Chapter 32
Another lash ripped across Evangeline’s skin, making her cry out. It hurt like hell and fire. She was dimly aware of biting down, and she feared it was on Jacks’s neck.
“It’s all right,” he rasped. “I’ve got you. Just stay with me, Little Fox.” He kept pressing Evangeline to stay awake when all she wanted to do was pass out.
There were minutes where the agony was so intense she couldn’t breathe. Pain would lash across her back. Her limbs would buck. Her teeth would bite. Her whole life would feel like hurt. Then she’d feel Jacks smoothing the damp hair from her forehead or pressing a cool hand to her cheek.
Her head lolled against his shoulder. They were in a sled, and she was on his lap. He held her with her chest pressed to his, and his arm so low on her waist, it wasn’t really her waist. But her back was made of fire—anything that touched it burned.
“We’re almost there,” he whispered.
She wanted to ask where there was, but her throat was too raw from crying out. All she could do was crack her eyes. The world was gray. Not night or day, just gray. Gray as death and covered in fog that tasted like smoke.
She wondered if perhaps this meant she was dying. Then their sled tumbled forward, speeding over a ravaged road, past the weathered sign that said Welcome to the great Merrywood Manor!
She couldn’t believe Jacks had taken her here. She couldn’t remember why. It hurt too much to think clearly. But Evangeline knew this was not a happy place, especially for him.
Sprays of ice and snow made her shake as Jacks drove the sled faster and harder, past the remains of the manor and deeper into the cursed Merrywood forest. Whenever she cracked her eyes, there were only skeletal trees and more hopeless gray.
The first green leaf daring to live among the gloom felt like a trick, a delusion of her breaking mind.
But then there was another and another. A canopy of gorgeous green.
Everywhere she looked now, there was sunlight, snow-dusted trees, and chirping blue birds, and she was half-afraid she’d lost her mind.
The flowers came next, in delirious shades of yellow and pink and mermaid teal. They lined a sloping road that led them down into a valley with an inn and a lake and an aged sign that read Welcome to the Hollow!
The name was unfamiliar. It must not have been a Great House, or maybe she just couldn’t remember.
The sled rumbled past more carved signs that pointed toward places she couldn’t quite make out until finally they stopped at an inn that couldn’t be real. It had to be part of a dream.
The rooftop was covered in enormous cheery mushrooms with red caps that had tiny dragons dozing upon them. Then there were the flowers, so large they were the size of small children, with bright-colored petals in every shade, which seemed to perk up as the two of them arrived.
Jacks picked her up in one quick swoop and carried her inside the inn.
Her skin immediately tingled from the warmth, inviting her to keep her eyes open.
It was a fight—her wounded body begged her to rest—but she wanted to know why it smelled of spiced ciders and fresh-baked bread and how it managed to feel like home, though even in her current state she was certain she’d never been here before.
Near the door towered a brightly painted clock with jeweled pendulums. But instead of hours, it seemed to have names of food and drink. Things like Dumplings it felt like more. Or maybe she just wanted it to be more—maybe she wanted him.
She immediately tried to banish the thought. She couldn’t want Jacks. But it was hard to think of all the terrible things he’d done while he continued bandaging her. She felt his breath against her neck, and she wished for a second their story could have a different ending.
The thought was instantly followed by a hot flash of guilt and a memory of Apollo telling her he wanted to try.
But then she could feel Jacks’s hands again, and she wished that it was Jacks she was trying to save instead of Apollo.
She closed her eyes, forbidding all thoughts of Jacks and willing herself to just think of Apollo—or really anything except for Jacks.
When she opened them again, she focused on the twisting branches that helped form the walls of the cozy loft.
It was then that she noticed the vertical line of notches on the wood.
The sort that children made to measure their height.
There appeared to be about five years’ worth of measurements, with five names carved beside them:
Aurora
Lyric
Castor
Jacks
She wasn’t sure what made her heart stop—the fact that his name was on this wall, or that another name appeared near the top, during the final year: the Archer.