11. Evangeline
Evangeline
It is a marvelous thing to step through a magic mirror.
As Evangeline stepped through the Mirror of Infinite Endings, her skin prickled all over, in the way skin prickles when it’s covered with magic.
It felt like getting caught in a sudden rain shower in the middle of summer.
A dusting of something unexpected. Cold and warm. It made her head deliciously light.
And then she was on the other side. The looking-glass side.
Evangeline had thought that stepping through the mirror would take her into a grainy world that would feel like a fever dream, but this world felt incredibly real.
As real as the world she’d spent her entire life in.
She could feel the crispness of the air and the familiar knotty floorboards beneath her bare feet.
She was back in her parents’ old house in Valenda, standing in a corner of their bedroom.
The nostalgia was overwhelming. It was the emotion of a thousand memories all at once, and for a second, she was a child again, thinking sweet childish things, with no idea of how real fairytales could be.
And then, with a quickness that left her feeling as if she were grasping for something that had vanished too fast, the sensation was gone.
Evangeline was herself again, a little light-headed but no longer lost in the past or a dream. She was just a little lost.
The breeze flowing through the window smelled of summer holidays—honeycomb castles and fizzing peach drinks—and suddenly she couldn’t remember why she’d come into this room.
She needed to remember.
There was something important Evangeline needed to do.
She peered around the bedroom, heart warm as she took in all the little details of her father’s life: his reading glasses, his piles of books, his table full of tinkerings.
Only the floor-length mirror was new, all mercury glass and silver speckles, and once again she was distracted, this time by the reflection of her wedding dress.
That was it.
Today was the first day of the Hot Season, the day of Valenda’s Sun Festival, and the day she was getting married to the love of her life, Luc Navarro.
She could have turned into butterflies at the thought of it. That was probably why she couldn’t remember what she was doing in here. In fact, the whole morning was a bit of a blur. But now it was all starting to come back, along with the last few weeks of planning.
As soon as Luc’s mother had found out that her slightly wild son was truly in love, she had started planning the entire wedding.
She had insisted that the day of the Sun Festival was the most auspicious day to wed.
Something about the alignment of the sun and the stars, combined with all the Sun Festival energy floating around.
Evangeline would have probably picked a quieter day and a smaller number of guests, but she could hardly argue with her future mother-in-law, and she was very eager to marry Luc.
A soft thud sounded on the roof.
Evangeline startled. Then she turned to see Luc’s handsome head pop through the window.
“Luc, what are you doing here?” she screeched. “It’s bad luck to see the bride on the day of the wedding before the ceremony.”
His reckless smile widened. “Maybe I’d love a little bad luck.”
“I wouldn’t!” Just the thought of bad luck made Evangeline’s heart start to race. The other night, she’d had a dream that Luc was marrying her stepsister, Marisol, and Evangeline had woken up knotted in sheets, covered in sweat, and full of unreasonable anger at her stepsister.
Evangeline reminded herself again that it had just been a dream. Luc was marrying her. Today. But the fear of losing him was back.
“Eva, relax. Nothing is going to go wrong.” Luc tumbled through the window, boots crashing hard against the floor, and then his lips were crashing into hers. Warm and eager and slightly overwhelming. If seeing the bride before the wedding was bad luck, this was definitely bad luck.
Evangeline quickly pulled away.
Luc frowned like a puppy that had just been robbed of his toy.
She felt an arrow of guilt. But it was a strange sort of guilt. A phantom guilt. She didn’t feel guilty for taking away his toy. There was something else … another reason she felt guilty, but she couldn’t grasp hold of what it was. This time it didn’t feel like nerves.
She felt lost again. Untethered. Her hand went to rub her opposite wrist, and that’s when she noticed the hourglass tattooed there.
It was a delicate tattoo, all thin golden lines that looked as if they’d been freshly inked.
Was this what she’d been forgetting? She couldn’t remember getting it, but it was absolutely lovely. And it was moving.
At first Evangeline thought it was just a trick of her muddled head, but it was definitely moving. The top of the hourglass appeared to be full, and Evangeline could see little bits of gold trickling down to the bottom.
Luc grabbed her wrist. “When did you get this?” His mouth fell slightly open as he, too, seemed to notice the falling sand. “This is incredible. Did you get this at your father’s shop?”
“That must have been it,” she said, slightly disappointed.
For a second, she’d almost thought it was magic.
But the moving sand was probably just a trick of the light.
And if she’d gotten a proper tattoo, there was no way she would have forgotten it.
She pulled her arm from Luc’s grasp, afraid that he might wipe it away.
“I wish there was time for me to get one, too,” he said. “Maybe after we’re married, we should get a pair that we pick out together? I could get a lock and you could get a key, or maybe we could get matching daggers, or I could get the word true and you could get the word love.”
