The Prince of Hearts took a final bite of his apple before it dropped to the floor and spattered everything with red. “People who don’t like me call me Jacks.”
Evangeline wanted to say that she didn’t dislike him, that he’d always been her favorite Fate. But this was not the lovesick Prince of Hearts she’d imagined. Jacks didn’t look like heartbreak come to life.
Was this all a nasty joke? The Fates had supposedly disappeared from the world centuries ago. Yet everything Jacks wore—from his untied cravat to his tall leather boots—were of the latest fashion.
Her eyes darted around the white church as if Luc’s friends might jump out at any moment to have a laugh. Luc was the only son of a gentleman, and though he never acted as if that mattered with Evangeline, the young men he kept company with considered her beneath them. Evangeline’s father had owned several shops across Valenda, so she’d never been poor. But she wasn’t from the upper tier of society like Luc.
“If you’re searching for the way out because you’ve come to your senses, I won’t stop you.” Jacks folded his hands behind his golden head, leaned back against the statue of himself, and grinned.
Her stomach dipped in warning, telling her not to be deceived by his dimpled smile or the torn clothes. This was the most dangerous being she’d ever met.
Evangeline didn’t imagine he would kill her—she would never be foolish enough to let the Prince of Hearts kiss her. But she knew that if she
stayed and made a deal with Jacks, he would forever destroy some other part of her. And yet, if she left, there would be no saving Luc.
“What will your help cost me?”
“Did I say I would help you?” His eyes went to the cream ribbons trailing up from her shoes to wrap around her ankles until they disappeared under the hem of her eyelet dress. It was one of her mother’s old gowns, covered in a stitched pattern of pale purple thistles, tiny yellow flowers, and little foxes.
The corner of Jacks’s mouth twisted distastefully and stayed that way as his gaze continued up to the ringlets of hair she’d carefully curled with hot tongs that morning.
Evangeline tried not to feel insulted. From the brief experience she had with this Fate, she didn’t imagine most things found his approval.
“What color is that?” He waved vaguely toward her curls.
“It’s rose gold,” she answered brightly. Evangeline never let anyone make her feel bad about her unusual hair. Her stepmother was always trying to get her to color it brown. But Evangeline’s hair, with its waves of soft pink streaked through with pale gold, was the thing she liked best about her appearance.
Jacks cocked his head to the side, still observing her with a scowl. “Were you born in the Meridian Empire or in the North?”
“Why does that matter?” “Call it curiosity.”
Evangeline resisted the urge to return his scowl. Normally, she loved answering this question. Her father, who’d liked to make Evangeline feel as if her whole life were a fairytale, had always teased that he’d found her packed up in a crate along with other oddities that had been delivered to his shop—that’s why her hair was pixie pink, he’d always said. And her mother had always nodded with a wink.
She missed the way her mother winked and her father teased. She missed everything about them, but she didn’t want to share any of their pieces with Jacks.
She managed a shrug instead of a verbal reply.
Jacks’s brows slashed down. “You don’t know where you were born?”
“Is it a requirement to get your help?”
He looked her over again, eyes lingering on her lips this time. Yet he didn’t regard her as if he wanted to kiss her. His appraisal was too clinical. He looked at her mouth the way someone might study wares in one of her father’s shops, as if her lips were a thing that could be purchased—a thing that could belong to him.
“How many people have you kissed?” he asked.
A tiny bolt of heat struck Evangeline’s neck. She’d worked in her father’s curiosity shop since she was twelve. She hadn’t exactly been raised like a proper young lady; she wasn’t like her stepsister, who was taught to always keep three feet away from a gentleman and to never talk about anything more controversial than the weather. Her parents had encouraged Evangeline to be curious and adventurous and friendly, but she wasn’t bold in every way. Certain things made her nervous, and the way the Prince of Hearts kept staring at her mouth was one of those things. “I’ve only kissed Luc.”
“That is pathetic.”
“Luc is the only person I want to kiss.”
