Evangeline receives Jacks’s dismissive reply to her letter: he refuses to meet in the woods but tells her to come to Capricorn Alley at noon. She writes an angry response for her own satisfaction, then sneaks out of Wolf Hall through a secret passage in her room. Although Apollo has assigned guards because of concerns about her safety, he has also allowed her freedom, which lets her slip away unnoticed.

At Capricorn Alley, Evangeline waits in a bleak, suspicious-looking lane until an unmarked black coach arrives. Inside, Jacks lounges carelessly, cutting a silver apple. Evangeline immediately demands that Jacks undo whatever he has done to Apollo, explaining that Apollo’s devotion has become unnatural and all-consuming.

Jacks’s evasive answer confirms Evangeline’s fear: Apollo’s love is the result of Jacks’s interference. Evangeline refuses to accept a life built on a spell and insists that Apollo’s feelings are not real. Jacks argues that Apollo is happy and tells Evangeline to marry him and become a princess, but Evangeline threatens to cancel the engagement unless Jacks fixes Apollo.

Jacks responds by turning the situation against Evangeline. As the carriage begins moving, he says she has another assignment and reminds her of the remaining broken-heart scars on her wrist. When Evangeline repeats that there will be no wedding unless Apollo is restored, Jacks warns that if she abandons Apollo now, his enchanted heartbreak will never heal and will eventually destroy him unless Jacks chooses to end it.

Evangeline briefly wonders whether Jacks’s cruelty is connected to the rumored heartbreak he suffered, but Jacks mocks the thought and insists he is a monster and a Fate who sees Evangeline only as a tool. He presses the bloody tip of his dagger to her lips, then offers what he calls a wedding gift: after Evangeline marries Apollo, Jacks will erase Apollo’s artificial feelings. Evangeline realizes this traps her into marriage if she wants to save Apollo, while ensuring Jacks gets whatever he wants from the wedding.

When Evangeline asks why Jacks wants the marriage so badly, he refuses to explain and claims his goal will not hurt anyone. Evangeline distrusts his definition of harm, and Jacks ends the chapter with the ominous statement that hurt is what made him.