Evangeline confronts Jacks in the palace library, accusing him of poisoning Apollo and ruining her life.

A ghost librarian reveals the Valory Arch cannot be opened without four missing stones: luck, truth, mirth, and youth.

Apollo breaks free of his enchanted sleep and shoots Evangeline with a poisoned arrow from horseback.

A vampire bites Evangeline at Chaos's underground palace to heal the wounds from Apollo's poisoned arrow.

Jacks grabs Evangeline and launches them both off a cliff into the ocean to escape the cursed Apollo.

Evangeline agrees to help open the Valory Arch after Jacks warns her that ballads never end happily.

Evangeline feels a powerful pull toward a glowing gem at Chaos's palace, discovering it is the luck stone.

Evangeline sneaks into Tiberius's prison tower, but Tiberius refuses to help open the arch, calling it too dangerous.

Jacks and Evangeline travel to House Slaughterwood for LaLa's engagement party to search for the remaining stones.

Petra lunges at Evangeline with a knife in a hidden passage, and Evangeline kills her in self-defense.

Jacks carries the tortured Evangeline to the Hollow, where the pain from the mirror curse stops immediately.

Jacks tells Evangeline he wants the four stones to travel back in time to his moment with Princess Donatella.

Evangeline opens the Valory Arch with the stones and her blood; Chaos removes his helmet and bites her nearly to death.

Jacks uses the four stones to reverse time after Evangeline dies in his arms, refusing to live without her.

Apollo strips away Evangeline's memories of Jacks and himself, leaving her alone and terrified in an unfamiliar place.

Evangeline Fox is trapped between her distrust of Jacks and her desperate need to wake Prince Apollo from an enchanted sleep. A ghost librarian's revelation sends her hunting for four magical stones needed to open the Valory Arch, while Apollo awakens under a curse that forces him to hunt her like a fox. With Jacks's uneasy help, she locates the stones and fights through danger at every turn, including a deadly confrontation with another girl born to open the arch. The path leads through a vampire lord's palace, a treacherous engagement party, and a haunting respite at the magical Hollow. At last, Evangeline opens the Valory Arch, only to die inside it — and Jacks sacrifices his only chance at his own happy ending to reverse time and bring her back. The story closes on a cruel twist as Apollo uses unknown magic to erase Evangeline's memories, leaving her vulnerable and alone.

The headline events driving Evangeline's quest to save Apollo and open the Valory Arch.

Evangeline uses her blood to open the wolf-headed library door and finds the closed Valory Arch for the first time.

Evangeline visits LaLa, who urges her to open the Valory Arch but is stopped by a curse from explaining why.

Apollo grabs Evangeline's wrist with bone-crushing force in his chamber, and Jacks slashes Apollo's hand to free her.

Evangeline discovers that Apollo's arriving cousin is actually Luc, her first love, now turned into a vampire.

Evangeline tries to warn her stepsister Marisol away from Luc's danger, but Marisol refuses to believe her.

Chaos tells Evangeline he wants the Valory Arch opened so the helmet he has been cursed to wear can be removed.

Evangeline escapes her cage at Chaos's palace and finds Apollo in the woods, begging her to break his hunting curse.

Evangeline finds a book with shifting letters that shows a picture of a young, smiling Jacks with the Merrywood brothers.

Jacks possessively chases away a young man flirting with Evangeline at LaLa's engagement party dinner.

Evangeline follows Jacks through a hidden door and stops him just before he can kiss a girl from the party.

Evangeline falls asleep in Jacks's room at Slaughterwood Manor, mortified to wake clutching his shirt like a blanket.

Evangeline overhears LaLa confess to Jacks that she did what she had to do, confirming she placed the curses on Apollo.

Jacks gently tends Evangeline's wounds at the Hollow and admits he would kill any man found close to her.

A small dragon enters the Hollow and repeatedly bumps its head against the glass of the enchanted food clock's pendulum.

Jacks returns to the Hollow after two days away, his traveling cape stained with sparkling gold and red blood.

Beneath the surface of the main quest, a series of vital encounters shape Evangeline's understanding of the world around her. From her first glimpse of the dormant Valory Arch to the disturbing arrival of her vampire ex-lover Luc, Evangeline's world expands in threatening directions. Her time at Chaos's palace introduces her to new dangers and alliances, while the party at Slaughterwood Manor tests her trust in friends and strangers alike. Stolen moments at the magical Hollow reveal a tenderer side of Jacks even as Evangeline struggles to trust her own instincts. A little dragon, a shifting book, and an overheard confession each quietly move the story forward in ways that only become clear in hindsight. Together, these events fill in the emotional and narrative texture that connects the story's major turning points.

The secondary moments that shaped Evangeline's dangerous journey through the Magnificent North.

Evangeline's magical blood fails to open the Valory Arch, proving she cannot fulfill her destiny without the four stones.

Jacks explains the mirror curse means any harm that comes to Evangeline or Apollo will befall the other instantly.

Vampire venom in Evangeline's veins makes her intensely drawn to Jacks, shaking her resolve to keep her distance.

Evangeline realizes that Apollo is cursed to play the archer from the ballad and that she herself is the fox.

Luc appears in the rearranged woods holding an invitation to LaLa's engagement ball, and Evangeline resolves to attend.

Jacks presses Evangeline against a corridor wall at the party and runs his fingers along her leg through her skirt.

Evangeline and Luc open a hidden coffin and retrieve a bright yellow stone she believes to be the mirth stone.

The stone grows scorching hot against Evangeline's skin as Petra's contradictions mark her as a deadly and imminent threat.

Jacks holds Evangeline while she shakes and cries after killing Petra, and she cannot bring herself to pull away.

Evangeline finds children's height markings on the Hollow wall and notices Jacks's name and the archer's carved at the same height.

Under the truth stone's influence, Jacks admits to Evangeline that he does not actually want the Valory Arch opened.

Jacks asks Evangeline to let him pretend she is his for one night, and she realizes she has fallen in love with him.

Evangeline wakes tangled with Jacks and discovers the glowing mirth stone has been hidden inside the Hollow's clock pendulum.

Jacks reveals he is the original archer from the ballad who was cursed to hunt and ultimately killed his first true love.

Evangeline wakes with no memories of her past, and a man she does not recognize claims to be her devoted husband.

Woven through the main quest are the revelations and emotional shifts that truly define The Ballad of Never After. Each discovery — from Evangeline's blood failing to open the arch, to the exposure of Jacks as the original cursed archer — reframes what she thought she understood about her destiny and the people around her. The relationship between Evangeline and Jacks deepens through charged moments of danger and unexpected tenderness, as jealousy, manipulation, and longing pull them closer even as every rational instinct tells her to pull away. At the Hollow, a string of revelations forces Evangeline to confront the truth about the mirth stone, her own feelings, and the secrets Jacks has kept buried for centuries. The pool traces the inner arc of the story — the decisions and discoveries that illuminate every heartbreak and impossible hope along the way. It ends not with triumph but with erasure, as the story's cruelest twist leaves Evangeline unable to remember the love she fought so hard to reach.

The discoveries and emotional turning points that changed everything for Evangeline and Jacks.