Jacks, also known as The Prince of Hearts, is a Fate and the former heir to the Meridian Empire.
Appearance[]
Jacks is undeniably attractive, with a ruthless, sharp kind of beauty.[2] He is tall with long, lean legs. He has vivid silver-blue eyes, (which sometimes morph into more vivid or dull shades,) and golden-blond hair. Jacks' skin is pale and smooth like marble. He has long, slender, pale fingers. His real smile reveals a pair of dimples. He has a sharp jaw and sharp teeth with a pointed chin. His narrow, sulky mouth has a slightly fuller lower lip. Jacks often dresses carelessly, with his shirt untucked or not buttoned all the way. He feels very cold to the touch. He looks bored, rich, and cruel.
As part of his disguise while in the Magnificent North pretending to be a noble named Lord Jacks, he dyes his hair a brilliant blue. It eventually returns to his original dazzling golden-blond.
Personality[]
Jacks appears to be a careless young man who is unbothered with othersā opinions. His reputation as a Fate hints that he is quite the charmer but also a heartbreaker. He can be rude and says whateverās on his mind such as telling Tella to go away and choose another sky carriage and threatening to push her off when she doesnāt listen. Heās very flirtatious and is always teasing Tella and Evangeline, almost never calling them by their names and referring to them by terms of endearment such as āMy Loveā and āLittle Foxā respectively.
Because he is a Fate, Jacks is very possessive and obsessive, and will do anything to get what he wants. He was obsessed with Tella and tried to possess and control her emotions many times and even married her without her permission. When she confronted him about it he was quick to let her sever the bond, but that didnāt stop him as at the end of Finale, he tried to get her to let him manipulate her emotions for eternity in exchange for rescuing Legend.
Jacks never justifies or condones his actions but he tries to explain them. He told Tella that even though he stopped her heart and threatened Legend that heād kill her if he didnāt give him his powers back he confessed that he wasnāt actually going to kill her and would never harm her and that āheās a villain even in his own storyā.
In the beginning of Once Upon a Broken Heart, Jacks is yet again careless and blatantly rude to Evangeline when he overhears her in his church calling her speech pathetic but agrees to help her anyways in exchange for three kisses from her. But when she meets him again days after at the Nocte Neverending, he is moodier and colder than before due to Tellaās rejection and wonders why she is there and immediately gets her to kiss Apollo as part of their deal.
He has a tender and caring side that he rarely shows, such as when he helps Scarlett find her previous fiancƩ, carrying Tella in his arms back to her sister and Julian when Legend abandons her at the end of the second Caraval game, holding Evangeline close to comfort her when she was poisoned and crying uncontrollably despite her trying to break free from his hold. Taking Evangeline to the Hollow (even though it is a place he has avoided going to since he turned into a fate) and letting her bite his neck while traveling there, using the arch stones to go back in time to when Evangeline was alive and making sure she is safe and out of the way when he hears Chaos take off his helm.
Jacks can appear reckless, indolent, and careless. The rumors about him while he is Empress Elantine's heir are that he is a "soulless madman who will do anything to get the crown."[3]
He used to carry uniquely colored apples that had a dark red juice with him. In A Curse for True Love, it's alluded that Jacks eats so many apples to control his urges. This has been confirmed by the author.[4] Jacks states to Evangeline at the end of the book that he doesn't need them anymore. In the Waterstones alternate ending Evangeline claims that Jacks now prefers to stay away from apples.
Plot[]
Jacks was a part of the Merrywood Three with Castor Valor and Lyric Merrywood. He was known as the Archer. Aurora, Castorās sister, was secretly in love with him, and she put the Archerās curse on him, because her sister could see the future, and the future was Jacks would fall in love with a fox. Jacks broke free of the Archerās curse, but when he kissed his love, the fox, she died.
