15. Evangeline
Evangeline
The sand was nearly halfway through the golden hourglass tattooed on Evangeline’s wrist. And it was still falling.
Evangeline could almost hear the little grains of sand brushing against glass that wasn’t there.
She could feel it, too, prickling. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it wasn’t entirely pleasant either.
She’d forgotten about it until minutes ago, when Jacks had taken his arm from around her waist and the streets of Valenda had turned from sticky to clean beneath her feet.
She imagined they were nearing the edge of the city. The vendor booths had grown sparse.
That’s when she’d become aware of the tattoo once again. She still couldn’t remember where or when she’d gotten it. But if her estimation was right, it looked as if the sand was counting down to sunset, like a permanent wristwatch.
She felt it then, not the sand tingling down her wrist, but Jacks, looking at her once again, sharp eyes lingering.
“Who cursed you?” he asked.
“What are you talking about?”
Jacks slowed his steps and flicked a finger at the intricate gold hourglass on her wrist. “That’s a curse.”
“I don’t think so.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you an expert on curses?”
“No, but—”
“It’s moving,” Jacks interrupted. “That’s not normal.”
“That doesn’t make it a curse,” she said. “Perhaps it’s just magic.” She smiled as she took another step and a breeze kicked up her lacy wedding skirts, revealing her bare feet, still coated in pastel flower petals.
Jacks grimaced as if she was perhaps the most ridiculous thing he’d ever seen, and he was not fond of ridiculous things.
“Almost all magic is a curse,” he said. “Everything in life has a cost, and since magic is basically a cheat to get things, that cost is even higher. Take Fates, for example: We can live forever, but the cost of true immortality is that we cannot love. So…” Jacks slowly cocked his head, his bright blue eyes turning suspicious.
“What did you do? Who did you make a deal with?” He sounded almost angry as he said the word who.
“Are you jealous?” she asked.
He scoffed. “Of course I’m jealous, I’m a Fate. Jealousy is one of the things we do best. There’s a reason people are warned to never make deals with more than one of us.”
“I’ve never made a deal with a Fate,” Evangeline protested. “Including you. The hourglass just suddenly appeared, today, right before the wedding. Although … I suppose it could have happened even earlier in the day. The whole morning is a bit murky.”
Jacks looked at her skeptically. “You really don’t remember where it came from?”
“Do you think I’m lying?”
His mouth turned hard. Given his extraordinary amount of cynicism, Evangeline imagined that Jacks didn’t think too highly of humans.
He looked almost pained as he finally said, “I think that, regardless of what you want to believe, the sand in the hourglass is already halfway gone. Which means your time is half up, and nothing good ever happens when time runs out.”
Some of the flower petals from Evangeline’s feet fell onto the path as more golden sand slipped through the hourglass. She still wasn’t convinced it was a curse. She couldn’t imagine having been foolish enough to make a deal with a Fate.
But clearly, something that she no longer remembered had occurred. For a second, she almost felt as if the memory were there, just out of reach. A whisper too low to hear. A light far in the distance growing dimmer, leaving her on the darkening street with Jacks.
Evangeline had scarcely noticed the scenery around them changing, but now they seemed to have left the festival entirely. No more lollipops. No more tents. No more bunting. Instead of butterscotch and holiday pastries, the air smelled of neatly cut grass and leatherbound books.
They had entered University Circle, a world of libraries and ideas that her father always said could change the world, if the scholars ever did more than talk.
This was not at all where she would have pictured the Poisoner having a residence.
He seemed like someone who would thrive in the illicit alleys of the Spice Quarter or a dark moody castle full of bitter ghosts.
But he stopped in front of the steps of a neat four-story house made of clay-red bricks and onyx columns that looked shockingly respectable.
“Is this where you live?” Evangeline asked, and she must have sounded a little disbelieving because Jacks frowned. Of course, now that she thought about it, he’d only really smiled when she was angry or upset. He didn’t seem to enjoy anything else.
Other than the fizzing drinks peddler, Jacks hadn’t so much as glanced at any of the holiday booths or smiled at any of the acrobatic performers on the streets.
Earlier, a few brave children had dared to wave at him, and from the looks he’d given in response, one might have thought they’d had knives in their little hands.
