Jacks Quotes

“I’m going to go back and stop your son from killing her.”
The queen’s face fell. For a moment, she looked as old as the years she’d spent lying in a suspended state. “That is not a small mistake to fix. If you do this, Time will take something equally valuable from you.”
The Fate gave the queen a look more vicious than any curse. “There is nothing of equal value to me.”
― Stephanie Garber, The Ballad of Never After

“Where were you?” she asked.
“I was killing innocent maidens and kicking puppies.”
“Jacks, that’s not funny.”
― Stephanie Garber, The Ballad of Never After

“The girl was dead. If her lifeless body had not confirmed it, then it would have been made clear by the horrible scream of the Fate who held her in his arms. The story curse was familiar with pain, but this was agony, the sort of raw grief that was only seen once in a century. The Fate was every tear that anyone had ever shed for lost love. He was pain given form.”
― Stephanie Garber, The Ballad of Never After

“If you think I'm jealous because someone else got to stab you, then you're right.”
― Stephanie Garber, Once Upon a Broken Heart

“I do not want you dead, and I’ll kill anyone who tries.”
― Stephanie Garber, The Ballad of Never After

“Jacks no longer felt like her enemy, he felt like her home.”
― Stephanie Garber, The Ballad of Never After

“The Fate didn’t move. He didn’t let the girl go. He looked as if he never would. He continued holding her as if he could return her to life with the force of his will. His eyes were wet with blood. Red tears fell down his cheeks and onto hers. But the girl didn’t stir.”
― Stephanie Garber, The Ballad of Never After

“Sorry to break your fairytale, Little Fox, but ballads don't end happily, and neither do the two of us.”
― Stephanie Garber, The Ballad of Never After

“She tried to pull away, but Jacks held tight, knotting her hair in his fist and keeping his forehead pressed to hers. "Please, Little Fox, remember.”
― Stephanie Garber, A Curse for True Love

“Jacks’s chest was heaving, his clothes were soaked, his hair was a mess across his face—yet in that moment, Evangeline knew he would carry her through more than just freezing waters. He would pull her through fire if he had to, haul her from the clutches of war, from falling cities and breaking worlds. And for one brittle heartbeat, Evangeline understood why so many girls had died from his lips. If Jacks hadn’t betrayed her, if he hadn’t set her up for murder, she might have been a little bewitched by him.”
― Stephanie Garber, The Ballad of Never After

“The Fate gave the queen a look more vicious than any curse. 'There is nothing of equal value to me.”
― Stephanie Garber, The Ballad of Never After

“Jacks looked down on her from the dark nightstand where he’d perched
himself. His long legs draped negligently over the edge of the furniture as
his hands played with an apple and a knife.
“You talk in your sleep,” he drawled. “You said my name—a lot.”
Evangeline felt a rush of heat crawl up her neck. “Obviously, I was
having a nightmare.”
“It didn’t look that way to me, Little Fox, and I was here all night.”
― Stephanie Garber, The Ballad of Never After

“You don't want to be the hero, you want the happy ending- that's why you came to me. If you do this, that will never happen. Heroes don't get happy endings. They give them to other people. Is that what you really want?”
― Stephanie Garber, Once Upon a Broken Heart

“Jacks gave her a smile that was all sharp edges. A drop of blood fell from the corner of his mouth, and something godforsaken washed over his expression. "Hurt is what made me.”
― Stephanie Garber, Once Upon a Broken Heart

“I swear this is what I really want.” He spoke each word like a vow. “I want to erase every moment you and I have spent together, every word you’ve said to me, and every time I’ve touched you, because if I don’t, I’ll kill you, just like I killed the Fox.”
― Stephanie Garber, The Ballad of Never After

“It didn't matter if he stayed forever cursed. All that mattered was that he stayed, that he chose her instead of fear.”
― Stephanie Garber, The Ballad of Never After

“He held on to her as if she were a grudge, his body rigid ad tense, as if he really didn't want her there, and yet his arms were tight around her waist as though he had no intention of ever letting her go.”
― Stephanie Garber, Once Upon a Broken Heart

“You ask a lot of questions."
"Only because you do a lot of questionable things.”
― Stephanie Garber, A Curse for True Love

“She didn't want someone to hold her while she cried and tell her it would be all right. She wanted fury, she wanted rage, she wanted a villain to tell her she'd done exactly what she needed to do.”
― Stephanie Garber, The Ballad of Never After

“He wanted her to look at him, just once, and know him the way she had before.”
― Stephanie Garber, A Curse for True Love

“Being yours does not make you mine.”
― Stephanie Garber, A Curse for True Love

“The truth is never what you want it to be, Little Fox.”
― Stephanie Garber, The Ballad of Never After

“I don't know if you're my true love, Donatella. All I know is that I want you to be.”
― Stephanie Garber, Finale

“He wanted to keep her pressed to the floor beneath him. He would have set the world on fire and then let it all burn just to keep holding her like this.”
― Stephanie Garber, A Curse for True Love

“I’m the villain, even in my own story. But you were supposed to play a different role. You were supposed to be my true love... you were supposed to be as obsessed with me as I am with you.”
― Stephanie Garber, Finale

“Ballads never end happily, everyone knows that.”
― Stephanie Garber, The Ballad of Never After

“For the rest of her life, whenever she thought about heartbreak, she would see the way he looked at her.”
― Stephanie Garber, Finale

“It felt as if he were reaching into her, as if there were invisible fingers digging in to her mind, taking things they shouldn't. Memories.
...
With her body weakened, she fought to lock him out of her mind, to hide her remaining memories, but one by one he plucked them out.

The night in the crypt with Jacks... gone.

Marrying Apollo... gone.

Her friendship with Lala... gone.

Apollo infected with the Archer's curse... gone.

Jumping off the cliff with Jacks-

'No!' she screamed.

... gone.

The wonder of the Hollow... gone.

Jacks bandaging her wounds... gone.

Jacks confessing he was the Archer... gone.

'Please, stop,' she begged.”
― Stephanie Garber, The Ballad of Never After

“His arms encircled her waist, keeping them close to his chest. She could feel his chest.
Pounding. Pounding. Pounding”
― Stephanie Garber, A Curse for True Love

“Archer held her tighter. He banded one arm firmly around her ribs, the other he circled just below her waist, almost on her hips, his fingers splayed in a way that felt less like he wanted to restrain her and more like he just wanted to touch her--to hold her on that bridge in the dark where it was only the two of them and the rain and the feel of too many heartbeats racing between them.”
― Stephanie Garber, A Curse for True Love