Aurora wanted Vengeance Slaughterwood and Lyric Merrywood to compete for her to get attention from Jacks. The day at Merrywood Manor when Vengeance attacked. Castor tried to warn Lyric of the attack. Jacks wasnāt there when it happened. When Jacks arrived, everyone was dead except for Castor. Castor was stabbed in the back, and Jacks brought him to his mother, Honora, was the greatest healer in all the North. But Castor died, and Honora resurrected him, becoming a monster devouring human blood, he became Chaos.
Long ago, his heart stopped beating, making him incapable of love. However, once he finds his true love, his heart will start beating again. Until then, his kiss will be fatal to everyone else. However, in A Curse for True Love, we find out that the true curse is that only a girl who can never love Jacks will survive his kiss.
As the Prince of Hearts, Jacks is cursed, like the other Fates. Jacks has the hope of finding his one true love someday. His story promises that there is one girl who is immune to his kiss. His curse is his kiss. If there is even a hint of attraction to someone, he will be drawn to that girl in the hope that she's his one true love. But he always kills them in the end.[5]
Legendary[]
Jacks escapes his card prison and is alive again. He has maneuvered himself into becoming Empress Elantine's heir.
At the opening night ball of Caraval, Jacks appears and asks Tella to dance, much to the induration of Dante. As Tella and Jacks dance, their conversation makes Tella realize that Elantine's heir and her mysterious "friend" are the same person. Since she doesn't have Legend's real name, the requirement for her part of their bargain, Jacks tells her she must now not only bring him Legend's real name, but also must pretend to be his fiancƩ until the end of Caraval so that his position as heir is not ruined. He tells her that after the game ends, they will say their engagement was only part of Caraval and dissolve it with no harm done. As they dance, Jacks beings to kiss Tella rather indecently so as to sell the charade of their engagement. During their kiss, Tella feels like it is "the sort of kiss she could have lived in. The sort of kiss worth dying for."[6] Immediately she remembers that only one person in the history of the Empire kisses like this, the Prince of Hearts, whose kiss is deadly. As she pulls away, Jacks bites her lip drawing blood. Jacks tells her that if she does not keep up the charade of being his fiancƩ and bring him Legend's true name by the end of Caraval in five days, his kiss will kill her.
Tella had contacted a mysterious person known to her only as her "friend," who she believes is a lowly criminal who deals in secrets, to help her escape her father. In exchange for getting Scarlett into Caraval, Tella would provide him with Legend's true name.
Towards the end of the game, Tella gets into a fight with Jacks, and as she hits him in the chest she feels a heartbeat. This throws her off at first but ultimately leads her to the conclusion that she must be Jacks's true love, which means the kiss Jacks gave her can't kill her after all.
Finale[]
Jacks tends to be constantly found equally aiding and tormenting her, and was even married to her for a time, without her knowledge. When Tella's mother, Paloma is killed, Jacks carries Tella to his gambling den.
Jacks helps Scarlett, Tella, and Julian rescue Legend from the Fallen Star. Jacks says that he was employed to capture Tella, but he is helping her instead. His task was to manipulate her emotions and use her for leverage against Scarlett. Jacks says he will sneak Tella into the palace to help free Legend on the condition that he has control of her emotions forever. Tella agrees, and Jacks takes control of her emotions. However, Tella breaks free from his spell after Legend is freed, and Jacks disappears. Tella ends up with Dante, and stabs Jacks in the heart with his very own knife, and Jacks leaves the Meridian Empire with heartbreak.
Once Upon a Broken Heart[]
Jacks is in the Prince of Hearts' church in Valenda when Evangeline Fox arrives. She is there to make a bargain with him to stop the wedding between the boy she loves, Luc Navarro, and her stepsister, Marisol Tourmaline. Jacks tries to convince Evangeline not to make a deal with him, but she insists. He agrees to stop the wedding in exchange for three kisses from her, at the time and with the person of his choosing.
After the bargain is complete uses one of his favors from Poison to turn the entire wedding reception into statues. Jack tries to convince Evangeline to not drinks the magical potion to free the wedding guests, but she does it overcome with guilt, and is in turn into stone.
