The Ballad of Never After

LaLa is in Jacks’s room, and she reveals that it’s common knowledge that Evangeline is at Slaughterwood Manor and that Tiberius has escaped from prison. Jacks wryly asks whose fault these things are, and in a hard voice, LaLa says, “I did what I had to do” (224). Strange coincidences and LaLa’s odd behavior crash together in Evangeline’s mind, making her wonder if LaLa cast the curse on her and Apollo. LaLa tells Jacks to protect Evangeline but not to kill her with a kiss since it seems that he wants to kiss her. Jacks shrugs off the warning, saying all he wants from Evangeline is the arch opened, and Evangeline flees, feeling hurt and confused by the conversation.

The magic of the party helps Evangeline feel better. Luc asks her for a dance, but Jacks arrives, possessively pulling Evangeline away. Evangeline tells him she heard the conversation with LaLa and pushes him away, running from the ballroom.

Petra arrives, helping Evangeline to a secret exit from the ballroom. Though Evangeline doesn’t trust her, she goes, unable to stand the idea of Jacks coming after her. Once they’re alone, Evangeline asks how Petra knew about the passage, and Petra flounders for an answer, saying things that directly contradict what she said at dinner the night before. The mirth stone grows hot against Evangeline’s skin, and she realizes it’s the truth stone, not the mirth stone, and the heat is the stone “telling her to get out, to leave, to flee, to run for her life” (233).

Petra lunges at Evangeline with a knife, and Evangeline backs away, grabbing Petra’s hair, which comes away from the girl’s head. It was a wig, and Petra’s real hair is the same rose gold as Evangeline’s, meaning she’s another key. Evangeline demands to know why Petra’s trying to kill her, and the truth stone forces Petra to confess that she once thought she was special like Evangeline but came to learn that keys are just tools that people use to open the arch. Petra has the youth stone and just wants to live her life, so she needs to kill Evangeline before she takes the stone away. Petra closes in, and Evangeline thrusts a dagger into her chest. As blood wells and Petra dies, she laughs humorlessly and haltingly says, “I was once like you…but now you’re…just…like me” (237).

Jacks arrives, finding Evangeline shaking. He holds her while she cries, telling her she did what she needed to do to survive. Evangeline doesn’t want to feel comforted by him, but in the face of murdering Petra, she can’t make herself stop nor see what’s so wrong about wanting Jacks to hold her until “this terrible night disappear[s] and all that [is] left [is] the two of them” (240).

Evangeline goes to her room to pack while Jacks collects the youth stone and disposes of Petra’s body. Luc comes to see her, and in the middle of the conversation, pain explodes across Evangeline’s back. Someone is torturing Apollo and, by extension, her. Through the pain, Evangeline hears Jacks ordering Luc to find Chaos and rescue Apollo. Luc leaves, and Jacks gently picks Evangeline up, saying, “I’m going to take you somewhere safe” (244).

Jacks brings Evangeline to the Hollow: an inn within the Merrywood land where time has been stopped so she no longer feels the torture. He tends to her back, his touch making Evangeline tingle even through the pain. To distract herself, she asks if he often tends to flayed maidens. Jacks says no and asks if she’d be jealous if he did. She means to say no but admits she would be instead, to which Jacks tells her not to feel ashamed because “[he’d] probably kill another man if [he] found him with [her] like this” (250). His words and the way he touches her as he cleans and bandages her wounds make her want him, and she can’t bring herself to remember why that’s a bad idea. Evangeline searches for a distraction and finds child height measurements against a wall for five kids. Jacks and the archer are among them.

Evangeline asks Jacks about the names, and after evading the question, he tells her about the day Vengeance Slaughterwood killed the Merrywoods. By the time Jacks got to the manor, everyone was dead except Castor Valor, whom Jacks didn’t manage to save in time. Wanting him to feel better, Evangeline tells Jacks that he saved her tonight, to which Jacks replies, “No, I stopped you from dying. That’s not the same thing” (257). He leaves, and Evangeline falls asleep.

When she wakes up, Jacks isn’t there. Finding one of his shirts to wear, Evangeline wanders through the inn until she finds a dining area complete with a clock that has types of food in place of numbers. Beside the clock, someone carved Aurora Valor’s and Jacks’s names, and Jacks arrives just as she sees them.

Jacks notices the chain around Evangeline’s neck and pulls the truth stone out from under his shirt, not seeming to know what it is. Instead of explaining, Evangeline sits at one of the many tables, where food matching the pointing clock hands is laid out. As they eat, Evangeline asks Jacks questions about his past, of which he answers a few before realizing that Evangeline has the truth stone. Jacks rips the stone from the chain around her neck and stalks away. Evangeline asks why he wants to open the Valory Arch, and Jacks replies, “I don’t want to open it at all” (258).