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her mother had been from the Magnificent North, where there was no difference between fairytales and history. All stories are made of both truths and lies, she used to say. What matters is the way that we believe in them.
She knew the rules for visiting Fated churches: Always promise less than you can give, for Fates always take more. Do not make bargains with more than one Fate. And, above all, never fall in love with a Fate.
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. They said his kiss was fatal to all but her—his only weakness—and as he’d sought her, he’d left a trail of corpses.
don’t know if I can fix your broken heart, but you can take mine because it’s already yours.”
The Fates weren’t dangerous because they were evil; the Fates were dangerous because they couldn’t tell the difference between evil and good.
“I’ll never comprehend humans.” Poison sighed. “All of you seem to welcome our lies, but you never like it when we tell the truth.”
“I know that stories often take on lives of their own. I already feel as if the horror I went through is turning into a fairytale, but I’m nothing special, and this is not a fairytale.”
Her father had owned four and a half shops across Valenda. He’d been the silent half partner of a tailor that sewed weapons into clothing. He’d built a secret bookshop, only accessible via secret passage. Then there was his store in the Spice Quarter, covered in decorative Wanted posters with captions that read like short outlandish crime stories. His third shop was a secret, even from Evangeline. And his fourth store was her favorite place of all: Maximilian’s Curiosities, Whimsies & Other Oddities.
“I believe there are far more possibilities than happily ever after or tragedy. Every story has the potential for infinite endings.”
Stepping into the North didn’t just feel like the start of something, it felt like the start of everything.
She’d seen Jacks from far away, but this close was different. He was a thousand cuts happening all at once. Devastation made of hair as blue as dark ocean waves, and lips sharp as cracked glass that would delightedly cut her.
Dragon-roasted apples were supposed to taste like true love.
If Evangeline had a dagger, she imagined she could have sliced into that night as if it were a cake and stolen a piece of it to take a bite of all the wondrous dark.
She eyed the jeweled dagger he’d just pressed to her lips. “I don’t think you and I have the same definition of hurt.” “Be thankful for that, Little Fox.” Jacks gave her a smile that was all sharp edges. A drop of blood fell from the corner of his mouth, and something godforsaken washed over his expression. “Hurt is what made me.”
“You will know her because she will be crowned in rose gold,” the woman chanted. “She will be both peasant and princess.”
Evangeline and her love were at the end of a dock covered in candles, which made the ocean glow so that it looked like a sea of fallen stars. Only night and her moon watched. No one else was there, just Evangeline and her groom. Their foreheads were pressed together—and she might not have known exactly what they were doing, if not for the words her pen had etched into the sky: And then they will write their vows on their hands and place them over each other’s chests, so they may sink into their hearts, where they will be kept safe forever and always.
“There’s another Fate who cries poisoned tears with the power to kill someone by breaking her heart. I think someone has poisoned you with those tears, and if we don’t get you the cure soon, you’ll cry yourself to death.”
LaLa then explained to Evangeline that she was indeed a Fate—the Unwed Bride—though she wasn’t inclined to elaborate on that much. Evangeline didn’t blame her. In Decks of Destiny, the Unwed Bride was always pictured in a veil of tears. She represented rejection, loss, and unhappily ever afters. It seemed that, unlike Jacks, LaLa could easily find someone to love her whenever she wanted, but the love was doomed to never last. Every girl feared becoming the Unwed Bride, and Evangeline had pitied the idea of her, but the reality of LaLa almost made Evangeline envious.
“Chaos is as old as the North, and unlike the rest of us, he was never trapped in a deck of cards. He’s been here all this time, collecting favors and people and information. If anyone knows who wanted you and Apollo dead, it will be Chaos. He’s the Lord of Spies and Assassins.” “He’s also a vampire,” LaLa supplied dryly.
“You know, maybe the real reason Donatella stabbed you in the heart and chose to love someone else wasn’t just because of that almost-fatal first kiss you gave her. Maybe it was your inability to understand any emotions that are remotely human.”
Ouch, Evangeline is taking Jacks to THERAPY !
“This arch may only be unlocked with a key that has not yet been forged. “Conceived in the north, and born in the south, you will know this key, because she will be crowned in rose gold. “She will be both peasant and princess, a fugitive wrongly accused, and only her willing blood will open the arch.”
