Page 90 of A Curse for True Love (Once Upon a Broken Heart)

“How do you know this?” asked Evangeline.

LaLa continued to look pained. “After Dane was locked up in the Valory, I wanted to destroy my heart.”

“You wanted to destroy your heart because ofDane?” Aurora snickered.

LaLa glared at her. For a second, Evangeline could see she was reconsidering the idea of torture.

“You can hurt her after you tell me how you think Jacks is going to destroy his heart,” said Evangeline.

“The only way to destroy a second heart is with the fire of a royal phoenix tree.”

“You planted a phoenix tree? Are you an idiot?” Aurora shoved up to her feet, and suddenly she looked genuinely frightened. Her cheeks were high with angry color. She must not have truly believed that Jacks was actually going to succeed at destroying his heart; she had been toying with Evangeline, taunting her for fun.

“Where did you plant the tree?” Aurora asked.

“As if I would tell you,” LaLa said.

Aurora turned to Evangeline. “Do you know where it is?”

Evangeline had a feeling she did, but she wasn’t about to tell Aurora. She’d seen the tree her very first night in the Magnificent North.

It was the night before Nocte Neverending; Apollo had been lounging across the branches of the phoenix tree, posing for a portrait. Although she’d actually noticed the spectacular tree before she’d noticed the prince.

Her mother had told her the myth of the phoenix tree, as had her former tutor, Madame Voss. It took the leaves of a phoenix tree over a thousand years to slowly turn to gold—real gold—but if a person plucked one before all the leaves changed, then the entire tree would go up in flames.

That must have been what Jacks planned to do. Pick a golden leaf, turn the tree to fire, and then toss his heart in the flames. And she had no doubt he would do it. Unless she stopped him.

“I don’t want Jacks to actually destroy his heart,” said Aurora. “If you tell me where you planted the tree, I can show Evangeline how to get there using an arch.”

“I don’t want your help,” said Evangeline. “And I wouldn’t trust it.” Thankfully, she also hoped that she didn’t need it. She was fairly certain she knew where LaLa had planted the phoenix tree—she just needed to get there before Jacks did.

“LaLa, where is the closest arch?” she asked.

If LaLa could tell her where the arch was, Evangeline was certain she could coax the arch to take her to the clearing with the tree. Her blood opened any door, and arches in particular always responded to her.

“I’ll go with you,” LaLa said.

“Thank you,” Evangeline said. “But I think I need to go alone this time. If I’m going to save Jacks, it’s not going to be through force.”

“Then how are you going to save him?” asked Aurora.

“With love.”

Aurora laughed again. The sound of it was getting uglier.

Evangeline’s cheeks heated, but she refused to be embarrassed. “Love is nothing to laugh at.”

“It is today. Because you see, Evangeline, even if you save Jacks’s heart, it’s not going to be enough to save you. If you ever kiss him, you will die. It doesn’t matter if your love is the truest love that the world has ever seen.”

Evangeline reminded herself Aurora was a liar; until moments ago, this whole scene had a been a charade. But she didn’tlook as if she was acting now. Aurora looked disturbingly triumphant.

“When I realized Jacks was never going to kill the fox girl, I put another spell on him,” Aurora said. “But the story curse twisted the truth of it. It’s not Jacks’s true love who will be immune to his kiss and make his heart beat again. Only a girl who willneverlove Jacks can survive the kiss. Maybe your love can save his heart, but if you decide to kiss him, you’ll just be one more fox that Jacks has murdered.”

41Evangeline

Finding the arch was easy.

It seemed to take only minutes.

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