18. Evangeline
Evangeline
The girl was beautiful in a swirling-hurricane sort of way, her blond curls wild and her skirts billowing around her.
Once again, Evangeline didn’t understand why this other girl made her stomach churn, or why she now wanted Jacks to command someone to throw her out.
The noise in the gambling den stopped as soon as she entered, everything going silent like a skipped heartbeat. Then it all started up again. The laughter, the calls for drinks, the clacking wheels. Everyone returned to just what they had been doing before, except for Jacks.
Jacks froze for two heartbeats, eyes showing too much white, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Then he looked away, but Evangeline couldn’t bring herself to stop staring.
She had seen this girl only once before, but something had changed in the few hours since.
Her pretty dress was now dirty, smears of earth covering the bodice, and her hair was wild, curls turned to knots.
As the girl drew closer, Evangeline could see that there were streaks of tears lining her flushed cheeks.
She swiped them away with the backs of her hands, but that didn’t stop more from falling as she marched forward.
Evangeline felt another uncomfortable pang. She wanted to think it was sympathy for the girl, who was clearly distraught, but all she could think was that she didn’t want this girl anywhere near Jacks.
Evangeline could still remember how tightly he’d held her, how he’d clutched a fistful of her dress when he’d spotted this other girl in the distance.
Now, Jacks not only refused to look at this other girl, but he’d somehow called the dealer back to their table.
A new game had begun. Jacks picked up a hand from the table and eyed it with a look of disinterest that might have been convincing if his knuckles hadn’t been white.
“Jacks, who—”
“Don’t.” He put a hand on Evangeline’s knee, fingers digging in, the same way that he’d clutched her waist before.
I’m not heartless. My heart just doesn’t work very well, he’d said. And now Evangeline had a feeling that it was definitely working. She still didn’t know who this other girl was, but her presence was clearly hurting Jacks.
And the girl was getting closer.
Jacks set more chips down as the girl pushed past the golden ropes and approached their table with a heated huff of breath.
“What are you doing here, Donatella?” His voice was clipped.
The girl—Donatella—winced at his tone. “I need you.”
Jacks’s lips twisted derisively. “I still hate you,” he said sharply. “Those were the last words you said to me.”
“I—I do still hate you,” Donatella sputtered. “I do hate you. I will always hate you. But…” Her face softened, her lips turning into a pout. “I need you.” She reached out, as if to place a hand on Jacks’s shoulder.
Evangeline didn’t even think, she just put her hand on Jacks’s leg.
He tensed, his muscles tightening beneath her fingers. But he didn’t pull away. If anything, he drew closer.
Not that Donatella noticed. She seemed to be perfecting her pout, as her big hazel eyes stared into Jacks’s, pleading for his help, even though she’d just told him how much she loathed him.
Evangeline’s jaw clenched. So did Jacks’s, but he didn’t turn away as the girl started up again. “I still think you’re a reprehensible monster, but I—”
“Sweetheart,” Evangeline finally interrupted. “Who is this?”
Donatella’s mouth fell open. For the first time, she looked at Evangeline. Her eyes took in the wedding gown before dropping to her hand on Jacks’s thigh, and then to Jacks’s hand on Evangeline’s thigh. And if her cheeks had been red before, they were blazing now. “Who is this hussy?”
The question was clearly directed at Jacks, but Evangeline decided she would answer. She didn’t trust what Jacks would say, and she wanted to make it absolutely clear that she was not a hussy.
“I’m his fiancée,” Evangeline said.
“No,” Donatella said angrily. “I’m his fiancée!” Her cheeks burned brighter, and then she lunged forward, as if to rip Evangeline’s hand from Jacks’s leg.
Jacks stopped Donatella in one lightning-quick move, grabbing her wrist. “Do. Not. Touch. Her.” With an icy look, he placed the girl’s hand back at her side before immediately releasing it, as if the touch of her skin was completely repellent.
“We’re done, Donatella.”
Donatella huffed, but Jacks kept talking. “And you know nothing between us was ever even real.”
Donatella squeezed her hands into fists.
She made a few more sputtering sounds as if she couldn’t believe she’d just been dismissed.
Then she turned to Evangeline. Tears were falling from her eyes again.
She looked furious and sad, but the longer she stood there, the more the sadness peeked through, as if the fury were just a mask she wore to cover up a deeper wound.
“You should know he’s a monster. He—he—”
Evangeline waited for her to warn that his kiss would only kill her. From the implied intimacy of the conversation, Evangeline gathered that this girl, Donatella, knew that Jacks was really the Prince of Hearts.
But after one more breathless “he,” Donatella clamped her mouth shut, as thick streams of tears fell from her eyes.
Evangeline almost asked what had happened to her. She didn’t think this was just about Jacks. Although Evangeline was very curious as to what must have gone on between this girl and Jacks. She felt as if she had only a few fragments of a much bigger story.
Donatella tried to sniff back her tears as she turned again to Jacks. “If I leave, I’m not ever coming back.”
“I never invited you here in the first place,” Jacks said softly. And then he was pulling Evangeline closer and returning to the red velvet table. And Evangeline was thinking of how strange it was that she could be in the middle of her own story while witnessing the end of someone else’s.
Jacks’s hand felt warmer than before as he rubbed her thigh, his fingers slowly moving higher than they had been seconds ago.
Evangeline knew she needed to pull away. Jacks wasn’t for her and she wasn’t for him. They were only pretending. But it was the sort of dangerous pretending that felt as if it could be more. That perhaps it was pretending only because it couldn’t be real.
