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

The awful truth pressed against Evangeline’s chest, making it hard to breathe. LaLa had been right. The mirth stone was here. All this time, it had been clouding Jacks’s judgment—and hers. Nothing she’d felt here was real. The sense of safety and happiness, the growing feelings she had for Jacks, it was all because of the mirth stone.

It should have been a relief. She was married to Apollo, and Jacks was not someone whom she could ever have a future with. He’d already found the one girl who’d made his heart beat, and it wasn’t her. Evangeline wasn’t Jacks’s true love. But she found herself wishing that she were.

She closed her eyes, trying to clear her head, even though all she really wished to do was close the glass door of the clock and forget what she’d discovered. She’d come to the North hoping for a happily ever after, and being here with Jacks was the closest she’d come to feeling it. Ever since coming here, Jacks no longer felt like her enemy, he felt like her home.

Evangeline worried her lip. She shouldn’t want any of this, because it wasn’t real. But what actually made something real? If it was a lack of magic, then nothing in the North was entirely real.

Evangeline carefully scooped up the little dragon. Then she closed the door to the clock, securing the mirth stone behind the glass.

She knew what she needed to do—she just wasn’t ready to do it yet.

In the tavern, Evangeline found thick stacks of toast, all accompanied by scrumptious cast-iron pots of Hollow marmalade, Northern lemon curd, Merrywood blueberry jam, and something thick and chocolaty. Her little dragon immediately claimed the chocolate pot.

Evangeline scraped some lemon curd onto a piece of bread, but she couldn’t bring it to her lips. Her stomach churned as she thought about the mirth stone sitting merrily in the clock. Now that she knew it was there, the peace she’d felt before was shattered.

But the pull she felt toward Jacks was not.

She sensed him as soon as he stepped into the tavern. The air turned charged as if sparks had taken the place of half the oxygen. The broken heart scar on her wrist tingled pleasantly, and she felt herself smiling.

“Hello,” he said, almost shyly, as he approached the table. He was barefoot and shirtless, and adorably tousled, with golden hair falling over sparkly eyes that looked as if they were still waking up.

“Hi.” Her voice came out oddly shy as well, which only seemed to make Jacks smile.

“You didn’t have to sneak out of bed,” he said.

“I didn’t sneak.”

“Then why didn’t you stay?” He casually slid into the seat beside her and turned to her with a wolfish grin. It was a smile like a fairytale, part villain, part hero, part impossible ever after.

She couldn’t bear how much she loved it.

But then she remembered the stone. She imagined she’d feel differently if it was in an iron box, and she feared that Jacks would, too. That he wouldn’t be looking at her as if he wanted to devour her instead of the breakfast.

“Tomorrow, I won’t let you leave so easily.” His eyes flashed with mischief, and he stole a bite of her toast.

The gesture was so simple and so comfortable, and all she could think was that it would be so easy to stay here. “I thought you said it was just one night.”

“I thought you never believed what I said.” He shook his head reproachfully and tugged her onto his lap.

“Jacks—” Evangeline put a hand against his chest. She could feel his heart was pounding, which surprised her. On the outside, he looked so casual and careless, but now she imagined he felt as nervous as she did. It made her want to pull him closer, to press her head into his shoulder and tell him all the things that she was trying not to feel.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, and for a second, she held tight. She held him as if he were hers and she were his, and there was nothing else between them. No curses. No lies. No past wounds or mistakes. She held him as if there was only now, as if nothing mattered but this moment. Then she let him go. She shoved off his lap with clumsy arms and even clumsier legs that stumbled as she tried to step back.

“Evangeline … what’s wrong?” A line creased between his brows.

“This isn’t real, Jacks. You and I, we’re under the influence of the mirth stone.”

“You think you would only feel this way about me because of a rock?” Jacks’s mouth clamped shut. For a second, he looked angry, but when she looked in his eyes, all she could see was hurt.

Evangeline wanted to take the words back. She didn’t want to cause him pain. She didn’t want to do this at all. But she knew they couldn’t stay here, even for another day, because she feared one day wouldn’t be enough—there would never be enough. If Evangeline stayed here with Jacks, she would be like Petra, holding on to him the way that Petra had held on to her youth and her stone, willing to do whatever she needed to keep them.

“I don’t think, I know.” She picked up the empty cast-iron jar of chocolate along with the lid. “I found the mirth stone this morning. It’s in the clock in the hall.”

“Evangeline—”

She heard him jump up from his seat, but she didn’t turn around. The sooner she did this, the better off they’d both be.

She ran to the hall.

“Wait—” Jacks grabbed her hand and spun her away from the clock. His face was pale, and his eyes were glassy with red.

She hated that she’d hurt him, but she shuttered her expression. In a minute, they’d both feel differently. Jacks wanted the stones more than anything else, and she wanted to save Apollo. She wanted a happily ever after—and she wanted it to be real and true and not because of magic.

“Whatever it is, Jacks, you won’t feel the same in a minute.”

He swallowed hard and clenched his jaw. “You have no idea what I’m feeling now.”

He looked at her lips, and the most tortured expression she’d ever seen crossed his face.

When Jacks wanted something, it was with an intensity that could break worlds and build kingdoms. That was the energy pouring off him now, as if he wanted to destroy her and make her his queen all at once.

And it was oh so tempting to let him. Magic crackled in the sliver of space between them. Golden and electric and alive. It felt like the end of a fairytale, when one kiss had more power than a thousand wars or a hundred spells.

Evangeline imagined drawing closer, pressing her lips to Jacks’s and spending eternity lost in one neverending kiss.

“This isn’t real, Jacks.” Each word hurt to say, but Evangeline knew that although the words were painful, at least they were true. “This place, it’s the enchantment of a fairytale without any of the curses or the monsters. But there are still curses and monsters out there. Apollo is still out there—”

“Apollo is fine,” Jacks cut in, angry as he said the prince’s name. “Chaos found him—and I saw him when I was away. Apollo is comfortably locked away in Chaos’s castle, where no one else can hurt him and he can’t hurt you.”

“But he also can’t live like that. And we can’t live like this.” Evangeline pulled her hand from Jacks’s, and before he could stop her, she turned toward the clock. She opened the door to the pendulums, snatched the mirth stone and shoved it into the iron jar.