Evangeline realizes the mocking stranger is the Prince of Hearts, who says people who dislike him call him Jacks. Although Jacks looks fashionable and human rather than ancient or heartbreak-stricken, Evangeline senses danger. She knows making a deal with a Fate could ruin part of her life, but leaving would mean giving up on stopping Luc’s wedding.

Jacks studies Evangeline’s appearance, questions her origins, and asks how many people she has kissed. Evangeline refuses to share sentimental memories of her dead parents with Jacks, but she admits she has only kissed Luc. Jacks mocks her devotion and argues that Luc cannot truly love Evangeline if Luc is marrying someone else.

Evangeline insists Luc must be cursed because Luc will not speak to her and because Evangeline cannot tell Marisol the truth when she tries. When Evangeline begs for help, Jacks offers to stop the wedding in exchange for three kisses: not from him, but from Evangeline to three people of Jacks’s choosing, whenever Jacks chooses. Evangeline bargains that no one may die and that Jacks cannot stop the wedding by killing with his kiss, and Jacks agrees.

Jacks asks how Evangeline got through the church door, and Evangeline says she merely asked politely. Jacks seems pleased, then bites the underside of Evangeline’s wrist without drawing blood, leaving three small white scars shaped like broken hearts to mark the three owed kisses. Jacks disappears before Evangeline can ask when the bargain will come due.

After Jacks vanishes, Evangeline tries to convince herself she did the right thing, but unease grows as she remembers her limited relationship with Marisol and her suspicion that magic has interfered with Luc. Evangeline runs after Jacks, but the magicked church door sends her to a distant apothecary in the Spice Quarter instead of the Temple District, delaying her return.

By the time Evangeline reaches her mother’s garden, the wedding has gone silent. In the gazebo where Luc and Marisol were meant to marry, Evangeline finds nine disturbingly lifelike granite statues, all holding goblets as if after a toast. The statues include Agnes and Marisol, revealing that Jacks has stopped the wedding by turning everyone to stone.