The Ballad of Never After (Once Upon a Broken Heart #2)(4)

“No, no, no, no, no…” Frantically, Evangeline tried to wipe her blood from the stones before Jacks or anyone else could discover what she’d done. The angels hadn’t changed their pose, but she feared that any second a door would appear behind them or they would move aside. She spat and scrubbed with the sleeve of her cloak. But the glowing arch didn’t dim.

“I knew you could open the door.”

The scratchy voice was too old to belong to Jacks. But the sound of it stopped Evangeline’s heart all the same.

“My apologies, Your Highness. I see I’ve frightened you again.”

“Again?” She turned.

The man in the doorway was almost as small as a child, but far older than Evangeline, with a long, silver beard that held threads of gold, which matched the burnished trim on his white robes.

“You…” For a moment she remained too nervous to form words. “You’re the librarian who first showed me the door to this room.”

“You remembered.” Though he looked clearly pleased, the old man’s smile did nothing to put her at ease. Like the arch, he almost seemed to glow, his beard turning from an ordinary gray to iridescent silver. “I wish we had more time to chitchat, but you must hurry to find the missing stones.”

He looked up at the arch to where four stones were missing along the top. The holes appeared to be smaller than her palm—not the large chunks of fractured rock she had pictured. But Evangeline instantly knew these were the broken pieces that needed to be found to truly unlock the Valory Arch.

Her blood had not been enough. Relief swept through her.

“You must find them,” the old librarian repeated. “One for luck. One for truth. One for mirth. One for youth. But you must be careful. The stones are powerful, deceptive things. And the translation—”

“No!” Evangeline cut in. “I won’t find these stones. I’m not ever going to open this arch. Pressing my blood to it was a mistake.”

The old man gave her a weary frown. “It’s not a mistake, it’s your destiny.…” His voice trailed off as smoke puffed from his mouth instead of sound.

He scowled and tried to speak again, but only more wisps of gray and white poured forth. This time the smoke formed the words Oh bother, as if this sort of thing happened all the time.

The librarian’s beard had now gone completely to smoke, exactly like his words. His hands were suddenly transparent, same as his robes and his wrinkled face, which was now as sheer as wispy curtains.

“What are you?” Evangeline breathed, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. She’d encountered vampires and Fates, and her stepsister was a witch, but she didn’t know what this being was.

“I’m a librarian,” he finally managed to say, but the words came out like something carried through a gust of wind, rattling and distant. “I know this makes me look rather suspicious, but I assure you, if you only knew the truth. If I could tell you…”

He faded completely before he could finish, leaving Evangeline with nothing but tendrils of lingering smoke and the unsettling feeling that perhaps the Prince of Hearts was not the only supernatural force she needed to be wary of.





3


Days later, Evangeline’s heart was still racing. She didn’t want to think about the contents of the Valory Arch. She didn’t want to wonder at its secrets. She didn’t want to remember how desperate the old librarian had sounded when he’d said, If you only knew the truth.

“We’re running out of time,” Havelock said, voice gruff, as their coach rumbled down another cobbled street frosted in white-blue snow.

Havelock had been Apollo’s personal guard, but now he acted as Evangeline’s escort while the two of them covertly searched for a remedy for Apollo’s condition. During the last week, they’d visited mystics and apothecaries, doctors of medicine and physicians of the mind. They’d opened previously locked doors and entered libraries full of fables, but none of them had offered any help. “No one has been in a suspended state since the days of Honora Valor,” was the general refrain, followed by curious stares that prompted quick departures.

No one knew Prince Apollo was still alive, and word of it could not get out. Apollo was too vulnerable in his current state. As far as the public was concerned, Prince Tiberius, Apollo’s younger brother, had murdered him. Evangeline felt a pinprick of guilt, knowing this was false. But since Tiberius had tried to kill her, she didn’t feel all that guilty.

“This might be our last chance to save him,” Havelock said.

Evangeline knew that he wasn’t entirely right. She could always agree to open the Valory Arch for Jacks—but she hadn’t mentioned that to Havelock. She still hoped there was another way to save Apollo.

“Have you seen the latest scandal sheet?” Havelock asked.

“I’ve been trying to avoid it,” Evangeline replied. Yet she took the rolled page when Havelock held it out across the chilly coach.



* * *



The Daily Rumor

ALL HAIL LUCIEN JARETH ACADIAN

By Kristof Knightlinger

The newest heir to the throne, Lucien Jareth of House Acadian, is scheduled to arrive in Valorfell tomorrow, and already there are more rumors about him than I can keep track of. I’ve heard that when he’s not building homes for the poor or finding families to take in stray dogs and kittens, he’s teaching orphans how to read.