The Ballad of Never After (Once Upon a Broken Heart Book 2)

Evangeline did not know what lie Jacks had told Chaos about their plans. But the following evening, she found that Chaos had filled her bedroom with an exciting assortment of elegant gowns and slippers and hats and cloaks and jewels. So much pink silk and cream satin and hand-stitched flowers sewn onto trains.

The sight of it all made Evangeline feel unexpectedly guilty that they were concealing the truth from Chaos.

When Evangeline had been infected with vampire venom, he had been there to make sure she didn’t feed on anyone and complete the transformation into a vampire. She’d never thanked him because she still felt embarrassed about the way they’d been tangled together that night. And she had no idea what to think of the way Chaos had smoothed her slip down before leaving. He was a monster for sure, but it seemed he was also a gentleman. A gentleman monster.

What could have made him so opposed to a visit to House Slaughterwood? She had tried again to look it up in his library, but then she’d remembered there were no books on House Slaughterwood, and when she’d first asked Chaos about it, he’d steered her in another direction.

She’d tried to ask Jacks more about what he’d told her: House Slaughterwood is the reason we’re all in this mess. But he’d refused to say more on the matter, and Evangeline had the surprising impression that it was out of loyalty to Chaos. It was uncomfortable to imagine Jacks as capable of loyalty and friendship. It was much easier to believe he had no honor whatsoever. Although given how driven Jacks was, if he were to be loyal, she could see him being loyal to the death.

A shiver tripped down her spine at the thought, and Evangeline returned to her packing. In the morning, she’d be leaving with Jacks for House Slaughterwood, and she had yet to finish filling her trunks.

She picked up a pink velvet dress lined in white fur, thinking it might be nice for the carriage ride, when she noticed the lavender book on the end of her bed. The Rise and Fall of the Valors: Beloved First Royal Family of the Magnificent North.

At least that was what the title was supposed to say. The gilded letters were bursting apart like fireworks. The book had been in motion since Chaos had first handed it to her more than a week ago; every day, she tried to read it, but the letters were too busy. Only now, it wasn’t just a few of the letters—the entire title was breaking apart and reforming into the name of a tale she was intimately familiar with.

Evangeline set down the velvet dress and picked up the book. The words The Ballad of the Archer and the Fox now shimmered across the front, mingling with an image of an archer and a fox.

She braced, waiting for the title to keep shifting, but for once, the words on the front of the book remained still.

“What game are you playing?” she asked.

The cover stayed the same. Although she thought she saw the Archer wink, as if trying to dazzle her into opening his book. For a minute, she wondered if perhaps more than the cover had changed. What if the story inside had shifted as well?

If this magical book had actually turned into The Ballad of the Archer and the Fox, then could it contain information about the Archer’s curse?

Evangeline couldn’t believe she hadn’t considered the possibility before. Jacks had been so insistent there was no cure for Apollo outside of opening the Valory Arch that she hadn’t even bothered to look. But what if the original fairytale had an easier answer for how to end the Archer’s curse?

Evangeline couldn’t help but hope as she perched on the end of the bed and opened the volume.

Unfortunately, it seemed the cover had been a deception after all. The book’s first page was a portrait of a severe young man and a graceful young woman. Beneath were written the words Vengeance Slaughterwood and his beautiful bride-to-be.

Clearly, this book was playing tricks on her, yet Evangeline didn’t put the volume down. Minutes ago, she’d been wondering about House Slaughterwood, and now this book seemed to be giving her an answer.

She continued to study the picture. The portrait of Vengeance was quite handsome, but there was something unkind in his expression. His bride-to-be was extraordinarily pretty, but the book didn’t say who she was.

Evangeline turned the page and found a second portrait of Vengeance. He looked even meaner and older than he had in the previous picture, and he was with another woman, Glendora Redthorne. She was not nearly as pretty as the last girl, but the caption was the same: His beautiful bride-to-be.

Evangeline wondered why he would have two brides-to-be. What could have happened to the first?

She flipped the page again, hoping for more information about Vengeance or the rest of the Slaughterwoods, but there was just another, unrelated portrait: The dutiful daughters of House Darling.

