EVANGELINE
"Take me to Jacks." Evangeline whispered the words at the coin, and waited expectantly; but there was no flash of light, no sudden warmth, or any other indication that something magical had taken place. It was just a normal, ugly coin, and Evangeline had no more of an idea where to find Jacks than she had a minute before. She also had no idea how to get out of the forest.
She spun in place, hoping that by going the way she had just come she might at least have half a chance of finding civilisation again. When she did, she realised she was no longer alone in the clearing. A hooded figure had been standing half a step directly behind her, so silently that she couldn't tell if they had just arrived or had been tailing her the entire time.
She shrieked, stumbling back and tripping on the uneven ground. The hooded figure reached out with unnatural speed and grabbed her arm before she landed on her behind. The hand was gloved and quickly released her.
"Who are you?" She quavered, taking a more careful step back. She couldn't see their face at all, but the build suggested it was a man.
"I am The Assassin." He spoke in a harsh, discordant voice that set Evangeline's teeth on edge. She couldn't possibly outrun a trained killer in her current state, but The Assassin was the name of yet another Fate from the Deck of Destiny and therefore wasn't necessarily there to kill her. However, he was supposed to be quite mad.
"Hello," she began awkwardly, still unsure of the protocol when it came to Fates and her forgotten history with them. "Have we…met?"
"Yes and no."
She bit down on her annoyance. It wasn't his fault he was insane: according to legend, The Assassin could travel through time. For him, concepts like past and present were fluid and the 'when' of their meeting was probably irrelevant to him. But, she realised, she had met him; quite recently, in fact.
"This is your coin." She held it up to show him. "You gave it to the ghost fox, and he gave it to me."
He leaned forward as if to examine the coin, then straightened. "Not yet."
"Well you did. Or, you will. A few weeks ago, at the prince's ball." Which meant that Jacks' coin was the one that was gone, and with it all chance of finding him before Apollo. "Did I summon you just now?"
The Assassin did not respond, and with his face covered it was impossible to tell if he was angry or not. She decided to err on the side of caution.
"Sorry about that. I was hoping to find my friend, The er, Prince of Hearts." Hopefully they were on friendly terms. "I don't suppose you could take me to him?"
"Not yet."
Evangeline blinked. "Not yet? But…soon?"
There came a rustling from the trees, and instead of answering, The Assassin pointed in that direction. Evangeline squinted into the dark undergrowth. "What is it? Is that Jacks?"
But The Assassin was already gone, disappearing as silently as he had arrived.
The rustling grew closer, and Evangeline decided to find out for herself what was out there. If it was Jacks, she would send a hefty sum to the Assassin's church in Valenda's temple district as thanks. If it was one of the hunting hounds, she would drop the luckless coin in the ocean and go back to a quiet life in her father's shop.
It wasn't Jacks, and it wasn't a hound. It was the strangest, most beautiful creature she had ever seen; one that should have been long-extinct.
The unicorn's head had been bent to delicately nibble moss off a fallen log, but it straightened to watch Evangeline as she approached. It was much larger than she imagined, closer in size to a moose than a horse, with a coat of pearlescent white and a horn the length of a rapier protruding from its forehead.
Evangeline paused before she got within goring distance, waiting for the unicorn to decide her fate. For all that she was terrified of being impaled or stomped to death with its silver hooves, she couldn't help but marvel at the sight of a real unicorn. It was like one of her mother's stories had sprung to life before her eyes, a thousand times better than even her overactive imagination could conjure. If this was the way she died, then at least it would be a notable death.
"You're beautiful," she breathed, slowly raising a hand like the unicorn was a shy bunny and not a perfect murder machine. Legends claimed they favoured the pure of heart and attacked the wicked, but Evangeline couldn't remember enough about the current state of her heart to know which it would consider her to be.
The unicorn blinked, slowly, and stepped forward until Evangeline's hand was resting against its withers. It was cool to the touch like the Fates, as if more than blood ran through its veins. She began slowly to pat it, enjoying the velvety texture of its coat and hoping she wasn't inadvertently committing some cardinal sin.
Its moonstone eyes lowered in the universal horsy sign of contentment, and Evangeline allowed her abused nerves a moment of rest. She was so tired of being something she wasn't: the careful, suspicious, quiet schemer instead of the girl who hoped, who trusted, who loved recklessly.
