Page 82 of A Curse for True Love (Once Upon a Broken Heart)

“I didn’t know you had a sister.”

“I do. I believe the two of you are actually friends. Although I doubt you’ll still be friends after I finish this story. You know my sister as Aurora Vale, but originally her name was Aurora Valor.”

The mossy grounds around the spring felt suddenly unsteady under Evangeline’s feet. “Did you just say Valor?”

Chaos nodded while Evangeline’s thoughts raced to catch up. Within the last day, she’d remembered so much and been through so much, it was difficult to sort it all out. But she knew about the Valors. She’d studied them as she’d searched for the Valory Arch stones. But she’d never realized Chaos was one of them.

She felt instantly foolish. Minutes ago, Jacks had called him Castor, and Castor Valor had been Jacks’s close friend. He was supposed to be dead, just like all the other Valors—but clearly that wasn’t the case.

And if Aurora was Castor’s sister, then her parents must have been Wolfric and Honora Valor. Evangeline didn’t know how she would have figured out that they were in reality the first king and queen of the North returned from the dead after hundreds of years. Yet she felt as if she should have been able to piece it together somehow. She had always distrusted Aurora, but she’d just thought Aurora had the same first name as Aurora Valor. She’d never imagined the two were one and the same.

“I can see you have lots of questions,” Chaos said.

“I have nothing but questions,” Evangeline said. “Did your family come back from the dead? Or were they simply pretending to be dead? Where have they been all of these years? Why return now?”

“I know this will be hard, but I suggest you hold on to any questions until I finish this story, in case Jacks returns.” Chaos didn’t give her time to object before saying, “I think Jacks already told you that my sister was engaged to Vengeance Slaughterwood.”

Evangeline nodded and Chaos continued.

“Vengeance thought Aurora was nothing more than a pretty princess who wasn’t capable of taking care of herself. He had a protection cuff made for her—one that would thwart anyone who intended to harm her.

“There was just one catch to the cuff: once it is on, it can’t be taken off. Knowing this, my sister refused to put it on. She also didn’t need any amulet for protection, or so she thought. She held on to the cuff instead. I don’t know what she planned to do with it, but while she was locked away in the Valory, the cuff turned into a legend.”

“Hold on,” Evangeline interrupted. “Your sister was inside the Valory?”

“My whole family was in the Valory trapped in a state of suspended sleep. Why do you think I wanted to open it so badly?”

“I thought it was because of your helm,” Evangeline said. Before she had opened the Valory, Chaos wore a cursed helm that prevented him from feeding. But now that she thought back on it, it made perfect sense that Chaos also had a deeper motivation for opening the arch. He must have been the monster that some believed to be inside the Valory, but instead his family had been locked away.

“After the night that you opened the Valory Arch, Jacks was half-mad. He kept raving about you dying. About how he had to save you. I didn’t take him seriously.” Chaos paused to run a hand through his hair as he mumbled, “I might have bitten him, by accident, and I thought it was just the blood loss talking. Then, a couple of days later, I found out about how he’d made a bargain with my sister for the cuff. He wanted it for you, so that no one could ever hurt you again.”

“He’s been obsessed with that,” Evangeline said. She remembered him being protective of her before, but it seemedhe was fixated now. Or he had been. Obviously, something had changed between tonight and when she had last seen Jacks at the inn. Chaos had said the protection cuff worked based on a person’s intent, and it had stopped Jacks just as he’d intended to kiss her.

“What did Jacks trade this cuff for?” Evangeline asked.

“I tried to stop him,” Chaos said. “I told him not to do it, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“What did he trade the cuff for?” she asked more forcefully this time.

Chaos looked at her but wouldn’t meet her eyes.

Evangeline reminded herself that you weren’t supposed to meet a vampire’s eyes because vampires took it as an invitation to bite, but in this instance, it felt different. Chaos didn’t look hungry now so much as he looked sad.

“Jacks traded the cuff for his heart.”

“His heart?” Evangeline repeated. “What kind of heart? Is this some sort of magical object? A trinket? Surely not his actual heart.”

“Everyone has two different hearts,” Chaos said. “There is the heart that beats and keeps you alive. Then there is the other heart, the second heart, the one that breaks instead of beats, the one that loves so that there is a point to all this living. This is the heart that my sister wanted.”

“Why would Aurora want that?” Evangeline asked, although she feared she already knew the answer and that it had something to do with two names she’d once seen carved into the walls of the Hollow.

AURORA + JACKS

The names had been carved into the wall hundreds of years ago, but for Aurora it must have felt like a few years, maybe just months, since she’d been trapped in a suspended state in the Valory all this time.

“She loves Jacks, doesn’t she,” Evangeline said.

“That’s what I’ve always suspected,” Chaos replied. “Aurora has never confessed it, but I imagine that’s only because Jacks has never shown any interest in her. Lyric Merrywood was the one who loved her, but I always thought my sister was with him just as a pretext to be near Jacks, who never even looked her way.

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