He looked particularly impressed with himself at that last idea.
Evangeline smiled, not wanting to disappoint him. But as he started talking about fonts, her eyes wandered to the window he’d just climbed through, which opened onto the wedding preparations.
She and Luc were getting married in her mother’s garden, inside the gazebo that her father had built.
Although Evangeline had not wanted a large wedding, she’d told her future mother-in-law that she could invite whomever she wanted, as long as they could all fit in Evangeline’s mother’s garden.
That way, even though her mother wasn’t there, it would feel a bit like she was.
Evangeline gave herself just a second to wish that her mother was actually there. That she could have helped Evangeline with her dress and her hair and then given her advice about love and marriage and all the things that came after. But at least Evangeline had her mother’s beautiful garden.
The gazebo was covered in a cascade of colorful flowers that her mother had planted—honey-yellow buttercups, pale pink heartstrings, sea-salt-blue hydrangeas, and evening-soft violets. Hummingbirds flitted from leaf to leaf while guests in cheerful sun hats were already filling the garden benches.
The image was pretty as a postcard, everything in its right place—except for one tall young man, standing to the side, just outside the reach of the sun, and tossing a pure white apple.
Evangeline felt her heart leap into her throat.
She had no idea who he was. He reminded her of a debauched ringmaster, dressed in a deep burgundy coat—the kind that, even from afar, she could tell was finely made.
The shirt beneath was black and white and left carelessly unbuttoned.
His cravat was also hastily thrown on, hanging untied around his neck, and his black pants were only half tucked into his scuffed boots, as if he didn’t care about his appearance, or he didn’t care about this wedding.
Evangeline bristled at the thought. She wondered if perhaps he’d wandered in by mistake.
But for some reason that unsettled her as well.
Everything about him did. Even the messy golden waves of his hair and the too-sharp cut of his diamond jaw.
He was a mockery of aristocracy and manners, and probably more things she couldn’t think of.
“Do you know who he is?” she asked Luc, gesturing at the stranger.
Luc followed her gaze out the window, and his eyes widened, as if he had a flash of recognition, but then he abruptly shook his head. “I’ve never seen him before. Maybe he’s Marisol’s date.”
“Marisol has a date…?” Evangeline trailed off as her stepsister sidled up to the young man with the apple.
Evangeline felt heat rise up her neck as she watched them standing close to each other.
Too close. Although she had no idea why it bothered her.
Perhaps because he didn’t look very nice, or anywhere close to nice or any of its cousins.
“Oh, wait—I’ve got it,” Luc said proudly. “I think he was the former heir to the throne.”
“The one who murdered one of his fiancées?”
“That’s just a rumor,” Luc said, a little defensively.
“But there are other disturbing rumors about him. What would Marisol be doing with him?”
Luc appeared a little perplexed by this as well. If Marisol’s mother, Evangeline’s stepmother, had still been alive, she would have never approved. Perhaps that was the appeal?
Although now Evangeline wondered what this young man saw in Marisol.
Marisol was plain and quiet. She was the sort of person who could enter and leave a room completely unnoticed, while this young man looked as if he would leave a wake of recklessness wherever he went.
Even now it was difficult for Evangeline to stop watching him as he tossed his white apple up and down.
“You seem a little fixated on him,” Luc muttered.
Evangeline finally tore her gaze away. “I find him unnerving, that’s all. I don’t want him ruining our perfect day.”
“Would you like me to have him removed?”
“No,” Evangeline said. “That would only draw more attention.” And if he was the murderous, former heir to the throne, it did not seem like a wise idea to offend him. “It will be fine. It’s not as if he’s the one I’ll be looking at when I walk down the aisle.”
“He better not be,” Luc said, and then he was leaning in, lips slowly moving closer.
Evangeline closed her eyes. But instead of dark nothing, she saw the debauched young man with the apple. Only he wasn’t standing in the garden, he was in the bedroom with them, and he was furious. Arms crossed, shoulders tense, jaw so tight it looked as if it hurt.
Evangeline put a hand on Luc’s chest, stopping him. “Don’t!”
Luc pulled back and scowled. “What’s wrong with you, Eva?”
“Nothing—I’m sorry.” She quickly looked away, eyes darting back to the window. The young man was still there, standing in the garden tossing his white apple, Marisol by his side. He hadn’t been in the room with them. But he had been in her head. Why, she had no idea, but she wanted him gone.
She wanted him gone from her thoughts and the garden and Marisol’s side, and while it would be completely inappropriate to banish him from the garden, she could hurry along the process of sending him on his way.
“Luc, go back outside and tell them to start the music,” Evangeline said. “I don’t want to wait another second to get married.”