"Do I get a wish?" she joked, running her fingers through the silky silver mane.
The eyes opened slightly.
"If so," she said, heedless of its attention, "I'd like very much to remember everything I've forgotten." She might have wished to find Jacks, or find love, or find satisfaction with what she already had. But at the end of the day, she missed Evangeline Fox. There was no point finding anyone else until she found herself.
The unicorn's head twisted toward her, and Evangeline froze as the point of its horn came to rest against the fox mask. Any more pressure and it would pierce her temple and kill her instantly.
Perhaps this was why there were no reports of unicorn sightings anymore.
"Please," she began, but then her head split open. All present thoughts stopped in their tracks in order to make way for the memories that came pouring in.
She remembered going to the Prince of Hearts' church in Valenda, right down to the foxes and keyholes embroidered on her skirt. She remembered her stepmother's scorn and Marisol's jealousy. She remembered Lala's dragon scale gown from the night they met, and the horse Apollo rode into the ballroom just before he proposed. She remembered the cottony taste of Curiosity and the bitter taste of truth. She remembered the feeling of vampire venom and the lash and Jacks' hands on her thighs. She remembered The Hollow. She remembered her father dying and Luc comforting her afterward. She remembered her first kiss with Apollo, and the fear that it would kill him. She remembered ghost foxes, apples, cliffs, dragons, golden knives, wolves with flower crowns, and boys with dimples.
"Don't!" She remembered crying. "Stop!" But Apollo had merely held her tighter.
"It will be better soon," he had assured her, but he was taking her memories, sapping everything away with a touch.
She remembered the hands on her head, the way they seemed to dig into her skull and drag out her innermost secrets. At the time she had been panicking and pleading with Apollo, and far too distressed to pay attention to her surroundings. This time, she saw the truth.
There was a hand on her head, but it wasn't Apollo's.
And there was a hand on Apollo's head as well, digging perfectly polished nails into his scalp in the exact same way she could feel happening to her. Apollo's eyes seemed apologetic as they gazed at her, his own hands cupping her cheeks. But they also seemed glazed and pained, as though something were being taken from him as well. Taken, or added.
"Please–stop!" At some point she had started screaming, pleading over and over. This was how she had ended up curled in a ball on the floor of Wolf Hall, with no memory of where she was or why her throat felt so raw. Apollo must have left and then come back to 'discover' her. And indeed, once the Evangeline of memory sunk down to the ground, her pleas turning uncertain, Apollo released her and stepped back.
And when he did, Evangeline got her first proper look at the true enemy.
Aurora Valor's left hand came away from Evangeline's temple at the same time that her right hand left Apollo's. Apollo stared down in horror at his wife, who at the time could not even recognise that he was there.
"What have I done?"
"Something terrible." Aurora shook her head. "Lysander just left; he never wants to discuss this again, by the way."
"I don't blame him. I can't believe I thought this would be a good idea." Apollo reached out to Evangeline, but Aurora pulled him back.
"Not yet, your highness; if she knows it was you, you'll lose her forever. Don't you remember your plan?"
The glazed, pained look returned to his eyes for a moment, then he nodded. "Of course. My plan."
The Evangeline of the past watched them both leave, unaware that her husband would return in just a few minutes and pretend that he knew nothing of her condition. But in truth, it seemed that even Apollo had been manipulated, his memories tampered with somehow.
Evangeline remembered reading about the Valors, the way that certain details seemed to shift, but others, like the descriptions of the children, never changed: Aurora was sweet and beautiful and her twin Castor was noble, but neither seemed to have magical powers like their siblings. Vesper could see the future, Tempest and Romulus were the original inventors of the arches, Dane was a shapeshifter, and Lysander had a gift that involved memories.
Lysander, who had attempted to fix Evangeline's memories just last night, but had claimed that his powers often failed no matter how hard he tried.
It was said that the story curse twisted all Northern tales in one way or another.
As that last piece of the puzzle slid into place, she finally regained everything that had been taken from her in the last year.
But the memories didn't stop.
She remembered where she left her father's glasses when she was seven, and how much they had cost her father to replace. She remembered what she had eaten for breakfast the day her mother died, and how it tasted when she threw it back up again.
Some uneventful memories came and went like the uneventful days they represented, and the memories of being a very small child whipped by so quickly that they made her feel dizzy. But then one memory, of a time that she must have been very small indeed, solidified into an image: the uncharacteristically grave faces of her parents.
