fledged vampires and members of our order.”

“What happens to the others?” Evangeline asked.

“You should be more concerned that you two are the closest things to humans here. So you might want to make the rest of this meeting quick. The urge to take that first bite is overwhelming. We call it hunger, but it’s really pain.” Chaos paused long enough for Evangeline to hear nothing, save for the rattle of cages.

Then she felt the surge of heart at her neck and chest, letting her know that Chaos’s gaze was on her. Hot and hungry and—

Jacks cleared his throat.

Chaos averted his eyes.

Evangeline breathed, but not too deeply.

“The changelings might not be at full vampire strength,” Chaos continued smoothly, “but the intense desire to feed and survive can sometimes make up for it. One or two of them always manage to escape.”

A spark of crimson flashed in Evangeline’s peripheral vision. The girl with the red and copper curls was in a cage not too far from the balcony, only now her hair looked like pure flames, and she appeared far from helpless as her fingers curled around the bars and her tongue darted out to lick her lips.

Evangeline found herself squeezing Jacks’s hand harder, feeling thankful he’d not let her go.

Chaos tilted his head, eyes landing on their intertwined hands. “Interesting.”

“This is getting tedious.” Jacks dropped Evangeline’s hand and sauntered back into the scholarly suite, where the rasp of vampire changelings and the rattle of cages weren’t so all consuming.

Chaos and Evangeline followed. The vampire took a seat in a large leather chair, the only one without shackles. He motioned toward the other seats, but Evangeline chose to stand. Knowing how quickly vampires could move, she didn’t want to sit in a chair where her wrists and ankles could be so easily imprisoned.

“We want to know who killed Apollo,” Jacks said.

Chaos looked up at Evangeline. “I heard you did it, while in bed, on your—”

“It wasn’t me,” she interrupted.

“That’s disappointing. I was going to offer you a job.”

“I’m not a killer,” Evangeline said. “Someone else poisoned my husband.”

“We wanted to know if any of your people were hired for the job,” Jacks added.

Chaos leaned back in his leather chair and steepled his fingers with the slow ease of someone who didn’t have to worry about the rabid changelings fighting to escape their cages. Or he really just wanted to waste their time on purpose.

“You owe me a debt,” Jacks reminded him.

“Relax, old friend, I was just going to say that no one came to us for this job,” Chaos said eventually. “But I remember … about a week ago, I think it was the evening after Nocte Neverending, my potions master received a rare request for a bottle of malefic oil.”

“What’s malefic oil?” Evangeline asked.

“It’s a very effective method of murder,” Chaos replied. “It’s not typically popular, since it takes a particular skill to work with. Most toxins have the same type of effect on every human, making them easily detectable and sloppy instruments of death. But if you have the spell and the preternatural skills to combine malefic oil with the blood, the tears, or the hair of a person you wish to kill, it is only toxic to that person.”

Evangeline tensed, thinking of the last time she’d seen Apollo, his chest covered in a glistening substance that looked like oil.

“Who asked for the poison?” Jacks said.

“I wasn’t there when the request was made,” Chaos said. “I only know it came from a female, and I’d wager she’s a witch. It takes a fair amount of power and a spell to properly combine the ingredients.”

Evangeline instantly thought of Marisol and her cooking spell books. But why would Marisol want to kill Apollo? Apollo had given her a new home and restored her reputation. It also didn’t make sense for Marisol to go to the trouble of securing a rare toxin that would only work on the prince, and then also poison a bottle of wine with something that could kill anyone who drank from it. Unless two different people had been trying to commit murder?

But that still didn’t mean Marisol was involved.

The Fortuna matriarch had already tried to kill Evangeline once. Although Kristof had written that the matriarch had suffered from a fall that had stolen some of her memories, making her an unlikely suspect.

“Is there anything else you can tell us about the woman who bought the oil?” Evangeline asked.

Chaos toyed with a chain hanging from his neck and shook his head.

“If that’s all you have, this doesn’t clear your debt,” Jacks said. “We should leave.”