Everyone knew Fates could not love, especially the Prince of Hearts, who was the very definition of doomed love.
But for a second, as Evangeline sat atop that tall cushioned chair with Jacks’s warm hand on her, she felt that perhaps he wished he could love.
Despite what he had said earlier, maybe a part of him dared to hope just a little bit after all.
All around the gaming den, music surged and confetti rained down as people won at table after table. And Evangeline suspected it was because, in that one moment, the Prince of Hearts was perhaps just a little bit happy, and it was spreading.
Jacks would have probably argued that he wasn’t happy. Happy seemed like a word that he could be allergic to. The Prince of Hearts was known for crying tears of blood. He was tragedy personified and stories that ended badly. He wasn’t warm hands or smiles or shining bits of confetti.
He turned to her then.
The bright noises around them went quiet.
Even the colors seemed to fade, reds and blacks all turning dull.
And Evangeline knew his flicker of happiness was gone, the moment of perfect was over.
He was once again the Jacks from the garden, the Fate who had ruined her wedding and stolen her happily ever after.
“I think this table has gone cold.” He took Evangeline’s hand. His fingers chilled as they touched hers.
Evangeline’s palm turned clammy as silently he pulled her away from the table to finish their bargain. Step. Step. Step. Each one felt sticky and heady, until he stopped and they were standing somewhere in between the gamblers and the golden rope.
“You should go now,” he said, dropping her hand.
“But—” Evangeline broke off. Bringing up their unfinished game was perhaps not the best idea, given how badly she’d lost last time. He was giving her an out; she should take it. The sand in the hourglass had nearly run out. But her father and her friends were still frozen.
As if reading her mind, Jacks said, “Your family and friends are fine.”
Evangeline eyed him skeptically. “You fixed them?”
Jacks rocked back on his heels, running a hand through his golden hair. “Not quite.” His expression turned into something that looked a little like shame. “There wasn’t anything to actually fix. The enchantment on them was only supposed to last half a day.”
“Then what—why—why didn’t you tell me?” Evangeline sputtered.
Jacks shrugged as he rocked back onto his heels again.
“I don’t understand—” She felt stupid and embarrassed.
And it didn’t even make sense. It might have made sense if Jacks had seemed to want something from her.
But she’d been the one to suggest the game.
All day he’d told her to leave. But why hadn’t he told her this?
If he’d told her that everyone she cared about was going to be fine, then she would have actually left.
So maybe … he really hadn’t wanted her gone? Maybe he just hadn’t wanted to hurt her.
I don’t fix things.
I won’t be your hero.
I will be your ending.
“Don’t,” Jacks said.
“Don’t what?”
He looked at her with eyes that had lost their shine. “Don’t do that thing again where you try to make me into something I’m not. You should go back to your boy with the hair. He’ll be there waiting with the others.”
It was exactly what Evangeline should have wanted, and yet it felt wrong; it made her think of one of her mother’s cursed Northern fairytales where the end didn’t quite fit the beginning. “I thought you didn’t like him.”
“I don’t. But you’re better off putting your faith in him.
And—” Jacks worked his jaw as if silently arguing with the words he wanted to say.
“You can’t stay here. If you stay, I’ll destroy you, and I’ll enjoy it.
” His eyes flared, painfully, feverishly bright, and he was holding her wrist again, fingers cold and tight.
“That’s what I do. That’s who I am. That’s all I am. ”
He moved for a second, as if to let her wrist go, but then he was gripping the back of her neck and pulling her close. Her chest to his, his forehead to hers. His skin was cold and hers was suddenly hot, and this was wrong. She knew this was wrong. They were only pretending.
Except she knew that last thought was the bit that was pretend. But he seemed to be doing it, too.
“You need to leave,” he rasped.
“Then why are you holding me here?”
“Because I’m not a good person.” His hand slid into her hair and tangled with her rose-gold waves, wrapping them around his knuckles, holding her so tightly, she could smell the apples on his lips and feel it when he took a breath.
He held her like that, like he wanted to keep her pressed against him, or maybe just keep her.
And a part of her wanted him to. A part of her wanted to let the remaining sand in the hourglass run out and see what else there could be.
Her parents had found love at first sight, and Evangeline had always wanted that, too.
She’d tried to tell herself she’d found it with Luc.
That from the first time she’d seen him in her father’s curiosity shop, she’d fallen for his brown eyes and his beautiful smile.
But now she wondered if she’d only just tripped, because it wasn’t until this moment that she truly felt like she was falling.
It felt like too many heartbeats and stars colliding, and the breath being knocked from her lungs.
But instead of drawing her closer, Jacks was pushing her away. He was stepping back and letting her go.
She could breathe again, but she already missed the not-breathing. And she feared she would miss it for quite some time, because she knew she couldn’t stay.
The feverish look was gone from Jacks’s eyes. He was all Fate once more, cold eyes, flat mouth, joyless and emotionless, and even if she could bring the other version of him back, Evangeline had heard enough fairytales to know that love stories between Fates and mortals never ended well.
“I should go,” she said. When he didn’t protest, she took a step away. “Goodbye, Jacks.”
“Goodbye, Little Fox.”
Evangeline stopped short at the nickname.
Jacks seemed surprised as well. His brows jumped, as if the words had just come out, as if he hadn’t meant to say them.
And Evangeline wished he hadn’t. It just gave her one more thing that she knew she would miss.