"Conceived in the North and born in the South," Liana Fox recited, looking down at little Evangeline as she lay in her cot, "you will know the key because she will be crowned in rose gold."
Maximilian Fox's hand reached down and gently held a lock of his daughter's hair to the light. "One could argue that it's strawberry blonde."
Liana shook her head, her own deep red hair tumbling loose down her shoulders. Evangeline longed to reach up and touch it, but of course it was only a memory playing out in her mind. "It's as rose gold as any other Key I've seen."
"Then what? You're going to kill our child?" Maximilian's face was so young, free of the lines of age and worry that would grow and multiply over the years. If Evangeline was only a year or two old in this memory, then her parents would have both been in their early twenties.
"Of course not," Liana sighed. "I told you, I was done with the Protectorate the day Evangeline was born. But a Key always has a way of finding its lock. She'll go North one day, no matter what we do. And when she does, she won't ever be safe again."
Maximilian wrapped his wife in his arms, and for a while they simply embraced while their daughter smiled up at them, blissfully unaware that they were discussing her terrible fate. Then, finally, her father spoke. "She'll never be safe," he agreed, "but she can be prepared. You have your Northern tales, and I have my shops. She'll have everything she needs when the time comes."
Little Evangeline closed her eyes, and the scene faded like a candle burning out. Present-day Evangeline's torrent of memories finally subsided, and she opened her eyes to find herself lying alone on the forest floor. There was no sign of the unicorn.
"Thank you," she murmured quietly, pulling herself to her feet and heading back to the clearing. She could remember how to find it now, and with any luck she would find a clue about Jacks' whereabouts along the way.
Jacks…
So much had come back to her at once that his part in her life was now mixed indelibly with her parents, her step-family, her other loves, and her enemies. It was like a scarf that had started in one colour before switching to another was suddenly unwound and transformed into a beautiful tapestry. The threads of gold that represented her love for Jacks were now everywhere, touching everything else.
More than ever, she knew that he was her future. Their love was strong enough to defeat his curse, and the next time she saw him she would prove it.
The horn blared as she got closer to camp, signalling that the hunt was over. She only hoped the 'unicorn' had survived.
AURORA
Aurora Valor rode a golden mare that had been fetched after her father and the others had discovered her out in the woods with their quarry. Only Apollo had known that her 'finding' Jacks before the others was all part of the plan. The other hunters had panicked at the sight; one idiot had even tried to set the dogs on Jacks before her father had intervened, furious that they would put his daughter in danger.
But nothing could have reached Jacks without having to go through her first. She finally had him, after so many years of planning and waiting and sleeping in that cursed vault. It was all going to be worth it, because her Northern Tale was finally reaching its perfect conclusion.
Jacks sat behind her, his arms circling her tightly so that he didn't fall off. He was still a little disoriented, and terribly weak. He had so many memories, more than anyone she had ever used her powers on. At first she had only been interested in the ones concerning herself and Evangeline Fox, but unfortunately the middle memories, after he had become a Fate but before Evangeline had turned his head, had also proven problematic. They had twisted her handsome, dashing hero into something cruel and manipulative. He'd kissed too many women, including a little blonde slut with veins full of magical death and a Star's love. He had liked her enough to feel guilty about killing her, and between that and her various magical protections, the curse weakened just long enough to save her. Jacks had wasted many precious tears on the loss of a woman he hadn't even liked that much, just because he believed she was his only chance at love.
Evangeline Fox and Donatella Dragna may have been mere footnotes in a far longer love story, but viewing them through the lens of Jacks' memories, she knew they couldn't make the final edit at all. She burned their pages from his mind, along with the hundred other men and women that Jacks had kissed. He'd always have gaps, but with enough time she could go back and fill them all with new memories, ones that would bring him infinitely more happiness.
They reached the clearing, and Aurora blushed prettily at the attention her entrance was garnering. Not only had she captured the "unicorn," but the unicorn had fallen in love with her. She had traded her fox mask for a crown of gentians back in the woods, to avoid any misunderstandings about just who owned Jacks' heart.
"The hunt is over," her father stated in his booming soldier voice, removing his own mask. "My daughter has captured Lord Jacks, and asks that he be spared in the name of love and given her hand instead." He looked over at Apollo, who looked back at her.