Even the other girl from before, the one he’d reacted so strongly to, had only seemed to cause him pain.
“You really should go,” he said. “If I were you, I would figure out who cursed you. Or try to enjoy the little time you have left.” Jacks started up the steps. “Go find your lump of hair.”
Evangeline frowned, taking a second to puzzle out his meaning. “Luc is not a lump of hair.”
“Excuse me, tall lump of hair,” Jacks corrected. This time, he added a dismissive wave before slipping into the house, the door clicking shut behind him.
Evangeline followed after him. It didn’t even occur to her to do anything else.
Well, perhaps it did occur to her, but only for a few seconds.
Evangeline had grown up on fairytales. She knew all the stories about magic and Fates, and she knew that they never ended well.
When someone was warned to go back home, it was usually just what they should do.
You didn’t follow the villain into his lair, or ask for his help, or believe you could be the one to change him. And Jacks was definitely the villain.
But Evangeline couldn’t bring herself to walk away.
She was going to get him to fix her loved ones.
With each step, Evangeline felt more confident and determined. Unlike Jacks, she wasn’t giving up hope.
She could hear his voice in her head: I won’t be your hero. I will be your ending. She knew he meant it, but it only made her more determined to prove him wrong.
The door clapper was shaped like a broken heart, which gave Evangeline a moment of pause. She would have expected a goblet, or perhaps poison ivy or deadly nightshade. It made her wonder if this wasn’t his house after all.
She rang the clapper. It made a sound like a cry, a drop of red dripped down from it, and then the door swung open, and the world changed.
The vibrant blue sky was replaced by an intricate ceiling covered in gold chandeliers, dangling over walls papered with black-and-red symbols from playing cards.
All around her, people were laughing and clapping and shimmying, as they rolled dice on felted tables and downed flutes of bubbling golden drinks. It was all a blur of metallic gaming chips, discarded cravats, and large colorful wheels of chance.
She was in a gambling den.
Evangeline had never been in one before, but she’d always imagined dark, shadowy rooms, with grim-faced dealers and clouds of pungent smoke. This room was all light and bright and had plush red carpet that felt wonderful under her battered bare feet.
Whenever someone won, confetti made of diamonds and hearts and clubs and spades rained down, eliciting more hollers and whoops and shouts of “We’ll have another round!”
Someone even handed Evangeline a flute of bubbles, which she was quick to put on the nearest gaming table.
She wasn’t entirely certain what Jacks’s involvement in this place was, but it was immediately clear that he was no ordinary customer.
In fact, as Evangeline stepped inside, she suspected that he might not be a customer at all.
Jacks didn’t sit down to play at a table.
Not that anyone let him get near one. It seemed that everyone who saw him had something to say.
Servers and dealers all bowed in greeting, while men in crisp jackets clapped his shoulders and finely dressed young women offered their gloved hands for him to kiss.
She wondered if perhaps he could be the owner. He certainly walked around as if he owned the place. Then again, he seemed to do that everywhere.
Evangeline ventured farther in, the carpet soft against her feet. Until she felt something cold underneath her toes. Someone had dropped a gambling coin.
Evangeline bent down to pick it up. The words Jacks’s Gambling Den were etched in a half circle around the top. On one side was a broken heart, and on the other was a rather dramatic rendering of Jacks, his eyes crying blood-red tears as he held a dagger to his lips.
Evangeline turned the coin around several times, thinking again that the broken heart was odd. This was not the Poisoner’s symbol.
Of course, now that she really thought about it, Jacks also didn’t look like the Poisoner in his rendering in the Decks of Destiny. He looked exactly like the Prince of Hearts.
Evangeline felt her own heart flip. Her eyes darted around the gambling den once more.
The walls were papered with images from playing cards, but when she took a second look, she saw that the red hearts were all broken.
The playing cards on the tables featured broken hearts as well, their backs embossed with shiny golden foil.
Then there was the crying door knocker, shaped like a broken heart.
Evangeline’s thoughts flitted back to a recent scandal sheet about the Prince of Hearts.
The headline had read, Where Will the Brokenhearted Pray Now?
And the article had been about how the door to the Prince of Hearts’s church had mysteriously vanished.
Which, of course, had sent the entire city searching for it.
