57 pages • 1 hour read
Stephanie GarberThe Ballad of Never After
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
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BetaPart 2, Chapters 22-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “An Unkindness of Stories”
Part 2, Chapter 22 Summary
On their way to Slaughterwood Manor, Evangeline and Jacks’s carriage passes through a dead, gray landscape with the charred remains of trees and buildings. A sign proclaims that it was once the sight of Merrywood Manor. Jacks tenses, losing the light in his eyes, and Evangeline feels any happiness seep out of her when he informs her in a dark tone that “this is where they all died” (160). Long ago, Lyric Merrywood, one of the brothers, fell in love with Aurora Valor, who was betrothed to Vengeance Slaughterwood. On her wedding day, Aurora ran away to be with Lyric, and Vengeance burned down the Merrywood Manor, killing everyone but the unnamed archer from Evangeline’s book.
Evangeline thought the combined stones destroyed Merrywood Manor, and Jacks asks where she heard that and is angered when she reveals her visit to Tiberius. Jacks vows to kill anyone who tries to harm her, but Evangeline refuses to let anyone die at LaLa’s party, to which Jacks says that “someone is going to die. It will either be one of them or one of us” (168).
Part 2, Chapter 23 Summary
Evangeline is overjoyed to see LaLa, even as the Slaughterwood servants whisper terrible things about how Evangeline murdered Apollo. Jacks insists that he be given the suite of rooms next to Evangeline’s to protect her, filling in LaLa on the curse. LaLa’s smile falters, and Evangeline apologizes for bringing bad news at such a happy time. Jacks notes that the wedding won’t happen, given that LaLa is the Unwed Bride. Evangeline and LaLa gloss over the truth, feigning huge smiles so that “for an odd moment, the only one in the room who appear[s] entirely honest [is] Jacks” (175).
After Jacks and LaLa leave, Evangeline hears voices from the room next door. It’s Jacks and LaLa discussing the curse on Evangeline and Apollo. Jacks asks if LaLa can break the curse, to which LaLa says that “nothing has changed since [she] came here last week” (177). Jacks has been searching for a cure, which makes Evangeline’s heart race. She tries to convince herself that Jacks doesn’t care about her, but it’s difficult because she’s starting to care for him.
Part 2, Chapter 24 Summary
Dinner is a lavish affair in an enormous dining room with a giant trebuchet catapult at its center. Almost every girl in attendance tries to flirt with Jacks, which makes Evangeline’s chest feel tight. Between that and most people ignoring her, Evangeline finds that the party feels “hot and stuffy and far from magical” (184).
Part 2, Chapter 25 Summary
An attractive young man starts up a conversation with Evangeline, only for Jacks to chase him away. When Evangeline argues that she can talk to whoever she wants, Jacks gazes hungrily at her lips, making Evangeline flush with heat. Biting down on her lip, she wonders what it would be like to kiss him, overcome with “the inescapable sense that he wishe[s] to be the one biting down on her lip instead” (189).
LaLa and her groom enter the dining room, both looking very much in love. During the procession to the dinner table, Evangeline is separated from Jacks, who sits near a group of girls and flirts unabashedly. Overwhelming jealousy tears through Evangeline, and she remembers that the youth stone is rumored to cause jealous feelings. A girl named Petra Youngblood is seated beside Evangeline, and despite initial jealousy of Petra’s beauty, Evangeline finds the girl easy to talk to.
Petra points out that Jacks and one of the girls he’d been flirting with are missing, and Evangeline notices a hidden door behind a portrait near where he was seated. Fearful that he will kiss the girl and kill her, Evangeline goes after them, stopping Jacks just in time. Jacks isn’t moved by Evangeline’s presence and silently tells her to go so that he can finish what he's doing. Evangeline doesn’t move, and Jacks sends the girl away before pressing Evangeline against a wall and running his fingers over the bare skin of her leg through the slit in her skirt. Evangeline knows that she should pull away but can’t bring herself to when Jacks’s touch makes her “feel like she [i]s the one he’d wanted all this time” (200). Jacks whispers a final warning that getting close to him doesn’t end well before leaving Evangeline alone in the corridor.
