Archer was not an angel or a savior. He was unhinged, possibly unsafe, and yet, he felt like Evangeline’s greatest hope for getting her memories back.
Once more Evangeline looked at the dagger Archer had given her. What she remembered of it didn’t give her much to go on, so perhaps it was more like a bread crumb than a proper piece of a memory, but every lover of fairytales knew that bread-crumb trails were always worth following.
And Evangeline planned to follow this one wherever it led. One memory could be shaken off as a coincidence.
But she’d seen Archer twice, and twice he’d brought back vivid memories, and along with them her hope.
After waking before dawn and spending the darkest hours struggling in the rain against Archer, Evangeline should have crawled back in bed, exhausted.
Instead, she was exhilarated. It felt as if she’d found a bit of her old self. And it was one of her favorite pieces. It was the part of herself that loved to hope. She’d forgotten how hope could make colors brighter and feelings warmer, how it could shift thoughts from what wasn’t to what was possible.
Her memories were not gone forever, they were merely lost, and Evangeline now had every hope that she would find them.
Since Archer had already prompted two memories, it made sense to hope that when she saw him again, he’d bring about more. And if he didn’t, she was at least going to get him to tell her how they knew each other.
But this time she wasn’t going to wait for him to find her.
Evangeline planned to ask for a tour of Wolf Hall—one that included the quarters where the guards and soldiers lived. She knew that Archer had said they’d have another lesson later, but she didn’t want to wait until whenever later happened. She wanted to find him again today.
“Pardon me, Your Highness,” squeaked Martine. “Before you leave, you might want to take a look at this. It arrived as you spoke with the physician’s apprentice.” The maid handed Evangeline a cream-colored note with Apollo’s seal in the wax, which Evangeline swiftly broke before reading the letter.
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“We should start getting you ready straightaway!” exclaimed Martine, not even attempting to hide that she’d been reading over Evangeline’s shoulder.
“Do I really need to start dressing for dinner right now?” It was just shy of noon, which should have given her at least a few hours to search for Archer. “It’s just a dinner.”
“Nothing is just a dinner if it’s in a castle,” said Martine. “When a prince says dinner, he really means banquet. Everyone will be there. Every courtier, every noble, every Great House, every guard—”
“Every guard?” Evangeline asked, her thoughts immediately going to Archer.
If he was at the dinner, she wouldn’t have to look for him now. And if this dinner was as large a gathering as Martine made it sound, then surely it should be easy to sneak away for a private chat.