Jack has been exiled to the North after getting into trouble with Princess Donatella from the south. He has concealed his true identity and is pretending to be just another young, insolent aristocrat named Lord Jacks, and changed his hair to a striking shade of dark blue. He has become a close confidant of Prince Apollo.
About six weeks since seeing Evangeline, she arrives at the private dinner held by Prince Apollo the night before Nocte Neverending, she is surprised to find Jacks there as well. Evangeline realizes that Jacks has set her up to be the one who would owe him three kisses and also to be the ambassador for the Meridian Empire to meet Prince Apollo.
The Ballad of Never After[]
The book picks up right after the end of the first book. Evangeline is still hurt at Jacks' betrayal and is desperately searching for a way to wake Apollo from his suspended state. After trying but being unsuccessful in finding a cure. She agrees to Jacks' proposition, if she collects the 4 stones and opens the Valory Arch, he would help her wake Apollo. Evangeline still refuses despite the arrival of Lucien Jareth of House Acadian a supposedly distant cousin of Apollo who has now come to be the Crown Prince in his stead as everyone believes Apollo to be dead.
Apollo wakes unexpectedly, but this is due to a curse that was placed on him. The Archer's curse from the tale "The Ballad of the Archer and the Fox" which causes him to desperately hunt for his fox, in this case, Evangeline. In addition to this curse, a mirror curse is also put in place to link Evangeline and Apollo, so any physical harm that falls on one befalls the other.
Apollo begins his hunt but doesn't want to hurt Evangeline. Jacks saves her on various occasions. In the meantime, they search for the four missing stones to open the Valory Arch in Chaos' vampire castle where he has an extensive library. The books, however, are not very helpful as the text on the pages shifts, changes or disappears whenever someone tries to read it. Still, Evangeline gathers enough clues to go looking for the stones of which the Lucky stone is already in Chaos' possession.
Evangeline as a living key is the only person that can sense the stones and feels a pull toward them. Evangeline finds the Truth stone in the grave of Glendora Slaughterwood. Evangeline and Jacks had been at the Slaughterwood Castle because LaLa was betrothed to Lord Robin Slaughterwood and was holding a celebration.
They find the Youth and Mirth stones next.
After Apollo attacks Evangeline once more the same day they were going to open the Valory Arch. Evangeline and Jacks have a conversation in which he finally confesses the truth, he didn't want to open the Valory Arch, he just wanted the stones reunited as they can be used to travel back in time, although just once. He tells her it's because he wants to return to the moment he met Princess Donatella as she is supposed to be his one true love. He wants to fix things so she won't leave him heartbroken for another. Evangeline is sure Jacks doesn't have true feelings for Donatella as Evangeline realizes she loves Jacks and thinks he might reciprocate her feelings. She pleads with him not to go through with his plan as this will alter the course of time and Evangeline and Jacks will never meet. He will remember her but she won't have any memory of him. Jacks insists this is what he wants and Evangeline is respectful of his choice. He doesn't say goodbye and Evangeline goes with Chaos to Wolf Hall, and Evangeline opens the Valory Arch.
Inside the Valory Arch, there are the members of the Valor family believed to have been slaughtered. Chaos turns out to be Castor Valor who had been nearly killed and saved by Jacks who took him to his mother Honora Valor, a great healer. Castor turned into a vampire with an insatiable hunger and a helmet had to be put in place to stop a series of killings. Honora removed the curse of the helmet. Chaos believes himself capable of controlling his urge for blood but in truth, he is not. He attacks Evangeline, biting her neck and draining her blood. Jacks arrives too late to save Evangeline who dies in his arms.
Jacks is devastated at Evangeline's death. He screams and cries tears of blood. He decides to use the stones to return back in time and save Evangeline instead of returning to the moment he met Donatella. He does it and tries to prevent Evangeline from being killed by Chaos. Jacks is the only one who knows the stones have already been used. When they open the Valory Arch this second time he goes with Chaos and Evangeline. After Evangeline opens the Valory Arch and Chaos is inside Jacks hurts Evangeline with hard words to get her to leave. She leaves in tears, thinking it's the end for them and he will use the stones to return in time to when he met Donatella and she will have no memory of him.
