Accomplice to the Villain (Assistant and the Villain Book 3)

Kingsley

Alexander Kingsley found Trystan exactly where he thought he would. In a puddle of his own regrets.

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A metaphorical puddle, of course. Alexander was the one sitting in an actual puddle adjacent to the guvre’s cage. Trystan had one hand on the bar of the enclosure and one clutched to his chest. “I know you’re in pain. I know. I’m sorry for it,” Trystan rasped at the moaning animal.

Alexander scribbled on his sign.

You

Trystan looked down and rubbed at his eyes with both hands, the purpling underneath deepening in the torchlight. “I am not in pain, Kingsley.”

No. Trystan was right. Alexander scribbled another word.

Anguish

Trystan sighed and shook his head. “Yes, I suppose that’s closer to the truth, isn’t it.”

Alexander hung his head in sympathy. There had been a time when Trystan listened to his counsel. Alexander had been raised to be a diplomat, after all, and he’d always excelled in saying just the right thing to achieve his goals when he was a prince. As frog counsel to “The Villain,” Alexander excelled in being direct rather than smooth because there wasn’t nearly enough chalk in Rennedawn to write every thought that came to his mind.

And in the last ten years, he’d had many.

“We’ll have to be up before sunrise to check on the window,” Trystan whispered, taking a cautious step back as the guvre with all his colorful scales slowly crept over to the cage door before resting his head as close to the grate as he could.

Fate’s creatures were one of Alexander’s first lessons in historical studies of the magical continent—beasts crafted by the hands of Fate. And whatever that fated creature saw in Alexander, he didn’t like it, whimpering lightly as he moved as far away from Alexander as he could manage.

Trystan looked down at him. “Someone not liking you. Now that’s a first.”

It wasn’t, but forget the kingdom—there wasn’t enough chalk in the continent for him to tell that story in its entirety.

So instead he wrote: Second.

Trystan huffed, almost amused. “I suppose the enchantress who cursed you wouldn’t be too fond of you now. Considering she’s been falsely imprisoned by your parents. All these years, I thought she was dead. My mother said she was executed on charges for ‘murdering’ you.”

She may as well have.

But Alexander didn’t say that, either. He jotted another word down onto his small sign, suddenly all too aware of how small his webbed hand was, how small he was.

Curse

Trystan tentatively reached a hand past the cage’s bars, and the guvre bumped his head into Trystan’s palm. His rainbow scales created a ring of color around him when the light hit. “I should be trying harder to undo your curse, Alexander. I shouldn’t have grown discouraged so easily. I want you to know that even if it seems so, I haven’t given up. I won’t.”

Alexander leaped toward his friend, hopping atop one of his shiny boots. When Trystan looked down, Alexander began shaking his head.

I watched you struggle for years, Tryst. I know you tried.

In the first few months of Alexander’s transformation, he could hardly wake a single day without falling into a well of despair. The Villain’s empire was just being built; Trystan had no allies, no resources, no reason to waste time on anything but building his business. It didn’t matter—meager as they were, Trystan used every one of his possible avenues available to break Alexander’s curse. He watched as his friend paid money he didn’t have to false enchantresses, curse consultants who refused to assist, false leads to find the enchantress who had cast the curse in the first place, failing again and again.

If Alexander were human, he’d tell Trystan they both lost who they were that day and they both had to claw their way back to who they were now. A frog and a villain.

But Kingsley’s foot was tired from all the writing he’d been doing of late, so instead of communicating the way he’d learned, he looked up at his oldest friend and said the only thing he knew how: “Ribbit.”

Trystan scooped him up and placed Alexander atop his shoulder. “Glad we’re in agreement on what an awful friend I’ve been. Ow!” Alexander used his non-writing foot to slap the back of Trystan’s head, effectively letting The Villain know they were not at all in agreement. “I’ll go see if Sage got back to her chambers safely, and then we should probably attempt a few hours’ rest before sunrise.”

Alexander nodded, but just as Trystan took a step away from the cage, a low whimper followed. Trystan stopped, taking another step away to test it. Another whimper from the lonely animal behind the bars.

Oh gods. The Villain was no match for it. The man was surely done for.

“Gods damn it,” Trystan grumbled. “How on earth am I meant to leave that sad sop in such a state? Listen here.” Trystan pointed toward the guvre. “I need to see that my apprentice has safely returned to her chambers, but I will return when I am through if there is time before I go to sleep.”

The animal whimpered again, and Alexander hopped off Trystan’s shoulder and toward the sign he’d left discarded on the ground, scribbling a word as quickly as he could.

Me?

Trystan’s eyes softened. “You’d check on her for me, Alexander?” His throat bobbed. “Perhaps that’s for the best. I’m afraid of what I might do if I see her right now.”

Alexander couldn’t erase and rewrite fast enough. The joke didn’t land the way it would if he could just speak it aloud. But he did it anyway.

Kiss?

“No!” Trystan yelled. “No kiss! There will be no more kisses.”

Alexander slowly lifted his sign.

Liar

Alexander blinked. Trystan blinked back. The guvre whimpered again, and that seemed to snap The Villain back to himself. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he stalked for the enclosure and slid down the wall nearest the bars, begrudgingly patting the guvre’s snout.

The animal calmed, instantly purring into his hand. “Check on Sage and then return to me at once, Alexander.” Trystan whispered his command, and Alexander nodded, hopping toward the stairs leading away from the cellars.

But as Alexander ascended, his surroundings began to muddle. He was hungry. The floor was cold. He needed warmth. Hopping at full force until he reached a brighter room, he leaped for the window ledge, searching for a sun that wasn’t there.

Unsure of his original path. He’d been doing something. He’d been someone before this moment, but everything was fading. Everything he was seemed to be, too.

And then the frog was no longer confused.noveldrama

Because he was just a frog.