Voices echoed against the walls of stretching bookshelves as the library erupted with noise. Guards in armor vowed to find the criminal Lord Jacks, while polished courtiers and robed scholars shot out questions like showers of arrows.
“How long have you been alive, Your Highness?” “How did you return from hell, Lord Prince?”
“Why did Lord Jacks steal your memories?” This inquiry, from an older courtier, was directed at Evangeline and punctuated by a narrow-eyed glare. “Enough,” Apollo cut in. “I did not tell you about the horror my wife has gone through so that she could be attacked with questions she has no idea how to answer. I shared this information because I want Lord Jacks found,
dead or alive. Although right now, I would prefer him dead.” “We won’t fail you!” shouted the guards.
More declarations involving justice and Jacks rattled the ancient library shelves and pounded against Evangeline’s head, and suddenly it was all too much. The noise, the questions, the flood of unfamiliar faces, Apollo’s tale of going through hell.
More was said, but the words turned to ringing in her ears.
Evangeline wanted to cling to Apollo—he was all she had in this new reality. But he was also a powerful prince, which made him feel less like
hers and more like everyone else’s. She was afraid to bother him with more questions, though she had so many. She still didn’t even know where she was.
From where she stood, Evangeline could see an oval window seat tucked under an arch of bookshelves. The window was a soft pale blue glass, and outside were full green needle trees as tall as towers covered in a picturesque layer of snow. It rarely snowed in Valenda, and never as thick as this, as if the world were a cake and the snow was dollops of thick white frosting.
As she had noticed before, the fashion here was different as well. The guards looked like knights from old tales, and the courtiers wore formal clothing similar to Apollo’s. Men were dressed in doublets, while women wore elaborate velvet gowns with off-the-shoulder necklines and dropped waists decorated with brocade belts or strings of pearls.
Evangeline had never seen people dressed like this. But she’d heard stories.
Her mother had been born in the Magnificent North, and she’d told Evangeline countless tales about this land, fairytales that made it sound as if it were the most enchanted place in all the world.
Unfortunately, Evangeline felt far from enchanted at this moment.
Apollo met her gaze then and turned away from the shrinking crowd surrounding them. It seemed people had already left to spread word that Prince Apollo was back from the dead. And why wouldn’t they? Evangeline never heard of someone coming back from the dead. A thought that made her feel quite small as she stood next to him.
Only a few people remained, but Apollo ignored them all as he gazed into Evangeline’s eyes. “There’s nothing for you to be afraid of.”
“I’m not afraid,” she lied.
“You’re looking at me differently.” He smiled at her then, a smile so charming she wondered how she hadn’t immediately known what he was.
“You’re a prince,” she squeaked.
Apollo grinned wider. “Is that a problem?”
“No, I . . . just—” Evangeline almost said she’d never imagined herself married to a prince.
But of course she had. Only her imaginings weren’t as elaborate as this. This was beyond every pastel dream she had ever had of royalty and castles and faraway places. But she would have traded it all to remember just how
she’d gotten here, how she’d fallen in love and married this man and lost what felt like part of her heart.
It hit her then. In fairytales, there was always a price for magic. Nothing came without a cost; peasants who turned into princesses always had to pay. And suddenly Evangeline wondered if her lost memories were the price she had paid for all of this.
Had she traded her memories, along with part of her heart, to be with Apollo? Could she have been that foolish?
Apollo’s smile softened, turning from teasing to reassuring. When he spoke, his words were gentler as well, as if he sensed part of what she was feeling. Or maybe it was just that he knew her well, even though she did not know him. He did have her name tattooed over his heart.
“It will all be all right,” he said quietly, firmly. “I know it’s a lot to take in. I hate to leave you, but there are a few things I need to take care of and, while I do that, my guards are ready to escort you to your suite. But I’ll try not to leave you alone for long. I promise, there is nothing more important to me than you.”
Apollo pressed another kiss to her hand and gave her one last look before he marched off, followed by his personal guards.
Evangeline stood there feeling suddenly alone and bursting with more questions than she had answers for. If Apollo had just come back from the dead, how did he already know what had happened to her? Maybe he was wrong about this Lord Jacks stealing her memories, and Evangeline was right about having foolishly traded them—which left her wondering if she could trade them back.
