After Apollo left Evangeline in the tent alone, she studied the glass cuff that wrapped around her wrist. It was magical. She’d assumed as much, but she hadn’t known what it did until she’d seen Apollo double over in pain.
She held the glass closer to the candlelight. She had seen it light up with curious writing when Apollo had been clutching his stomach. She couldn’t make the letters appear again now; all she could see were the little cherry blossom flowers etched into the glass.
She wondered if it had been specifically enchanted against Apollo—if that’s why the strange words had appeared minutes ago when he’d touched her and she hadn’t wanted him to. It seemed like just the sort of enchantment Jacks would place on an object.
What she didn’t understand was why. If Jacks didn’t want Evangeline with Apollo, then why did he leave her with him? Why didn’t Jacks take me with him? she wondered. But she already knew the answer to that.
You and I aren’t meant to be.
Sorry to break your fairytale, Little Fox, but ballads don’t end happily, and neither do the two of us.
Every girl I’ve kissed has died, except for one. And you are not that girl.
I want to erase every moment you and I have spent together . . . because if I don’t, I’ll kill you, just like I killed the Fox.
Jacks had already given her all his reasons for leaving.
Although the last reason she recalled gave Evangeline pause. Jacks had wanted her to find all the Valory Arch stones, not so that he could open the Valory, but so that he could use them to turn back time and be with Donatella, the one girl he’d kissed who he hadn’t killed. But Jacks hadn’t done that. If he had, she wouldn’t have ever met him, and he’d be with Donatella in Valenda right now.
What had happened, then? There were four arch stones. Each one had a different magical power, but when all four stones were combined, they had the power to turn back time. But they could be used for this purpose only one time.
Had Jacks changed his mind about turning back time? Was he waiting to use the stones? Or had they already been used?
Before she’d gotten her memories back, Chaos had told her: I’m here because a friend of ours needs help—your help. He’s about to make a horrible decision and you need to change his mind before it’s too late to save him.
Clearly he’d been speaking about Jacks. But what was the horrible decision?
Evangeline had been heartbroken and terrified when she’d learned that Jacks wanted to go back in time and change the past so that she and he had never met. But this didn’t sound as if he was going to do that—this sounded like something else. Something possibly worse.
Evangeline needed to get out of this tent and find him.
She considered setting the tent on fire and then escaping in the melee. But fires could too easily get out of control, and she didn’t want to hurt anyone.
Unless it was Apollo. She did want to hurt him.
“I hope you appreciate just how much trouble I’ve gone to in order to break into this tent,” said a wonderfully familiar voice as Evangeline’s tent flapped closed.
She hadn’t even heard it open, but it must have. A girl dressed like a guard stood in the center of the tent, hands on her hips as she scanned the lavish space with a shrewd twist of her lips, which were painted with a sparkling gloss.
“LaLa!” Evangeline exclaimed, too loud. But she could not contain her excitement at the sight of her friend. “What are you doing dressed like a guard?”
“I kept trying to visit, but they wouldn’t let me. Some nonsense about how you were too overwrought to see friends. So I had to fashion a costume.”
LaLa twirled around, and as she did, her three-quarter-length skirt lifted just enough to reveal that underneath the plain burgundy fabric was a shimmery sequin petticoat that sparkled like firelight. She’d also added little puffed sleeves to her bronze jacket, and a matching belt that tied into a bow in the back.
LaLa was a number of things. First and foremost, Evangeline thought of her as a friend, so sometimes it was easy to forget that she was also an immortal Fate, like Jacks.
She was the Unwed Bride.
She’d once confessed to Evangeline that the Fates were always fighting the urge to be that which they were made to be. LaLa’s urge was to find love. She wanted it more than anything, even though she knew that it would never last. Because her love always ended with her alone at an altar, bawling poisoned tears. Because no matter how many loves she found, the love she really wanted was her first love—a dragon shifter who had been locked away in the Valory.
To deal with her urges to find love, she sewed. She sewed a lot. And she was very good at it.
“I know it’s not exactly the same uniform,” she said with another swish of her skirt, “but I think I’ve improved upon it.”
“I love it,” Evangeline said. “And I love seeing you even more.”
With her memory back less than a day, Evangeline had not had time to properly miss her friend. But now that LaLa was here, Evangeline could feel that the missing had been there all along, part of the emptiness inside her that was only now starting to feel as if it was filling up. She hugged her then, so tightly she might have feared hurting her, if LaLa wasn’t a Fate.
“Where’s your dragon?” Evangeline asked. She realized then that even though she now remembered opening the Valory Arch, she still didn’t know exactly what had been inside of it, apart from LaLa’s dragon shifter. She also had no idea if LaLa had actually reunited with him.
“Oh, he’s around,” LaLa said vaguely as she pulled away. “I’m sure you’ll meet him soon,” she added, but it was a little half-hearted, which wasn’t at all like her.
LaLa might have been a Fate, and thus her emotions weren’t quite human, but Evangeline knew that LaLa had loved her dragon shifter; she’d loved him so much that she’d actually been the one to put the Archer’s curse on Apollo, misguidedly hoping to ensure that Evangeline opened the Valory Arch.
Evangeline had been quite hurt at the time, but like LaLa, she had also made terrible decisions because of love.
“Is everything all right?” Evangeline reached out again and took her friend’s hand. “Do you need to talk?”
“It’s fine, really. It’s just . . .” LaLa paused to exhale. “The world has changed a lot since Dane was locked away, and apparently so have I. But it’s fine. Truly. What’s that saying about love? You know the one that mentions the sugar, the fire, and cost of desire?”
Evangeline shook her head. “I’m not sure I’ve heard that one.”
“Well, perhaps it’s not that much of a saying. Now, don’t get me wrong, my friend, I’m thrilled you’re asking about all of this. But I’m perplexed. I thought you had lost all of your memories?”