The Ballad of Never After (Once Upon a Broken Heart Book 2)

Jacks whistled merrily as he and Evangeline walked down the low-lit hall together on their way to meet with Chaos. She had never heard Jacks whistle before. She supposed he did it now because she’d finally agreed to open the Valory Arch. But for some reason, she hadn’t expected it to make him this kind of unabashedly happy.

Jacks was all dimples and whistles, and it was unsettling how curious this happiness made Evangeline. What could Jacks possibly want inside the arch?

He’d found another apple as she’d gotten dressed—it was unbitten and blue, and he tossed it in time with his merry song.

“You’re staring.”

“I was just wondering why you always carry apples.”

Jacks chuckled under his breath. “Trust me, Little Fox, you’re better off not knowing.”

He took a slow bite of the fruit, eyes darkening as they slowly slid from her lips to her neck, following the exposed line of it down to her clavicle and then to her breasts. Her breathing felt heavy as Jacks’s gaze lingered on the intricate cords that wrapped around her chest, tracing the golden lines with his eyes in a way that made the braided ropes feel as if they were being tightened, as if his cool fingers were pulling them more tautly around her, until it was a little difficult to breathe.

“You started it with your stare,” he murmured.

This was more like the Jacks she knew, taunting and a little cruel.

“Do you have any news of Apollo?” she asked coolly.

“No,” Jacks said. “Chaos sent out vampires to search for him last night, along with a few humans who could stay out until after sunrise, but no one has seen him and the scandal sheets haven’t mentioned him. If he’s smart, he’s trying to get some distance from you, to make it easier to fight the curse. But,” Jacks added darkly, “that can only last so long.”

“What about Havelock?” Evangeline asked.

“What about him?”

“Has anyone questioned him to see if he knows who put the Archer’s curse on Apollo?”

Jacks side-eyed her. “I already told you, finding out who cast this curse won’t help us.”

“But I’d still like to know. Maybe you’re used to people trying to kill you, but I’m not.”

“That’s unfortunate, because Havelock is gone, too. We tried to find him after questioning the guards who were watching Apollo, but no one in Wolf Hall knows where he is. My guess would be wherever Apollo is.”

Jacks stopped at the ancient wooden door to Chaos’s study. He twisted the iron handle, but the door did not budge.

He knocked. But the vampire didn’t answer. It seemed he wasn’t there just yet.

“Unlock it,” Jacks ordered.

Evangeline bristled. “You could at least say please.”

“I could, but then you might think I’m being nice, and I would hate to confuse you.”

Lightning quick, Jacks pulled out his dagger, stabbed her finger, and grinned as he watched her bleed. “Better hurry before the vampires come.”

Evangeline gave him a dirty look. But she quickly unlocked the door. Although she doubted any vampires would attack her—not as long as Chaos needed her to open the Valory Arch so that he could take off his helm. Chaos might have been a vampire and Jacks a Fate, but they both needed her rather desperately, it seemed.

The thought emboldened Evangeline to do a little exploring as she and Jacks entered the unoccupied study. If not for the chains and fetters attached to the chairs, it might have been easy to imagine they were at Wolf Hall. The floors were ancient polished stone, the chairs were fine leather, and the marble chessboard atop Chaos’s desk was a work of art. The pieces were larger than normal, making it easier to see they weren’t ordinary kings and queens, knights and rooks and pawns. They were carved to look like the Valors, and just like the great statues in the harbor outside of Valorfell, all the heads of the pieces had been removed.

Jacks took another bite of his apple, filling the dim room with sweetness as he watched Evangeline near the desk.

“Not sure you should be snooping,” he said.

“Not sure I care,” she retorted. “The vampire needs me too much to hurt me.”

Evangeline rounded the desk with a little more sway in her step.

She wasn’t exactly certain what she was looking for, she just knew that this was her one opportunity to look without consequence. Since arriving in the North, Evangeline had always been the person in the room with the least amount of power, but that was no longer the case. She was the girl from the prophecy. She was the key—a magical thing capable of magical things! She didn’t need to linger in a doorway like a scared little kitten or sit politely in a chair and wait.

She started to open the desk drawer when she saw it on the corner of the desk—a gem sparkling underneath a glass cloche.

Evangeline lifted the cloche, and the jewel inside shone brighter, throwing glimmers of pink and gold across the room. It looked like a wish that she could wear around her neck. Or perhaps some enchantress had taken a handful of wonder and somehow placed it in this necklace, though necklace felt like far too common a word for whatever this treasure was.

Her fingers tingled as she touched the chain. “Do you think Chaos acquired this gem for me?”

