The Ballad of Never After

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussions of manipulative relationships, violence, and substance abuse and allusions to sexual assault.

Prior to the opening of this chapter, Evangeline leaves herself a note with a warning never to trust Jacks again. Chapter 1 opens with Evangeline entering the palace library, where Jacks waits for her. Evangeline accuses him of poisoning Apollo and blames him for all the hardship she’s suffered since he entered her life, and Jacks counters that he’s helped to transform her from a poor orphan to the darling of an entire nation. Evangeline fumes because Jacks only made her life better to serve his own interests, saying, “Children treat their toys better than you’ve treated me” (5).

Jacks offers to help Evangeline cure Apollo if she opens the Valory Arch. Evangeline refuses, and Jacks disappears. Fuming, Evangeline uses her blood to open the wolf-headed door at the back of the library, which is rumored to hold all the secrets of the Valor family, only to find the closed Valory Arch.

The Valory Arch is made of marble and features golden angels with their swords crossed over its closed center. When she tries and fails to open it with her blood, the ghost of a librarian appears and explains that the Valory Arch can’t be opened without its four missing stones: luck, truth, mirth, and youth.