Jacks scratched his sharp jaw, looking doubtful. “I’m almost tempted to believe you.”
“Why would I lie?”
“Everyone lies—people think I’m more likely to help if they’re after something noble like true love.” A hint of derision crept into his voice, chipping away a little more at the Prince of Hearts she’d imagined. “But even if you do really love this boy, you’re better off without him. If he loved you back, he wouldn’t be marrying someone else. End of story.”
“You’re wrong.” Her voice held the same conviction as her heart. Evangeline had questioned her relationship with Luc after his abrupt engagement to Marisol, but the question was always answered with months of meaningful memories. The night Evangeline’s father had died—the night her heart wouldn’t stop pounding or hurting—Luc had found her wandering the aisles of the curiosity shop, looking for a cure for broken hearts. Her cheeks had been tear-stained, and her eyes were red. She feared her crying would scare him away, but instead he’d pulled her into his arms and said, “I
don’t know if I can fix your broken heart, but you can take mine because it’s already yours.”
She’d known she loved him for a while, but that was when she knew Luc loved her. His words might have been borrowed from a popular story, but he backed them up with heartfelt actions. He’d helped her hold her heart together that night, and so many of the nights that followed. And now she was determined to help him. Proposals and engagements didn’t always mean love, but she knew that moments like the ones she’d shared with Luc did.
He had to be cursed. As extreme or as silly as it might have made her sound to others, this was the only explanation she could believe. It didn’t make sense that he wouldn’t at least speak to her, or that every time Evangeline tried telling Marisol the truth, she would open her mouth and the words wouldn’t come out.
“Please.” Begging wasn’t beneath her. “Help me.”
“I don’t think what you want will help you. But I do appreciate a good lost cause. I’ll stop the wedding in exchange for three kisses.” Jacks’s eyes took on an entertained gleam as they returned to her mouth.
A fresh surge of heat rose to Evangeline’s cheeks. She’d been wrong about him not wanting to kiss her. But if the stories were true, one kiss from him and she’d be dead.
Jacks laughed, harsh and short. “Relax, pet, I don’t wish to kiss you. It would kill you, and then you’d be no use to me. I want you to kiss three others. Who I choose. When I choose.”
“What sort of kisses? Little pecks … or more?”
“If you think that counts, maybe you haven’t been kissed.” Jacks shoved off the statue and stalked closer, towering over her once again. “It’s not a real kiss if there isn’t any tongue.”
The blush she’d been fighting burned hotter until her neck and her cheeks and her lips all caught fire.
“Why the hesitation, pet? They’re only kisses.” Jacks sounded as if he were holding back another laugh. “Either this Luc is horrible at using his mouth, or you’re afraid to say yes too quickly because you secretly like the idea.”
“I do not like the idea—”
“So, your Luc is a hideous kisser?” “Luc is an excellent kisser!”
“How do you know if you have nothing to compare it with? If you end up with Luc, you might even wish that I’d asked you to kiss more than three people.”
“I don’t want to kiss any strangers—the only person I want is Luc.” “Then this should be a small price to pay,” Jacks said flatly.
He was right, but Evangeline couldn’t simply agree. Her father had taught her that Fates didn’t determine one’s future as their name suggested. Instead they opened doors into new futures. But doors opened by Fates didn’t always lead where people expected; instead they often led people to new desperate deals to fix their first bad bargains. It happened in countless stories, and Evangeline didn’t want it to happen in hers.
“I don’t want anyone to die,” she said. “You can’t stop the wedding by kissing anyone there.”
Jacks looked disappointed. “Not even your stepsister?” “No!”
He brought his fingers to his mouth and toyed with his lower lip, covering half of an expression that could have either been irritation or amusement. “You’re not really in a position to bargain.”
“I thought Fates liked bargains,” she challenged.
“Only when we make the rules. Still, I’m in a good mood, so I’ll grant you this request. I just want to know one more thing. How did you get the door to let you in?”
“I asked it politely.”
