A Curse for True Love

The next morning, an article in the paper blames Jacks for the slaughter of the great house. Evangeline recognizes Jacks’s picture as her Archer, thinking he looks “nothing like a murderer—and everything like what Evangeline secretly wanted” (175). Still, she feels sick at the idea she could want him, especially if he murdered so many people. Evangeline rushes to tell Apollo Jacks has been sneaking into the castle, but Apollo has gone to the Hunt—a Northern tradition started by the Valors. Long ago, hunters would search for the Valor’s unicorn, and whoever found it would win a half-wish. Now, someone dresses as a unicorn, and whoever catches them wins a squire ship, land, and gold.

The hunt occurs in the Cursed Forest, which was to be beautiful and kind until the Valor family died, when it turned dark and dangerous. After traveling through heavy rain, Evangeline arrives in an area full of tents for those participating in the hunt. She sees Aurora and asks about Apollo’s camp. Aurora and another noble both insist his camp is in a different direction. Evangeline knows one of them is lying, so she sends a guard with Aurora and takes the other with her and the noble. Close to the forest, the noble kills Evangeline’s guard and drags Evangeline toward the trees, saying “[T]ime to pay for what you did to Petra” (192). Evangeline doesn’t know who Petra is. Using Jacks’s dagger, she slices the noble’s wrist and runs.

In his tent, Apollo rages that Evangeline’s guards let her go off alone with an untrustworthy noble. Right before he murders the guard, a child bursts inside, yelling that Evangeline is in trouble. Someone tried to kill her and she ran into the Cursed Forest.

Evangeline runs until the forest abruptly becomes her parents’ old shop on her 12th birthday, where she hears her parents calling her. She frantically searches for them, but the shop expands into a maze. A young man named Chaos, claiming to be her friend, appears and explains that this is the curse of the forest: “It gives you just enough to chase, but it never lets you find what you want” (203). Before Evangeline can decide if she trusts him, Jacks arrives and stabs Chaos.

Evangeline throws herself at Jacks, calling him a monster. He knows he should let her go because she’s doomed to die if she remembers him, but he can’t bring himself to do it—she feels so right in his arms.

Jacks ties Evangeline’s wrist to his, and when Evangeline tries to pull away, flowers bloom from the rope. Suddenly, her family’s shop turns into a place that feels familiar, which Jacks identifies as the Hollow. Evangeline is irate that Jacks bound her and took her somewhere else, and Jacks is equally annoyed that Evangeline seems to not even be trying to get her memories back. He tangles his fingers in her hair, saying, “[P]lease, Little Fox, remember” (213), and those words feel like the most important ones in the world. As hard as she tries, Evangeline can’t remember, and the disappointment in Jacks’s eyes devastates her. The two leave the Cursed Forest to go to a nearby inn.

Apollo calls the Valors to his tent to explain the myth of the Tree of Souls to him. The tree is rumored to give any who drinks its blood immortality, but the Valors are the only ones who ever successfully grew it. Apollo demands to know where it is so he can become immortal to hunt Jacks. The Valors refuse to tell him because the tree is too dangerous, warning him to forget about it.

Jacks and Evangeline travel through a driving rain to an inn. There, Jacks asks for the room he reserved for himself and his bride and then carries Evangeline upstairs to a bedroom suite out of a fairy tale. He lays her on the bed and starts to pour something over her. She knocks it out of his hand, and a fine gold dust coats everything, making the world feel like it’s pulsing with magic. Realizing they are soaked from the rain, Evangeline starts to unbutton Jack’s shirt. 

When she’s done, he slips off her dress and rests one hand against her. Evangeline goes still, unable to breathe, and “the only magic in the room was that of touch and heartbeats and Jacks. And for a moment it was perfect” (235). Jacks falls asleep, and Evangeline finds a paper tucked into his doublet—a note Evangeline wrote to herself, telling her that Jacks poisoned Apollo and framed her for it so that he could turn her into a “key” to open the great Valory Arch. The note also tells her to trust Apollo. With a sudden rush, Evangeline’s memories return.

Evangeline remembers her entire past with Jacks, including Petra—another key who Evangeline murdered to save her own life. Despite everything Jacks has done, Evangeline remembers she loved him and finds she still does, though this finding is bittersweet because “past and present Evangeline felt as if they’d lost him” (244). Finally, she remembers that Apollo took her memories. 

The next morning, she wakes with a jolt, finding Jacks gone and a cuff encircling her arm. She rushes from the room, determined to find Jacks and tell him she loves him. Downstairs, she finds the innkeeper and other patrons brutally murdered, which she recognizes as vampire work. Outside, Apollo and his men find her, and Evangeline realizes he can never know she regained her memories. Apollo blames the deaths on Jacks, ignoring Evangeline when she insists that a vampire is responsible.