While she is crying she thinks that she has to tell him she loves him, and as the stories tell, love triumphs above all things, so maybe if they fight together they will find a way. When she goes back to the Valory Arch to look for Jacks, she finds splattered blood, and when she wants to go inside the Arch to investigate further she finds Apollo at the door. She is scared he will hurt her due to the Archer's curse but he tells her the curse was broken by Honora. Evangeline can't keep thinking and asking about Jacks which angers Apollo. His demeanor suddenly changes and he attacks her, seemingly using magic, he takes away all her memories. When Evangeline comes to her senses she can't remember anything. He feigns to have just found her and introduces himself as her husband, she doesn't have any memory of him ,but he assures her she is safe with him and he won't let her go.
A Curse For True Love[]
Apollo takes Evangeline back to Wolf Hall, everyone who thought that Apollo was dead is stunned and Apollo explains that he came from death with the help of the Vales (a new name given to the Valors). The Vales are gifted the Merrywood lands. Evangeline feels like she's missing something and she wants her memory back so badly. Due to jealousy Apollo calls on a search for Lord Jacks whom he accuses for stealing his wife's memories and for treacherous acts. Due to safety measures Evangeline can't exit Wolf Hall until Jacks is found.
Few days later Evangeline is drawn out to the gardens where someone pushes her into a well. She thinks she is dead and a stranger calls upon her to hold on to a bucket. The stranger draws Evangeline out and he warns her to be safe because it was an attempt murder. He says she needs to defend herself and he'll try to teach in the future.
We are taken to Jacks point of view where he feels lost without his little fox and has a great hatred towards Apollo. He teaches Evangeline on different encounters, she asks for his name and he says it's Archer and gives her a dagger.
People around Evangeline keep warning her about Jacks, and tell her about how she met Apollo, his proposal and their wedding. After many attempts, she remembers how she sees the Archer in every glimpse of her memories. She tells Apollo that she remembers, but Apollo reacts in a way she never expects, he is awfully disappointed.
A party takes place and Evangeline meets Aurora Vale and a few other acquaintances. Apollo is called for princely business and Evangeline feels bored and goes to her room. Once she enters, someone tries to kill her and the Archer saves her. She learns that the Archer is Jacks.
She wants to tell Apollo that Jacks has been meeting her, but he is out for the night, so she decides to tell him tomorrow. The next day is the Hunt, where she is lured in by Lord Belleflower, into The Cursed Forest, as Evangeline had been seen asking for where Apollo was in there, overseeing the hunt. Belleflower tries to kill Evangeline, as a part of revenge for her killing his lover, Petra. Evangeline, having lost her memories, is terribly confused and stabs Belleflower with the knife Jacks gave her during training.
The Cursed Forest happens to be an illusion taking people to the best days of their lives. Evangeline ends up in an illusion of Valenda, spending her 12th birthday with her parents. Chaos, who happens to be in the forest, has in own illusion, in front of his eyes, and crosses paths with Evangeline's illusions. He warns her of Jacks going to make a terrible choice, and he pleads Evangeline to stop Jacks. As if its a speak of the devil himself, Jacks suddenly appears, and stabs Chaos, knowing full well that he won't be able to resist his urges and kill Evangeline once again.
Evangeline is horrified, and accuses Jacks of the supposed murder of the Fortunas. Jacks, clearly confused, denies it. The readers prior to this point of the plot tself, know that Apollo manipulated Evangeline, and frames Jacks for crimes he never committed. Evangeline knows that Jacks is protective and is only trying to shield from dangers. He guides her out of the Cursed Forest, and finds an inn for them to spend the night in. Jacks tries to sprinkle a mystery powder on Evangeline, but fails when she knocks it from his grasp, covering the room instead. They share a romantic moment, where Evangeline finds a letter placed near Jacks's heart. It turns out to be the letter that she wrote to herself, a reminder to not trust Jacks ever again. Reading the letter, Evangeline regains all of her memories, and is beyond enraged with Apollo.