Jacks rubbed the corner of his jaw. “That’s all? You didn’t find a key?” “I didn’t even see a keyhole,” she answered honestly.
Something like victory glimmered in Jacks’s eyes, then he captured her wrist and brought it up to his cold mouth.
“What are you doing?” she gasped.
“Don’t worry, I’m still not going to kiss you.” His lips brushed over the delicate underside of her wrist. Once. Twice. Three times. It was barely a touch, and yet there was something incredibly intimate about it. It made her
think of the other stories that said his kisses might have been fatal, but they were worth dying for. Jacks’s cool mouth dragged intentionally back and forth over her racing pulse, velvety and gentle and—his sharp teeth dug into her skin.
She cried out, “You bit me!”
“Relax, pet, I didn’t draw any blood.” His eyes shone brighter as he dropped her arm.
She ran a finger over the tender skin he’d just sunk his teeth into. Three thin white scars, shaped like tiny broken hearts, lined the underside of her wrist. One for each kiss.
“When do—” Evangeline looked up.
But the Prince of Hearts was already gone. She didn’t even see him leave; she just heard the door to the church slam shut.
She’d gotten what she wanted.
So then why didn’t she feel better?
She’d done the right thing. Luc loved her. She couldn’t believe he was marrying Marisol of his own free will. It wasn’t that Evangeline disliked Marisol. Truthfully, she barely knew her stepsister. About a year after her mother had died, Evangeline’s father had gotten it into his head that he must marry again, that he needed a wife to look after Evangeline in case anything ever happened to him. She could still remember the worry that had replaced the light in his eyes, as if he had known he didn’t have much time left.
Her father had only been married to Agnes six months before he died. During that time, Marisol never stepped inside the curiosity shop where Evangeline spent most of her time. Marisol said she was allergic to the dust, but she was so skittish around anything slightly strange, Evangeline always suspected her stepsister was really afraid of curses and the uncanny. Whereas Evangeline and Luc used to joke that if they were ever cursed, it would just prove that magic existed.
It was laughably sad that Evangeline now had that proof, but she didn’t have him.
Even if Jacks returned and allowed Evangeline to change her mind, she wouldn’t have. Jacks had said he’d stop the wedding, and he’d promised not to kill anyone.
Yet … Evangeline couldn’t shake the sense she’d made a mistake. She didn’t think she’d agreed too quickly, but all she could see was the gleam dancing in Jacks’s eyes as he’d taken her wrist.
Evangeline started running.
She didn’t know what she was going to do or why she felt suddenly sick inside. She just knew she needed to talk to Jacks again before he stopped the wedding.
If she’d been in an ordinary church, she might have caught up with him quickly. But this was a Fated church, protected by a magicked door that seemed to possess a mind of its own. When she opened it, the door did not return her to the Temple District. It spat her out in a musty old apothecary full of floating dust, empty bottles, and ticking clocks.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Seconds had never passed so fast. Between one tick and one tock, the magicked door she’d just stepped through disappeared and was replaced by a barred window that looked down on a row of streets as crooked as teeth. She was in the Spice Quarter—across the city from where Luc and Marisol were supposed to be wed.
Evangeline cursed as she fled.
By the time she crossed the city and reached her house, she feared that she was already too late.
Marisol and Luc were going to say their vows in her mother’s garden, inside the gazebo that her father had built. Crickets filled it with music at night, and birds chirped during the day. Evangeline could hear all their little songs as she entered the garden now, but there weren’t any voices. There were just the delicate birds, flapping merrily through the gazebo before landing on a group of granite statues.
Evangeline’s knees went weak.
There had never been statues in this garden before. But there were nine of them now, all holding goblets as if they’d just finished a toast. Each face was disturbingly lifelike and terrifyingly familiar.
Evangeline watched in revulsion as a buzzing fly landed on the face of a statue that looked just like Agnes before flitting off and alighting on one of Marisol’s granite eyes.
Jacks had stopped the wedding by turning everyone to stone.
