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

by Stephanie Garber

Dark was for stars and dreams and the magic that took place in between days.

Magic things always do that which they were created to do.

Happy endings can be caught, but they are difficult to hold on to. They are dreams that want to escape the night. They are treasure with wings. They are wild, feral, reckless things that need to be constantly chased, or they will certainly run away.

“I hurt everyone, Little Fox. But you have to be alive to hate me.” His eyes iced over. “I do not want you dead, and I’ll kill anyone who tries.”

This young man was not the heir—or even truly a young man anymore. He was too unnaturally handsome, his eyes were too luminous, his jaw could slice a diamond, and his golden-brown skin actually glowed. He was a vampire. And the first boy she had ever loved.

Because as much as she was loath to admit it, she was prepared to let Marisol walk through the solarium doors, come face-to-face with Luc, and reap the pain that she had sown.

Evangeline had always thought the great Northern castle was magical, and it was—but it was full of the wrong sort of magic. Nearly every single memory she had inside these stone walls was tainted with some sort of curse or betrayal.

She almost laughed at the idea that she’d thought she could run away from him. That he would simply let her go.

Apollo took a deep breath, looking torn as he said, “I don’t know how much time I have, but I want you to know, I heard you. Every day that you came into my chamber—I heard your voice through all the fog asking me to try.”

“Evangeline—” It sounded like Jacks’s voice. But he’d said her name, not Little Fox. Jacks never said her name. Then he was murmuring something else. Two more words she’d never heard. “I’m sorry,” he said, just before it all truly went dark.

“Then hold on.” He wrapped a strong arm around her waist, and together they fell.

Jacks’s chest was heaving, his clothes were soaked, his hair was a mess across his face—yet in that moment, Evangeline knew he would carry her through more than just freezing waters. He would pull her through fire if he had to, haul her from the clutches of war, from falling cities and breaking worlds. And for one brittle heartbeat, Evangeline understood why so many girls had died from his lips. If Jacks hadn’t betrayed her, if he hadn’t set her up for murder, she might have been a little bewitched by him.

She used to think love was like a house. Once it was built, a person got to live in it forever. But now she wondered if love was more like a war with new foes constantly appearing and battles creeping up. Winning at love was less about succeeding in a battle and more about continuing to fight, to choose the person you loved as the one you were willing to die for, over and over.

Although given how driven Jacks was, if he were to be loyal, she could see him being loyal to the death.

“I’m not a human, Evangeline. And I’m not your friend, or your husband, or your lover.”

Evangeline gasped, and at last she pushed him away. “There is no this—I’m married.” Jacks ran his finger over the smirk playing on his lips. “You keep saying that, Little Fox, as if it’s something I should care about.” A heartbeat later, he was gone.

you looked when you arrived here with your arm around her shoulders.” “How did I look?” “Like you would kill for her.”

I’ll give you a choice. Dance with me, or watch me use one of my swords to chop off his head.

Evangeline gritted her teeth and glared up at him. “Is this how you always get dance partners? By threatening to kill the other suitors?” “Don’t test me tonight, Little Fox.”

“I mean … it’s just one night,” he said softly. “In the morning, you can forget it. You can go back to pretending you don’t like me, and I can pretend that I don’t care. But for tonight, let me pretend you’re mine.”

“If it’s easier, you can pretend, too,” he whispered. “You can pretend that I’m still Jacks of the Hollow and that you want to be mine.”

But Time had seen the young woman and fallen instantly in love. And so, instead of landing in the future or finding herself in the past, the young woman continued to fall through time. She fell and fell and fell, trapped by Time until the end of Time.

Evangeline knew that feeling now. More than two weeks had passed since she’d jumped off that cliff with Jacks, and somehow she felt as if she were still falling, plummeting toward something uncontrollable with nothing but Jacks to hold on to.

She meant to say, For tonight, I’m yours, but all that came out was “I’m yours.”

He laughed, loud but brittle. “Nothing has been safe since the moment I laid eyes on you. And yet I don’t want to look away.”

Jacks groaned something like, “Someday I will kill him.” He put an arm around Evangeline.

He licked the center of her lips, soft and agonizingly slow. His tongue felt like heaven and hell. Like everything she wanted and all she couldn’t have.

“Why would you want to go back for her?” Jacks worked his jaw. “She was supposed to be my one true love—I want another chance at that.”

He spoke each word like a vow. “I want to erase every moment you and I have spent together, every word you’ve said to me, and every time I’ve touched you, because if I don’t, I’ll kill you, just like I killed the Fox.”

“Sorry to break your fairytale, Little Fox, but ballads don’t end happily, and neither do the two of us.”

A tormented scream pierced the night like a blade. The sky bled, and darkness fell instead of stars, erasing lights across the Magnificent North.

If you do this, Time will take something equally valuable from you.”

The Fate gave the queen a look more vicious than any curse. “There is nothing of equal value to me.”

Evangeline had once heard a tale about a pair of doomed stars, drawn across skies toward each other’s brightness, even though they knew that if they drew too close, their desire would end in a fiery explosion. This was how Jacks looked at her now. As if neither of them would survive if they drew any closer.

Love was how she could save him. She didn’t just care about him or want him. She loved him. She just needed to tell him that.

Love was the most powerful magic of all. If he loved her the way she loved him, they could find a way to make it work.

“I’m your husband. You’ve been through something terrible, but it’s all right now. I’m here, and I’m never going to let you go.”