For a moment she was nervous; Apollo was meant to pardon Jacks and reinstate his lordship, but she knew the prince would struggle to resist another chance to hurt her beloved. But then Apollo nodded, smiling. "Nothing would bring me greater joy than to see my former friend, Lord Jacks, happily married to Aurora Vale."
A cheer rose up - the masses loved a bit of drama, especially of a romantic nature. Aurora waved bashfully, eyes sweeping the crowd of animal-faced women until she found the Fox she was looking for.
Evangeline. She was still wearing her mask, so Aurora couldn't tell what she was thinking. Part of her hoped she felt the pain of losing every bit as much as Aurora felt the rush of winning. A shop girl from Valenda was no match for a true Northern princess, and the sooner she realised she was outclassed, the better things would be for everyone. But this Evangeline barely knew Jacks anyway; they had met only twice since the year Aurora had removed, according to Jacks' memories. It was neater that way, even if it was less fun.
She slipped gracefully from her horse, and when Jacks followed after her she placed herself back in his arms. He held her uncertainly at first, but then he ran a hand through her violet hair.
"Aurora," he murmured, stroking the back of her head.
"Yes my love, it's me."
He leaned in as if he might like to kiss her, but instead he froze in place. Aurora had planted enough memories to ensure Jacks wouldn't kiss her accidentally, but she could tell it frustrated him. His handsome face grew a little sharper, a little hungrier, and in that moment she could understand how so many women had let the Prince of Hearts kill them with a kiss.
"Soon, my beloved," she assured him, placing a finger against his cool lips. Once the seed of love that she had planted in him was able to bloom into true feelings, their kiss would prove to the world that Aurora Valor had been right all along.
EVANGELINE
Lala's arm was around her shoulders in an instant, and even though Evangeline wanted nothing more than to turn around and sob into her friend's chest, she forced herself to remain standing on her own two feet. She would not give Aurora Valor the satisfaction of seeing her hurt.
"That bitch," Lala murmured, even as the rest of the crowd erupted into cheers. "She must be blackmailing him somehow."
"I think it's worse than that," Marisol murmured. Her adorable squirrel mask (she and Lala had switched back to their original masks earlier) didn't suit her tone at all. "Look at his eyes; he's been spelled."
"You'd know," Lala said tartly, and Marisol shrugged.
"Yes, I would. I'm done pretending I don't have power. I can use magic, and I know a love spell when I see one."
"It's not a love spell," Evangeline murmured, pleased that her voice didn't crack. "It's memory magic."
"What?" Lala and Marisol both turned to her.
"I remember everything now. I'll explain why later." It felt like mentioning the unicorn would ruin it somehow. It was old magic, too pure to sully by putting into words. "The main thing is, I remember how I lost my memories. The Valor who can alter memories isn't Lysander; it's Aurora."
The dragon and the squirrel both spun back to regard the apparently happy couple.
"Then why are you still over here with us instead of over there, punching Aurora in the face?" Marisol asked. "Because if you aren't going to, I might."
"You'd have to wait your turn," Lala muttered. "She's always been a flirt, but at least the lives she ruined in the past were given a choice in the matter. At least, I assumed they had."
Yet another buried memory came back to Evangeline with perfect clarity, this time of a journal entry she had read in The Hollow:
Lala keeps telling me that I should just marry Vengeance. But I don't think she's ever really liked me. I don't think she believes I'm good enough for her brother, which is fine, as I don't think she's good enough for my brother.
"Lala…is Jacks your brother?"
"What makes you say that?" Lala's dragon head turned back to stare at her.
"I remember reading somewhere that you didn't think Aurora was good enough for your brother. If she's been after Jacks all along…"
"No, Jacks and I aren't related." Lala's voice turned sad, and there was a faintly bitter smell in the air. "But I did have a brother, and Aurora wasn't good enough for him."
"Lyric Merrywood?" Evangeline guessed, heart sinking. That particular Northern Tale ended very badly indeed.
Lala nodded. "That's right." She laughed mirthlessly. "The Valors hosted this hunt so that they could rebuild Merrywood Manor. They're going to live in my family's home."
Marisol ripped her squirrel mask off. "Right, this is all too horrible even for me." She grabbed Evangeline's arm and started weaving through the bystanders. "If I lost everything just for a bit of petty magic, then she deserves to lose her man right in front of everyone."