“No.” The vampire appeared in a shadowy flash and snatched the necklace from her hand.

“Give it back!” Evangeline grabbed for the gem on instinct, but Chaos held her wrist.

“This isn’t for you,” he said.

He was wrong. She knew he was wrong. The gem didn’t sparkle so brightly in his gloved hand. It needed to be hers.

She swung at him with her free arm. It didn’t matter that he was stronger or bigger or that it probably hurt her far more than it hurt him when she managed to strike at his chest. She had to have that necklace.

“That doesn’t belong with you!” She lunged for him.

“Not a good idea, Little Fox.” Jacks’s hands banded around her, roughly dragging her from the vampire and her precious gem.

“Let me go, you monster—” She tried to butt him with her head.

Jacks took a hand from her waist and wrapped it around her neck, holding her immobile as Chaos went to the desk and locked the gem inside an iron box.

Immediately, Evangeline felt like she’d been plunged in cold water. As soon as the lid closed over the stone, her boldness, her extreme confidence, her desire to claw out Chaos’s eyes with her fingernails vanished in a flash.

She sagged against Jacks’s grip. “What just happened?” Her skin felt flushed, her breath was uneven, and Jacks’s hands were still on her.

“Can you control yourself if I release you?” Jacks asked. “Or do we need to shackle you to one of the chairs?” He sounded as if he was laughing again—because of course Jacks would be entertained while she was mortified.

“I’m fine.” Evangeline wriggled against Jacks. Slowly, he uncurled his fingers from her, but not before she felt his knuckles softly brush against the underside of her breast.

Her stomach dipped. But Jacks’s face was so impassive, she imagined the touch must have been a slip.

She shook her head as she staggered farther from him and the necklace Chaos had locked away.

“What was that thing?” she asked.

“That thing is the luck stone,” Chaos said. “It is one of the four magical missing arch stones.”

Evangeline remembered then what Jacks had said about the previous key, that she’d died after finding one of the missing stones. The gem on the necklace must have been that stone.

Chaos strode away from the desk, but his movements appeared to be tighter than usual. He clenched and then unclenched his hands as if he’d just finished with something challenging.

“Did the stone affect you as well?” she asked.

“The stone affects everyone,” he said.

“It didn’t do anything to me,” chimed Jacks.

“Only because the luck stone makes people reckless, and you’re always reckless,” Chaos replied.

Jacks shrugged. “What’s the point of being an immortal if you live like a human?”

“But I thought you could die?” Evangeline asked.

“Why? Planning on murdering me?” Jacks’s eyes glittered.

Chaos speared him with a glare. “Don’t tempt her.”

“Relax.” Jacks toyed with one of the shackles dangling from the arm of a chair. “I gave her the chance to stab me once, but even then she wouldn’t do it.”

“And I’ll forever regret that,” Evangeline said. But to her horror, the words didn’t taste as true as they should have. She reminded herself that Jacks couldn’t be trusted. He was the reason she was in this mess. Except, once again, those words didn’t feel true. Jacks was not the one who’d cursed Apollo this time.

She remembered the feel of Jacks’s heartbeat, furious against hers, as he’d dragged her out of the ocean after they had escaped Apollo. For once, Jacks hadn’t felt in control. He’d felt like a feral fairytale warrior, determined to do whatever it took to save her. She knew his reasons for wanting to keep her alive were less than noble. But sometimes reason was no match for feeling. She reasoned that it would be far better to hate him, but she could no longer muster the feeling.

Chaos cleared his throat.

Evangeline looked up to see the vampire standing before his desk, arms crossed over his broad chest as he watched her with something like concern. It was difficult to tell for certain with the helm concealing his face, but he didn’t need to worry. Evangeline might not have hated Jacks, but she still knew better than to trust him.

“There are three stones left to find,” Chaos explained. “Each stone has a different power. Evangeline, because you’re the key, you will feel each stone’s magic the most, making it easiest for you to identify them. However, as you could probably tell from the luck stone, the power of the stones makes them dangerous.”

“What are the powers of the other stones?” She remembered the disappearing librarian had mentioned their names, but she couldn’t recall what they were.

Jacks perched on the arm of a chair and counted mockingly with his fingers. “One for luck. One for truth. One for mirth. One for youth.”

“Those don’t sound too bad,” she said.

Jacks gave her a dirty look. “Mirth has the potential to make you lose your mind even more than the luck stone did. People will kill to hold on to their youth. It could also bring about jealousy or immaturity, so that one will be tricky to steal. And truth—” Jacks smirked. “The truth is never what you want it to be, Little Fox.”