Eventually, Evangeline and Jacks are calm enough from the powder to fall asleep. When she wakes, she finds a cuff on her hand, which protects her from dangers.
TBA
Powers[]
He can control emotions, stop hearts. He is ageless.
As the Prince of Hearts, Jacks is cursed, like the other Fates. His curse is his fatal kiss. His story promises there is one girl who is immune to his kiss his one true love. But the real kissing curse is that any girls who possess feelings of attraction to Jacks will die, only a girl who would never love Jacks could survive (this is why Tella survived). His curse was broken when Evangeline gave him a true loveās kiss.
Relationships[]
Donatella Dragna[]
Jacks and Tella have a fiery relationship. In the beginning, Tella avoids Jacks and even hates him. Jacks forces Tella to pretend to be his fiancƩ so that his position as heir to the Meridian Empire can remain secure. As punishment for not bringing him Legend's real name as she promised, he kisses her. Jacks tells her that if she does not keep up the charade of being his fiancƩ and bring him Legend's true name by the end of Caraval in five days, his kiss will kill her. When Tella and Jacks get into yet another argument, she hits him in the chest and feels a heartbeat. As only his one true love can cause his heart to begin beating again, Tella realizes this means she is his one true love and that the kiss he gave her will not actually kill her.
Jacks flirts with Tella constantly, and they begin to grow closer when Jacks comforts Tella after watching Gavriel murder her mother and when Legend abandons her. Jacks develops an obsession with Tella because she is his one true love that he has spent so long searching for. He often shows up out of nowhere to aid her. Tella begins to feel attracted to him as well. Jacks offers to take Tella's grief over her mother's death away. Despite being furious at him for threatening to kill her in order to make Legend return his powers to full strength, she agrees. Jacks has Tella recite words in an ancient language, giving him control over her emotions. Eventually Tella discovers that the ancient words she spoke not only gave him control over her emotions, but married them as well. Tella immediately confronts Jacks and severs their bond, essentially divorcing him. Jacks admits to feeling obsessed with her and after the breaking of their bond, Jacks becomes distant. Near the end, he makes a deal with Tella compromising her feelings to him. He immediately takes advantage of it and proceeds to make her adore him, although Legend breaks his hold on her. After that, Jacks disappears to the North.
Evangeline Fox[]
Once Upon a Broken Heart[]
Jacks and Evangeline first meet when she went to his church in search of a solution to end her first love, Luc's wedding with her stepsister Marisol. Jacks agrees, in exchange for three kisses, in his chosen time and place. Evangeline finds out that Jacks stopped the wedding by turning her family into stone, and willingly takes their place by drinking a potion made by Poison. It's later revealed that Jacks asked Poison to save her. Later on, Evangeline encounters Jacks after going to the Magnificent North. He dyed his hair dark blue. Her first kiss is with Apollo, resulting in Apollo becoming obsessed with her, which is the effect of Jack's curse. The second kiss was with the head of the house Fortuna. It is revealed that Jacks was looking for some stones. Afterwards, Evangeline kisses the prince using her third kiss, but he dies shortly afterwards. Jacks saves her and brings her to LaLa's house, where she gets fixed because of a poison that caused her continuous crying. Jacks holds her throughout the night.
The two visit Chaos, who tells them about a witch that had purchased some poison from him. Evangeline suspects Marisol. Evangeline sees Luc, her first love, trapped inside a cage, and he is a changeling. Jacks warns her not to open the cage, but she does. Jacks gets bitten and turns into a vampire, and Evangeline spends the rest of the night trying to get him not to bite her. At sunrise, the vampire effects wear off, leaving Jacks exhausted. Evangeline carries him into his home, and he falls asleep there while Evangeline tries to deal with Marisol. It's revealed that Tiberius is Apollo's true murderer, and Evangeline is no longer a fugitive. On her way to meet Jacks, she gets sidetracked by Apollo's guard and finds out that Apollo is actually not dead, but in a suspended state. She is furious about Jacks betraying her and resolves never to help him open the Valory Arch.