Part 2, Chapter 26 Summary
That night, Evangeline can’t sleep, remembering what it felt like to be pressed against Jacks. Instead, she unpacks the books she brought, including the one with the shifting letters that is currently titled “The Inglorious History of House Slaughterwood” (205). The book confirms Jacks’s retelling of events from when the Merrywoods died and makes it sound like the Valory Arch was created to imprison an abomination. Another story mentions mirth in conjunction with Vengeance Slaughterwood’s wife, and a picture of a coffin makes Evangeline sure that the mirth stone was buried with her. Words in the book match those in the hall where she found Jacks and the girl earlier, and Evangeline hurries to search the secret hallway, not getting Jacks because “he [is] still the last person she want[s] to see” (208).
Part 2, Chapter 27 Summary
Evangeline finds the coffin and Luc in the hidden hallway. Luc helps her open the coffin, and Evangeline retrieves a bright yellow stone she’s sure is mirth, even though she doesn’t get a strong sense of power from it. Leaving Luc behind, she goes back upstairs, where she sees Petra dashing around a corner. Evangeline can’t shake the feeling that Petra came from Jacks’s room, and using her blood, Evangeline enters, only to find Jacks isn’t there. She feels comfortable in the room, which smells of Jacks, and Evangeline curls up on the bed, her last thoughts before sleep being that she loves Jack’s smell of “apples and magic and crisp, cold nights that ma[k]e her want to curl up in a blanket” (217).
A bit later, Evangeline wakes to an annoyed Jacks standing over her. Mortified to find she’d been clutching one of Jacks’s shirts like a blanket, Evangeline tosses the garment away before demanding to know who Petra is. Jacks claims he doesn’t know but advises Evangeline to stay away from her because she seems dangerous, adding that he won’t hesitate to kill Petra if she gets in the way.
Part 2, Chapters 22-27 Analysis
Chapter 22 offers important backstory that comes to fruition later in the novel. The dead, gray place is the Merrywood land, where the Hollow—the inn where Jacks takes Evangeline to recover—is located. The grayness externalizes the death of magic in the land. Much like events in the narrative present, events of the past revolve around the theme of The Power of Love and allude to the desire for a fairy-tale happy ending. In a fantastic story world with magic, Garber uses something human and real, love, to remain the most powerful and influential force in order to draw in the reader. Jacks’s statement that someone will die at House Slaughterwood foreshadows Petra and her death.
Chapter 23 contains significant plot exposition and leaves Evangeline with even more questions about who her friends are and who to trust. The conversation at the end of the chapter presents the inverse of what happens in Chapter 13: Rather than using embodied action for Evangeline to interpret, Garber uses dialogue to heighten the uncertain sense of romantic tension. This is another instance in which Evangeline overhears something and makes assumptions. Jacks’s seeming concern for her makes her hopeful that he cares for her, and she enters the party in the next few chapters with the expectation that things will be different between her and Jacks.
The entire party is a vehicle through which to further the romantic subplot between Jacks and Evangeline since it provides Garber the opportunity to introduce several flat characters to whom Jacks and Evangeline react. Evangeline pretends not to be upset that Jacks is flirting, all the while wishing he would pay attention to her. When Evangeline flirts, Jacks puts himself between her and who she’s talking to, saying the men she flirts with are dangerous. Garber imbues this scene with irony given that Jacks is also dangerous, something that he points out in Chapter 25. This scene establishes the theme of The Effects of Jealousy. Jacks also manipulates Evangeline by attempting to isolate her from anyone but him, pushing other suitors away and making it seem as though she can’t trust anyone. No explanation is offered for the fact that Jacks lures a girl away from the dinner table despite his self-awareness of the danger, something that allows Garber to create suspense for the rest of the series to come.
Petra is another key. In earlier chapters, Jacks explained that the last key was killed, which isn’t true, suggesting either that Jacks lied or was misinformed. Evangeline is initially jealous of Petra’s beauty and doesn’t want to like her because of her looks. As Evangeline chats with Petra, though, she finds Petra perfectly nice. Evangeline sees Petra in the hall and instantly thinks she was in Jacks’s room, even though there’s nothing to suggest this is the case. Garber hence underlines some gendered dynamics in the theme of The Effects of Jealousy by exploring and unravelling the idea that the two women must be rivals. Jacks and Evangeline’s intimate moment and his subsequent warning in Chapter 25 is a significant development in their romantic subplot, which will later be answered with explanation from Jacks’s perspective: He wants to be close to Evangeline but fears harming her like he did past loves, and he believes his warnings are the best course of action. Without this context, Evangeline, as well as the reader, is drawn to misread and misunderstand Jacks’s warning. Garber uses the trope common to young adult literature of the romantic couple speaking in riddles and half-truths to build tension, in contrast to plain communication.
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