“Wait.” Evangeline’s eyes were still on the chain around Chaos’s neck. She hadn’t noticed it before. When it had been flat against his leather armor, the chain and the medallion at the end of it had blended in. But now that the chain was in Chaos’s hands, Evangeline could see the aged medallion clearly enough to make out the symbol on it—the head of a wolf wearing a crown. The same symbol that had been burned into the door in the library, the door that all the books on the Valors were locked behind.

Maybe it was just a coincidence. But it felt like a clue. Chaos might not have been able to identify Apollo’s killer, but what if he knew something about the Valory Arch and what really had been locked behind it? She knew that wasn’t why they were visiting the vampire, but it was the reason Jacks had sabotaged the course of her life.

“Where did you get that medallion?” she asked.

Chaos looked down as if he weren’t even aware of the object he’d been toying with. “I took this from Wolfric Valor.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Jacks groaned.

An impressive crash came from the amphitheater. A cage had fallen to the floor.

The vampires inside the other room all clapped.

Evangeline looked out to the balcony. The vampire changeling inside the fallen cage had yet to break the lock, but given the way he fought with it, all tearing fingers and fearless growls, Evangeline doubted this young man would stay imprisoned much longer. They needed to leave soon, but Chaos had just said that he’d taken the medallion around his neck from Wolfric Valor.

Chaos had been alive at the same time as the Valors. Jacks had told Evangeline that Chaos was as old as the North, but she hadn’t realized the implication of that information until now.

The excitement must have shown on her face.

Beside her, Jacks went as taut as a bowstring.

Then Chaos was saying, “If you’re curious about the Valors, I can tell you whatever you want to know. I was there, and I remember the truth.”

No. Jacks’s voice seethed inside her head, and for once, his ruthless expression matched his words. Don’t even think about it.

More cages rattled in the background.

“It won’t cost you much,” Chaos said. “I’ll answer any questions you have in exchange for one bite.”

“I thought you couldn’t take off your helm.”

“He’s trying to get us to stay so that his changelings will have prey to chase,” Jacks said.

But Evangeline didn’t need a warning from Jacks to know this was an ill-advised bargain. She might have joked with Jacks once about making a deal with another Fate, but she wouldn’t do it ever again. It was bad enough she still owed Jacks a kiss; she didn’t want to owe this vampire anything. “Thank you for the offer, but I think I’d rather leave before your changelings break free.”

Chaos dropped the medallion and leaned back in the chair. “If you make it out and change your mind, return any time, princess.”

“I—”

Jacks didn’t give her the chance to finish replying before he ushered her out the door.

The halls of Chaos’s underground kingdom were darker than she’d remembered. Half the candles had burned out, covering her and Jacks in shadows and smoke as they hurried down the first corridor.

“Promise me you’ll never let him bite you,” Jacks said.

“I won’t ever need to if you tell me what you want inside the Valory Arch.”

“I thought you wanted this partnership to be about finding Apollo’s killer, not my other goals.” Jacks’s tone hardened as he reached the dining room with all the cages.

Evangeline heard the riot of chains before they stepped inside. She hadn’t forgotten about the cages there, but she hadn’t expected them all to be full of desperate changelings.

Dread clutched at her chest like a hand with claws every time one of them called out.

“I’ll make you immortal if you unlock my cage!”

“I’ll just take one tiny bite,” another promised.

“Some humans like being bitten.”

“Eva … is that you?” The voice had a more soothing timbre than the others, and the familiar sound of it lodged Evangeline’s heart into her throat.

Luc.

She hadn’t heard Luc’s voice in months, but it sounded just like him, if not a little lovelier.

It had to be some sort of vampire trick.

“Don’t stop moving.” Jacks tugged on her hand. But he should have yanked harder. He should have used his Fated strength because although Evangeline’s head agreed with Jacks, her human heart made her stop, pull her hand free of Jacks’s hand, look up at the cage above, and lock eyes with her first love.