The Ballad of Never After[]
At the beginning of this book, Jacksā relationship with Evangeline is fragmented and she does not trust him. However, Evangeline must make an alliance with him once more and agrees to help him open the Valory Arch. His relationship with her continues blossoming, as he saves her countless times and takes her to safety even though he continues claiming that she is only a ātoolā to him. Eventually, Evangeline is terribly injured through the mirror curse, so he takes her to his former home, the Hollow. Here, he strips her clothes off and bandages the deep wounds on her body gently. He then leaves her, returning a few times as he slowly reveals more about his past. Soon when he comes back though, he has a bloody gash in between his ribs, so Evangeline helps to clean and bandage them. She gently tousles his hair, when he suddenly pulls her into the bed with him, claiming that āshe feels good.ā He convinces her to stay with him for ājust one night,ā and say she is his, imagining that he is Jacks of The Hollow. They sleep entwined with each other, however Evangeline then has a dream where Lala warns her the Mirth stone is there. In the morning she finds it, and tells Jacks their feelings arenāt real as he affectionately teases her and pulls her into his lap. Jacks tells her that she has no idea what he is feeling, when Evangeline quickly rips the Mirth stone out and puts it in an iron box.
Jacks quickly shutters his expression, but it is hinted at that his feelings were legitimate. He continues acting as insolently as before, however when Evangeline is bitten by Chaos after opening the Valory Arch, Jacks is devastated. As she dies, he cries tears of blood worth more pain than centuries of heartbreaks could bring. He decides to use his one chance to go back in time to save her from death, since there is nothing of equal value to him. Although he prevents her death, Jacks must flatly tell Evangeline that he does not want another ending with her to force her to leave before Chaos comes out of the Valory Arch. We can infer he is torn by this heartbreaking decision though, as he almost seems to agree to her offer. As Evangeline leaves, she realizes that she truly loves him, and she wants to tell him that. However, when she returns to the room, all she can see is blood with gold flecks speckled across the roomā¦
A Curse for True Love[]
With Evangeline's memories gone, she no longer knows who Jacks is. Apollo has made a fugitive of Jacks, forcing him to go into hiding. Regularly, he finds ways to visit Evangeline, trying to help her to remember him. He gives her a lesson on self defense, and gives her his dagger. Eventually, Evangeline starts to regain some of her memories. On her way to visit Apollo during the Hunt, she is attacked and forced into the Cursed Forest. When in the forest, she starts to hallucinate. Chaos finds her, and with his helm removed, makes an attempt to attack her. Jacks arrives in time to temporarily kill Chaos and save Evangeline. He guides her out of the Cursed Forest, and finds an inn for them to spend the night in. Jacks tries to sprinkle a mystery powder on Evangeline, but fails when she knocks it from his grasp, covering the room instead.
Eventually, Evangeline and Jacks are calm enough from the powder to fall asleep. When Evangeline wakes up, Jacks is gone, and there is a bracelet on her wrist that wasn't there before. When she goes searching for Jacks, she finds his gold-flecked blood along the inn's halls.
Trivia[]
- He has gold-flecked blood.
- His favorite nickname for Evangeline is "Little Fox".
- Jacks is Stephanie Garber's favorite Fate.[7]
- Stephanie has said that Klaus from The Vampire Diaries reminds her of Jacks.[7]
Gallery[]
References[]
- ā Stephanie Garber on Instagram
- ā Once Upon a Broken Heart: page 10
- ā Legendary: page 122
- ā Stephanie Garber Instagram 2023-10-28
- ā Once Upon a Broken Heart: page 271
- ā Legendary: page 134
- ā 7.0 7.1 Stephanie Garber on Instagram Stories