She wondered, now, if this had anything to do with how Marisol had found the Prince of Hearts.
Not that it mattered. Or maybe it did. Evangeline’s head was spinning from all the clapping and the clanking wheels and her swirling thoughts. She hadn’t been that afraid of Jacks because she’d thought his only tool was poison, but the Prince of Hearts didn’t need goblets or potions to kill.
His kiss was his most fatal weapon.
Evangeline’s skin went hot and then cold as she thought about just how close his lips had been earlier, when they had been walking and he’d pulled her to his side and then when he had looked at her lips.
According to the myths, the Prince of Hearts was not capable of love because his heart had stopped beating long ago.
Only one person could make it work again: his one true love.
The lore said his kiss was fatal to all but her, and as he sought her, he left a trail of corpses of all the other girls he kissed.
Suddenly, Marisol’s earlier comment about wanting Jacks to kiss Evangeline made a horrible kind of sense. Her stepsister wanted her dead.
Evangeline could barely even fathom it.
But now was not the time to sort all of this out. She’d worry about Marisol later. For now, she needed to find Jacks.
Evangeline spun the gambling coin between her fingers again. It sparkled, catching the light as she scanned the crowd desperately.
“Well, aren’t you a lucky little thing?” A woman with red diamonds painted on her cheeks tapped Evangeline’s shoulder.
She was dressed to match the cards on the tables, in a knee-length skirt of black-and-white stripes and a fitted jacket with spade-shaped buttons.
Copper curls that shone like coins framed her light brown face covered in dark freckles.
But it was her eyes that caught Evangeline’s attention.
They were like liquid diamonds. Practically clear and very inhuman.
“You’re another Fate!” Evangeline blurted.
The woman clapped a hand over her heart. “I’m thrilled that you recognized me. You’re the first person in a very long time.” She held out her hand. “Most people call me Mistress Luck, but I already feel as if we’re going to be great friends, so you can call me Lucky.”
Evangeline accepted her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lucky. I’m Evangeline, although I think you might be wrong about me—I’m not lucky at all.”
“Oh, I’m never wrong, my dear.” Lucky’s eyes sparkled with iridescent amusement. “I can practically feel the luck pouring off of you.” She reached out as if to pet Evangeline’s shoulder, but then she stopped just short. “May I?”
“I really don’t think you want to,” said Evangeline. “I believe you’re feeling luck, but trust me, it’s the bad kind.”
Mistress Luck’s lips twisted, intrigued. “Why would you say that, darling?”
“Well, I was supposed to be married this morning.” Evangeline picked up the hem of her wedding dress and gave it a little shake.
Then she told Mistress Luck how her stepsister was so jealous, she poisoned everyone there.
Evangeline considered mentioning Jacks, but given that this woman was also a Fate, it was probably best to leave him out.
“The wedding was ruined before I could even finish walking down the aisle. My groom ran off and he asked me to go with him, but I couldn’t just leave everyone frozen. ”
“Oh yes, that would be very inhuman of you,” Mistress Luck agreed. “But I still don’t think you have bad luck.”
Evangeline was perplexed. Clearly this Fate had a very strange definition of luck. “I think most people would agree that today has been an absolute disaster.”
Mistress Luck wobbled her head back and forth, making her copper curls shine under the candlelight.
“The bit about your father is unfortunate. But when it’s true love, a ruined wedding is of little consequence.
It’s just a party gone wrong. What matters is the love.
And you are a girl who has found true love.
” She finally put a hand on Evangeline’s shoulder and quivered from her shoulders to her toes.
“You are so very lucky. People can live lifetimes without finding what you have. Do not lose it.” Her iridescent eyes cut downward, to the hourglass on Evangeline’s wrist. “Do not let that sand run out.”
“Do you know what this is?” Evangeline asked.
The Fate pursed her lips. “It’s not for me to tell. All I can do is warn you, and even that—” She stopped abruptly, as if she’d already said too much.
“Please,” Evangeline said. “Just tell me what happens when it’s gone?
” But her question was drowned out as a series of whoops and hollers filled the air and more confetti rained down.
Several small pieces fell into Evangeline’s eyes, blurring her vision.
It was just a handful of seconds, a few quick rubs of her eyes.
But by the time she could see again, Mistress Luck was gone.