Once Upon a Broken Heart (Once Upon a Broken Heart, #1)(6)

Yet … Evangeline couldn’t shake the sense she’d made a mistake. She didn’t think she’d agreed too quickly, but all she could see was the gleam dancing in Jacks’s eyes as he’d taken her wrist.

Evangeline started running.

She didn’t know what she was going to do or why she felt suddenly sick inside. She just knew she needed to talk to Jacks again before he stopped the wedding.

If she’d been in an ordinary church, she might have caught up with him quickly. But this was a Fated church, protected by a magicked door that seemed to possess a mind of its own. When she opened it, the door did not return her to the Temple District. It spat her out in a musty old apothecary full of floating dust, empty bottles, and ticking clocks.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Seconds had never passed so fast. Between one tick and one tock, the magicked door she’d just stepped through disappeared and was replaced by a barred window that looked down on a row of streets as crooked as teeth. She was in the Spice Quarter—across the city from where Luc and Marisol were supposed to be wed.

Evangeline cursed as she fled.

By the time she crossed the city and reached her house, she feared that she was already too late.

Marisol and Luc were going to say their vows in her mother’s garden, inside the gazebo that her father had built. Crickets filled it with music at night, and birds chirped during the day. Evangeline could hear all their little songs as she entered the garden now, but there weren’t any voices. There were just the delicate birds, flapping merrily through the gazebo before landing on a group of granite statues.

Evangeline’s knees went weak.

There had never been statues in this garden before. But there were nine of them now, all holding goblets as if they’d just finished a toast. Each face was disturbingly lifelike and terrifyingly familiar.

Evangeline watched in revulsion as a buzzing fly landed on the face of a statue that looked just like Agnes before flitting off and alighting on one of Marisol’s granite eyes.

Jacks had stopped the wedding by turning everyone to stone.





3


Horror raced through Evangeline’s veins.

The fly buzzed off, and a gray bird, the same dull color as the statues, found the wreath of flowers in Marisol’s hair and began peck-peck-pecking.

Evangeline and Marisol might not have been close—and maybe Evangeline was more jealous of her stepsister than she’d wanted to admit—but Evangeline had only wanted to stop her wedding. She hadn’t wanted to turn her to stone.

It hurt to breathe when Evangeline faced Luc’s statue. Usually, he appeared so carefree, but as stone, his face was frozen in alarm, his smooth jaw was rigid, his eyes were tight, and—a crease formed between his granite brows.

He was moving.

His stone lips parted next as if he were fighting to speak, to tell her something—

“In another minute, he’ll stop twitching.”

Evangeline’s gaze shot toward the back of the gazebo.

Jacks leaned casually against a trellis covered in cloudburst-blue flowers and bit into another brilliant white apple. He looked half–bored young noble, half–wicked demigod.

“What have you done?” Evangeline demanded.

“Exactly what you asked.” Another bite of his apple. “I made sure the wedding didn’t happen.”

“You need to fix it.”

“Can’t.” His tone was laconic, as if he’d already grown tired of this conversation. “A friend of mine who owed me a favor did this. The only way it can be undone is if someone takes their place.” Jacks cut a look toward a patch of grass next to the gazebo, where a brass goblet rested on an aged tree stump.

Evangeline stepped closer to the drink.

“What are you doing?” Jacks shoved off the trellis, no longer indifferent as Evangeline eyed the chalice.

If she drank from it, would it fix everything?

“Don’t even think about it.” His voice turned sharper. “If you drink that and take their place, no one is going to save you. You’ll be stone forever.”

“But I can’t leave them like this.” Although part of Evangeline agreed with Jacks. She didn’t want to become a garden statue. She couldn’t even bring herself to pick up the goblet as she read the words etched onto its side.

Poison

Do Not Drink Me

The smell of sulfur wafted from it, and she wasn’t even sure she could drink the foul liquid. But how could she live with herself if she let them all remain cursed?

Evangeline’s eyes shot from the bird still pecking at Marisol’s wedding crown, then back to Luc and his frozen plea for help. Luc’s parents stood on either side of him. Then there was the unfortunate marriage minister, who’d picked the wrong union to officiate. Evangeline didn’t want to feel bad about Luc’s three friends or about Agnes. But even though her father had not married Agnes for love, he would have hated all of this. Both of her parents would have been so disappointed that this was where Evangeline’s faith in magic had led her.

“This wasn’t what I wanted,” she whispered.

“You’re looking at this the wrong way, pet.” Jacks dropped his half-eaten apple, letting it roll across the gazebo floor until it hit Luc’s stone boot. “Once this story spreads, everyone in the Meridian Empire will want to help you. You’ll be the girl who lost her family to the horrible Fates. You might not get Luc, but you’ll forget about him soon. With your stepmother and stepsister stone, I’m guessing you’ll inherit some money. By tomorrow morning, you’ll be famous, and not poor.”