Once Upon a Broken Heart, #2
The Ballad of Never After
by Stephanie Garber
Contents
Chapter 38
Overview
In a manipulated dream, Evangeline meets the Handsome Stranger and LaLa. LaLa apologizes for cursing Apollo and explains her enduring love for a dragon shifter, implying he is imprisoned in the Valory. She warns Jacks likely holds the mirth stone, clouding judgment, and urges Evangeline to seize it and escape the Hollow as the dream fractures.
Summary
In the Hollow’s tavern within a dream, the Handsome Stranger boasts while warning Evangeline that Jacks isn’t in his right mind. Evangeline challenges his motives. When LaLa arrives, the Handsome Stranger is abruptly removed, implying Jacks is controlling the dream.
LaLa apologizes for cursing Apollo to hunt Evangeline and explains the mirror curse was meant to limit Apollo’s pursuit, not to kill Evangeline. She admits stabbing Jacks with a butter knife after believing he exposed her actions. Evangeline demands the truth about the Valory.
Bound by a story-curse, LaLa offers a tale instead: her first and only true love could shift into a dragon and first took her thinking she was treasure. She became a Fate to stop loving him but failed. Evangeline infers her love is imprisoned in the Valory, aligning with the belief that it can be a magical prison.
They briefly reconcile, acknowledging past mistakes for love. Then the dream begins to fracture. LaLa reveals Evangeline has been missing for weeks, Jacks reappeared days ago, and she believes Jacks possesses the mirth stone, which clouds judgment and safety.
As the ground splits, LaLa urgently warns that the Hollow only seems safe because of the mirth stone’s influence. She instructs Evangeline to find the mirth stone, take it from Jacks, and leave the Hollow before the connection collapses.
Who Appears
- Evangeline FoxProtagonist; confronts dream visitors, demands truth, forgives LaLa, and hears warning to take the mirth stone and flee.
- LaLa (The Unwed Bride)Appears in Evangeline’s dream to apologize, reveal her dragon first love, and warn that Jacks holds the mirth stone.
- Handsome StrangerDream figure who warns about Jacks, then is abruptly removed, suggesting Jacks’s control over the dream.
- JacksOff-page influence; likely manipulates the dream and, per LaLa, holds the mirth stone clouding judgment.
- Apollo Titus AcadianMentioned; victim of LaLa’s curse and the mirror curse’s safeguard, motivating LaLa’s apology.