She thrust Evangeline to the front of the crowd, bringing her face to face with Aurora and Jacks.
Whilst confronting Jacks and proving her love to him had always been her plan, doing it in front of half the North including her husband was not how she would have preferred it to happen. Everyone had stopped talking and was staring at her: the crowd looked keen for some fresh drama, Apollo was eyeing her carefully, Aurora looked smug, and Jacks merely looked confused.
"Hello?" he prompted, when she didn't say anything. "Little fox?"
Her heart did a little flip in her chest, and she took another step toward him. "Jacks?" It's me. Tell me that it's you, too.
He reached out and twitched the furry nose of the fox mask she was still wearing. "Who is this shy little fox?" His eyes, which usually sparkled with mischief and magic, were oddly flat as he regarded her. "Another one of Aurora's many friends?"
Evangeline raised her mask, but the sight of her face and her rose gold hair got no reaction whatsoever. What to do now? If she tried to kiss him, would it break both spells? Or did the fact that he currently felt nothing for her guarantee that she would die?
Aurora smiled, snaking her arm around Jacks'. "This is Princess Evangeline, darling. She's Apollo's wife."
"Oh, a princess." Jacks snorted. "I didn't know Apollo got married. Must have been before I was reunited with Ro. That time's all a bit grey to me."
"I can't remember it either," she lied. She didn't want to tip her hand until she could ensure her and Jacks' safety. But she couldn't help adding, "seems there's a lot of that going around."
"Did you want something, Princess?" Aurora was practically goading her to make a scene, knowing she would have all the power and sympathy if she did.
Evangeline lowered her fox mask so that nobody could read the storm of emotions on her face. "Only to wish you both happiness."
Jacks smiled. "You're nicer than your husband. I thought he was going to have me beheaded a minute ago."
"He wouldn't dare," Aurora declared, squeezing his arm.
"He might," Evangeline murmured, and for a moment it looked like Jacks might have laughed. But then someone else was stepping forward to congratulate the couple, and Evangeline was promptly forgotten.
Her mask was suddenly suffocating, but she knew if she removed it then everyone would see the tears that were now flowing freely. Marisol and Lala were right ahead of her, but she wasn't ready to face them again. They wanted her to do something she was no longer confident she could pull off. She still loved Jacks and was prepared to fight for him, but it seemed that there would always be too many curses between them. Even the story curse of the North was against them, hiding the key to understanding her love in layers of twisted tales about archers and Fates.
Apollo was approaching her from the left, but she pretended she didn't see him and broke right instead. She just needed a minute by herself, to get her emotions under control before she resumed her fake life as an amnesiac princess.
There, in the middle of the crowd, a hooded man stood waiting for her.
"Now?" she asked, holding out his coin.
"Now."
He took the coin from her, and the crowd disappeared as if he had simply blinked them out of existence. But it was more than that; she was in the same clearing in the Cursed Forest, but it was darker, the shadows longer.
"What happened?" Evangeline looked up at the patchy sky overhead, and saw that it was streaked orange. The sun was already going down. "What did you do?"
But once again The Assassin was already gone. Wherever…whenever she was, she was stranded there.
"Hello?" she called uncertainly. Magical unicorn encounters notwithstanding, her time in this forest had been thoroughly awful, and all she wanted to do was return to civilisation and nurse her broken heart. Instead, she would once again be stumbling around by herself, racing the setting sun as she did.
She took her first, resigned step toward the path that led back to the campsite when something whistled past her ear and thunked into the tree in front of her. She stared: it was an arrow. Someone had just shot an arrow at her.
"What do you think you're doing?" she whirled around. She may have been unarmed, but Jacks and her friends weren't around to save her from this latest assassination attempt. She was tired of always running from her death. Time to try fighting.
"Sorry!" A voice called from the trees. "I thought you were a fox."
"Show yourself!" she called, and after a moment a young man stepped into the clearing. He was tall, with rugged boots, wood-brown breeches and an open-collared shirt. Criss-crossing leather straps held a quiver of arrows to his back, and he carried a simple hunting bow in his hand.
"Really, you can't blame me for taking a shot at you when you're out here dressed like that." The hunter reached out and tweaked the furry nose of her mask. "Just what do you think you're doing, little fox?"