The page after that showed a group of young noblemen.

It seemed this book wasn’t just about the Slaughterwoods after all. It was just some sort of portrait book.

Disappointed, Evangeline considered returning to her packing. But on the next page, she came across a picture of three young men standing near a tree that had a bullseye board tacked onto it. One young man looked friendly, one looked highborn, and one looked exactly like Jacks.

The hairs on her arms rose up. Jacks’s clothes were different, an older style that made her think of days when roads weren’t mapped and much of the world was still unexplored, but his handsome face was unmistakable.

Her eyes shot to the bottom of the page.

She found herself holding her breath as she searched for Jacks’s name, but the caption just said: The Merrywood Three.

The word Merrywood flickered to Bitterwood, and suddenly, Evangeline remembered that she’d seen another reference to this trio. It had been in the book that had disappeared after she’d dropped it.

The book had described the members of the Merrywood Three as scoundrels. They were Prince Castor Valor, Lyric Merrywood—son of Lord Merrywood—and a nameless archer who she suspected could have been the same Archer from The Ballad of the Archer and the Fox.

Evangeline studied the picture again, attempting to figure out which one of these three young men Jacks could have been.

The young man beside Jacks looked the friendliest—with brown skin, the warmest smile she’d ever seen, and an arrow in one hand, which instantly made Evangeline think he must have been the Archer. But then she remembered that the stories here were all cursed. She wasn’t sure if that curse applied to pictures, but she decided to keep an open mind.

The other young man was taller than the friendly one, about the same height as Jacks. The tilt of his chin made her think he thought himself slightly superior, and a part of Evangeline could understand why. This young man was almost painfully handsome. The type of handsome that made her wonder if he was entirely human.

Normally, that was how she thought of Jacks, but in this rendering, Jacks looked human, not immortal. Evangeline had never considered the idea that Jacks had been human before, but if he was part of the Merrywood Three, then clearly he’d been human once. And being human looked good on him—or maybe it was just that he looked so happy.

In the picture, Jacks was tossing an ordinary red apple and laughing in a way that lit up his entire face. He never looked this happy now, and she couldn’t help but wonder what had changed.

“Little Fox!” Jacks knocked as he called her name through the door.

Evangeline startled and nearly toppled off the bed as he strode into the room. His resemblance to the picture was uncanny, and yet the feeling she got from looking at him now was entirely different. It was as if a sculptor had taken a dagger to who he had once been and carved out all the softness.

“You’re staring at me.” Jacks’s mouth curved up as he spoke.

Her cheeks instantly pinked. “You burst into my room.”

“I knocked and said your name and—” He broke off.

His eyes latched onto the book in her hands. They flared, dark silver. There and gone so fast, it could have been a trick of the light. Or maybe he had seen the picture, except the picture was suddenly gone. The pages of the book were blank.

The outside of the book was blank as well, all the golden script gone, making her uncertain as to what Jacks might have seen.

“Our carriage arrives in half an hour,” he said tightly. “Forget the sad stories and finish packing.”

Sad stories. If that’s what Jacks had seen, then clearly he wasn’t looking at the same picture she had seen.

“Wait.” Evangeline held up the blank page of her book as if the drawing might reappear. “I saw your portrait in this volume.”

Jacks’s blue eyes crinkled with laughter. “You’re seeing me in fairytales now. Should I be concerned you’re starting to form an obsession?”

“No,” she said stubbornly, refusing to be embarrassed. “It was you. You were one of the Merrywood Three!”

Jacks sighed, amusement turning to something like concern. “Whatever you saw in that book was a trick. The Merrywood Three died a long time ago, and I was never one of them.”

“I know what I saw.”

“I’m sure you do. But that doesn’t mean you can trust it. These stories, the pictures, they lie.”

“So do you,” Evangeline countered.

Although, as much as she hated to admit it, Jacks was right. This book in particular had just shifted its cover before her eyes—twice—and then its contents had disappeared entirely, which made what she’d seen more than a little suspect.

But if he was telling the truth, why had his knuckles suddenly gone as white as the apple in his hand?