Although Evangeline was forbidden from leaving the castle to visit Mr. Kristof Knightlinger, one of his scandal sheets was delivered with her breakfast tray the following morning.
It was not what Evangeline wanted. She still wanted to pay Mr. Knightlinger a personal visit and ask him to tell her everything he knew about her past.
She would have even settled for the gossip columnist coming to see her at Wolf Hall. However, as Mr. Knightlinger hadn’t responded to the letter she’d written him yesterday, she curled up on the sofa to read his scandal sheet instead.
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Evangeline didn’t want to be curious. She wanted to stay frustrated with Apollo—and she was. Her shoulder still hurt from where Garrick’s bird had gouged her skin, and her heart ached whenever she thought about how the sweet Apollo from the rooftop was only who the prince was sometimes. And yet she also couldn’t help but wonder where he’d gone.
As she dressed in a diaphanous peach gown dotted with little pink, white, and violet flowers, Evangeline asked Martine if she knew anything of the prince’s departure. But like her, the maid had learned about it from the scandal sheet.
She’d have to ask her guards, then. Evangeline adjusted the ribbons securing her gathered sleeves and braced herself for a potential battle before stepping toward the doors to her suite. They opened to the outer hallway, where two new guards in shining armor stood waiting.
“Hello, Your Highness.” The guards greeted her instantly with deep bows and intense attention.
“I’m Hansel.”
“And I’m Victor,” said the other.
Evangeline imagined they must have been brothers—they had the same cleft chins, the same thick necks, and even the same red mustaches. She wondered briefly if having mustaches was a requirement for guards.
“What can we do for you?” Hansel said with a smile.
Evangeline briefly forgot why she had opened the door. Both guards were new, and so far they appeared to be nice.
Apollo had kept his word.
It was no doubt an easy thing for him to change a few guards. Apollo probably had thousands of guards at his disposal. And yet Evangeline felt her heart soften just a little.
“Can either of you tell me where Prince Apollo has gone?”
“We’re sorry, Your Highness. His Highness didn’t tell us where he was going,” said Hansel.
“But we do have a message for you,” said Victor. “Your tutor just stopped by and said to give you this.” He handed Evangeline a scroll tied with wine-colored twine.
There wasn’t a wax seal, and therefore the letter was not private. And just like that, her heart put up its guard once more.
She almost didn’t read the note from the tutor—a proper prisoner wouldn’t have been eager to obey any instructions. But she’d already undone the twine, so she read the message.
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After signing the missive, the tutor had drawn a painstaking map of the Wolf Hall gardens. Then in handwriting so small that Evangeline nearly missed it, she’d written the words Please come!
Evangeline didn’t know if it was the word please or the exclamation mark that struck her. Perhaps it was the combination of both that made her feel this request was perhaps a bit more than it appeared on the surface.
Tower bells rang in the eleventh hour right as Evangeline stepped outside the castle.
The sky was velvet gray and full of swirling clouds that threatened more rain and told her to move quickly down the cobbled paths lined in hedges with pops of bright purple flowers.
There were four major gardens on the Wolf Hall grounds—the Sunken Garden, the Water Garden, the Flower Garden, and the Ancient Garden. Tucked away within each of these gardens were the four minor gardens— the Fairy Garden, the Moss Garden, the Secret Garden, and the Wishing Garden.
According to the tutor’s carefully drawn map, the Wishing Garden with its Well of Wishes was situated in the center of the Flower Garden. It
appeared to be a walled garden, surrounded by a moat and reachable by a bridge.
It should have been easy enough to find. The map was quite good, and the Flower Garden was manicured to perfection.
Yesterday’s rain had left the castle grounds full of rich, damp colors so deep that Evangeline imagined that were she to touch any flowers, their petals would stain the tips of her gloves. It was lovely in a way she almost wished it wasn’t. Evangeline didn’t want to be ensorcelled by the beauty. It felt too close to being dazzled once more by Apollo.
But it was hard not to feel just a little bit enchanted. The silver fog swirled around the grounds like magic, adding misty sparkles to all the trees and shrubs. It was such a lovely fog that Evangeline didn’t notice how dense it had become until she took a step and realized she could see nothing but the stone path a couple of feet directly before her. The fog was so thick she couldn’t even make out where her guards were behind her. She almost called out to see if they were still following. But then she thought better of it.
Evangeline didn’t really want to be followed by guards and . . . a wild
idea struck her.
Perhaps losing the guards was the tutor’s plan. Maybe she wanted to see Evangeline alone. The woman was supposed to be an expert in all things Wolf Hall and royal, so she must have expected that the garden would be concealed by fog. Perhaps the tutor had arranged this to tell Evangeline something she did not wish others to hear.
It was perhaps too much to hope that this something would also help Evangeline find her memories, and yet she found herself quickening her steps.
“Princess, could you slow down?” called Hansel. Or maybe it was Victor. She couldn’t distinguish who was yelling, only that they both were calling after her.
“We seem to have lost you!” one of them cried.
But Evangeline moved faster, stepping off the path so her boots wouldn’t click and the guards wouldn’t be able to easily follow her. The ground was damp and soft underfoot. Fallen petals clung to the edges of her cloak and to the tips of her boots.
Ding-dong!
In the distance, the tower clock chimed half past eleven.
Evangeline feared she was going to be late, but then she saw the bridge to the walled Wishing Garden. She quickly crossed it, leaving a trail of mud and flowers that would make it easy for the guards to find her once they got closer. But she’d hopefully get at least a few moments alone with Madame Voss.
The fog dissipated slightly at the end of the bridge, revealing a rounded door speckled with age. Evangeline had the impression it had once been a brilliant bronze, but that its color had faded over time, like a memory that would one day disappear altogether.
The door handle had a green patina that reminded her of a story she’d once read about a doorknob that could feel the hands of everyone who touched it and tell what sort of heart the person had. It was how the doorknob knew who to let inside.
Evangeline couldn’t remember who the doorknob had been protecting, but she knew that someone with a wicked heart had tricked the doorknob by removing their own heart. She forgot what happened after that, but she didn’t want to take the time to stop and remember. She needed to enter the garden before the guards caught up.
Fog swirled around her boots as she stepped inside. Unlike everything else on the royal grounds, this square of space was wild with rebellious flowers and drunken vines that curled around the garden’s abundant trees and dangled from their branches like ribbons at a party. The path was entirely covered in bluish-green moss that stretched before her as if it were a carpet, leading to a little well that somehow remained untouched by all the overgrown plants.
It was white with an arch of stones that held a length of rope and a dangling golden bucket. Drops of rain began to fall again as Evangeline started toward it.
She looked around for her tutor. Her eyes darted about the trees and back to the strange door, but she didn’t see or hear anyone. The garden was quiet, save for the growing drumming of the rain. What had started as a sprinkle was quickly turning into a storm.
Evangeline huddled under the hood of her cloak and willed her tutor to arrive. Then she remembered the end of the note.
I will of course try to be there on time, but if I’m late, don’t hesitate to make a wish.
Evangeline’s first thought was to wish that the tutor would get there soon. But that would be a silly thing to waste a wish on. She also wondered if perhaps the tutor was not being literal.
Maybe there was something on the well she wanted Evangeline to find. She took a closer look, in search of a clue. There appeared to be something carved into its bricks.
She could just make out the words Instructions for Wishing, but the other words were so faded she had to lean closer—
Hands pushed her from behind.
Evangeline screamed and tried to grasp the well. But the shove was forceful, and she was caught off guard.
She pitched forward like a stone and fell . . .