This question haunted her as she followed the guards that Apollo had assigned her through the castle. They didn’t say much, but they did tell Evangeline that Apollo’s castle was called Wolf Hall. It had been built by the first king of the Magnificent North, the famed Wolfric Valor, making her think of all her mother’s Northern stories.
Compared to where Evangeline had grown up, the North felt incredibly old, as if every stone beneath her feet held a secret of a bygone era.
One hallway was lined with doors that all had the most elaborate handles. One was shaped like a little dragon, another looked like fairy wings, and then there was a wolf’s head wearing a pretty flower crown. These were the types of handles that tempted her to pull them and made her
suspect they might be a little alive, like the bell that had hung outside the door to her father’s curiosity shop.
Evangeline felt an arrow of grief at the thought of it—not just the bell, but the shop and her parents and everything that she had lost. It was a dizzying torrent that hit her so suddenly she wasn’t aware she’d stopped moving until a guard with a thick red mustache leaned close and said, “Are you all right, Your Highness? Do you need one of us to carry you?”
“Oh no,” Evangeline said, instantly mortified. “My feet work just fine.
It’s just so much to take in. What is this hall?”
“This is the Valors’ wing. Most people think these were the rooms of the Valor children, although no one knows for sure. These doors have stayed locked ever since they died.”
But you could open us.
The strange voice sounded as if it came from one of the doors. Evangeline looked at each of her guards, but none of them appeared to have heard it. So she pretended she hadn’t heard it, either. Evangeline was in a difficult situation as it was. She didn’t need to make things worse for herself by saying she heard voices coming from inanimate objects.
Thankfully it didn’t happen again. When the guards finally stopped in front of a pair of ornate double doors, the jeweled doorknobs sparkled but didn’t say a word. There was only a gentle whoosh as they opened up to the most opulent suite of rooms that Evangeline had ever seen.
It was all so lovely that she felt as if harps should be playing and birds should be singing. Everything was glittering and golden and covered in flowers. There were boughs of harlequin lilies framing the two-story fireplace and vines of white starmires curling around the bedposts. Even the great copper tub Evangeline spied in the bathing room beyond was full of flowers—the steaming water inside was violet and covered in soft white and pink petals.
Evangeline walked to the bath and dipped her fingers in the water.
Everything was perfect.
Even the maids who entered to help her bathe and dress were all perfectly lovely. There were also a surprising number of them, nearly a dozen. They had sweet voices and gentle hands that helped her into a gown as delicate as a whisper.
The dress was an off-the-shoulder confection of blush tulle with sheer sleeves adorned with dark pink ribbons. The same ribbons lined the low
neckline of the gown before twirling into little rosebuds that covered the bust of the fitted bodice. The skirt flowed and fluttered down to Evangeline’s toes. A maid completed the look by braiding Evangeline’s rose-gold hair into a crown and then decorating it with a circlet of gilded flowers.
“If I do say so myself, you look lovely, Your Highness.” “Thank you—”
“Martine,” the maid supplied before Evangeline had to fumble around to try to find the name. “I’m also from the Meridian Empire originally. His Highness the prince thought having me here might help you adjust a bit more.”
“It sounds as if the prince is very thoughtful.”
“I think, when it comes to you . . . he tries to think of everything.”
Martine smiled, but the bit of hesitation in her words gave Evangeline a second of pause, a flutter of a feeling that said Apollo was too good to be true. That all of this was.
When Evangeline was alone and looked in the mirror, she saw the reflection of a princess. This was everything she could have wanted.
Yet she didn’t feel like a princess.
She felt like the idea of a princess, with the dress and the prince and the castle, and yet she also felt without. She felt as if she were simply wearing a costume, that she’d stepped into a role that she could simply step out of, only there wasn’t anywhere else to step to. Because she also didn’t feel like the girl she’d been before, the eternally hopeful girl who believed in fairytales, love at first sight, and happily ever afters.
If she had been that girl, it might have been easier to accept all of this, to not want to ask so many questions.
But something had happened to that girl—to her. And Evangeline couldn’t help but think it went beyond her missing memories.
Her heart still hurt, as if it had been broken and only jagged bits remained. She put a hand on it, as if to keep more pieces from breaking off. And once again, she was struck with the inescapable feeling that among everything she’d forgotten was one thing more important than all the rest, more important than anything.
There was something absolutely vital she needed to tell someone. But no matter how hard she tried, she could not remember what it was or who it was she needed to tell.
