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

Evie

“She just needs time, Mama,” Evie assured her mother later that morning as Nura paced the length of Evie’s new office. What had once been a mere brightly lit corner alcove had been converted into an open and cheery little space. Her white desk, which Trystan had once thrown a body across, was now pushed up against the window so that the light delightfully warmed her skin while she worked. Every morning, a bouquet of white roses appeared upon her desk, as well as a new tin of vanilla candies—the first from Marv, the second from Edwin. Small touches of kindness that felt like the grandest of gestures were often Evie’s favorite. It meant someone was thinking of you at the most ordinary times of the day and sought somehow to improve yours. It created an air of sweetness to mask the bitter feeling of being shoved off to the corner like a child in a time-out.

She’d made the effort to adorn the windows with small blue and white paper butterflies Lyssa had made the day Evie was “banished.” It had been Lyssa’s attempt to make the distance between Evie and The Villain seem like a happy change. Except Evie was afraid the only change it invoked was her new and sudden alarming disdain for butterflies.

Nura stood by the other window, leaning against it and running her fingers gently down the stained glass. “I know. I’m sure this is all very frightening for her. I suppose I just wish she’d be more like you in that regard.” There was pride in her voice as she walked toward where Evie sat. She leaned over the desk to place both hands upon her cheeks, looking into her face with a gratefulness Evie did not deserve. “You accepted me again right away.” A tear ran down Nura’s face. “My sweet girl and her sweet smile.”

You could fix a broken world with just your smile.

The tears stinging Evie’s eyes were not ones of joy, because those words her mother had told her so long ago…they no longer felt like a compliment.

But she smiled anyway.

Just in case.

“Lyssa’s been dealing with a lot of change lately. I can’t blame her for not coping well with another. Especially one so confusing.” Evie kept her gaze down at her desk, moving her head away from her mother’s hands, refocusing on the notes in her journal she’d taken the morning before, meager bits of the old man’s memories she’d written down at the tavern. Pieces of Rennedawn’s storybook prophecy.

Keys, windows, and something about a door and a stain?

Then again…he had been chained up by the owner for public drunkenness…and he had been trying to escape…

Keys, windows, door, stain.

With a loud groan, Evie let her forehead fall against the open gold-foiled notebook.

“Why is it confusing?” Nura asked, her voice distant as Evie contemplated the question.

Slowly picking up her head, furrowing her brow, she said, “What?”

“Why do you think my return is so confusing for Lyssa?” Nura asked, her head leaned forward like she knew the answer, like she was preparing to hear it but needed Evie to say it aloud.

“Well—” Please don’t make me do this. Don’t force me to be strong in this moment. Not when I’ve earned the right to curl up and cry.

Her mother was alive and whole. Evie needed to be grateful, needed to accept that the pain and resentment of the past didn’t matter any longer. Her head knew this, but her heart was twisting so hard in her chest that she felt nauseous.

Nura’s face grew solemn. “Evangelina, I am not fragile. My magic has been dormant since I returned, and my head is clear. I can handle the truth.”

The scar on Evie’s shoulder began to send shocking sensations down her spine, all the way to the dagger at her thigh, and it hurt. “You didn’t raise her!” The words burst from her as if the burning had shoved them out.noveldrama

Nura flinched and stepped away. “I…I realize that.”

Evie sighed, pushing away from her chair to stand. “I’m not trying to be cruel. You said you could handle the truth, and the truth is that to Lyssa, you are little more than a stranger.”

To me, too.

But she didn’t add the final part, as her goals for the day didn’t include ravaging her mother’s heart, and if her forced acceptance of the woman who’d left her behind took some of the brunt off Lyssa, Evie would do it. Feigned smile and all.

“She’ll get to know you, and all will be well, Mama. Please don’t fret.” Evie reached for her mother’s hand.

Nura smiled back. “I suppose you’re right. I— Oh, hasibsi!” Her mother’s eyes caught on the journal sprawled open on Evie’s desk, picking it up and pointing to the stains on the pages. The bloodstains. From the stabbing. Oops. “What on earth happened here?”

“Oh, I just ran into a little trouble yesterday on a work…excursion. There was a bit of, um, fighting involved. My journal was one of the casualties.” She forced herself to sound sufficiently sheepish instead of proud. Her mother likely wouldn’t entirely approve of her work pursuits. But Evie knew she wasn’t ignorant of them, either. In her time as a star in the sky, Nura had witnessed and watched over all her children in between periods of dormant sleep.

Nura frowned. “If I’d come back sooner, you never would’ve needed to force yourself to do such things.”

Evie shut her notebook and tucked it protectively under her arm. “No forcing required, actually,” she said and straightened her spine. “It turns out I’m well suited to this job and it’s well suited to me.”

There was something haunted in her mother’s eyes, something Evie wasn’t brave enough to ask after.

A knock sounded at the door, and Evie let loose a breath of relief as Tatianna poked her head in, a curve to her painted pink lips. “You sent for me, Evie, dear? Your note said it was urgent? Good morning, Mistress Sage.”

Yes. Urgent. As in “save me from being alone with my mother.”

“Good morning, dear.” Nura smiled and stepped backward, her white gown sweeping back with her. “I suppose I shall leave you two to your business. I think I’ll go find Gideon.”

“No need.” Gideon stepped in, gesturing widely with his arms as if he were a sight to behold. “I have arrived.” He moved closer to Evie, leaning down to whisper in her ear. “Designated buffer at your service.” Evie’s elbow found itself shoved into her older brother’s abdomen.

“I don’t need a buffer,” she hissed.

“Is that why you look like you’re determining the nearest exit route? Don’t use the window—it doesn’t seem to work well for the interns,” he warned.

She elbowed him again.

He grunted, but to his credit, his easygoing smile didn’t falter.

Despite its unfortunate origins, Evie’s office had become a bit of a sanctuary. Every time she’d caught herself thinking too much of her boss or feeling particularly inadequate, she found herself sequestered in this room. That was to say, most of her day.

Clare stumbled through the door next, eyeing Tatianna, followed by a hopping neutral-faced Kingsley, and then finally, because the room hadn’t grown crowded enough, her boss poked his head in—so carefully Evie had to choke back a laugh.

“Why are you all in here?” Trystan asked roughly, dark eyes not looking at hers. “Tatianna, I need you to look in on Bradley in our finance department.”

Tatianna pouted and folded her arms. “Why?”

“He fell down the stairs.”

She gaped, tucking a braid behind her ear. “How?”

“I pushed him.”

Evie stifled a giggle in her hand, meeting her boss’s eyes with a teasing reprimand. He had the good sense to look the very smallest bit sheepish, and the even better sense to flash one of his dimples at her as a low chuckle huffed from his mouth.

Their eyes held for a moment.

And then Kingsley hopped onto The Villain’s shoulder, slowly lifting a sign that read: Blushing.

The boss’s cheeks were indeed pinkening, and Evie felt a warmth spread through her belly that surely shouldn’t be there. She was meant to still be angry! And torturing him little by little!

Although, by the look of horror on his face, at least he did find blushing to be a torturous endeavor.

As it stood, many of Evie’s successes seemed to be accidents.

Her mother watched the interaction with what looked like begrudged amusement, and when Trystan noticed her in the corner, the red color tingeing his cheeks deepened even further. “Or rather, he happened to be…at the end of my…hands when they were…extending,” he corrected.

Clare grinned, seeming to enjoy her older brother’s discomfort in a way Evie could understand. “I thought I saw you punch him first?”

“Why are you still here?” Trystan gritted out.

Clare gave a satisfied smirk, rocking on her heels and leaning against the wall. “I only came because Tatianna and I were working on a potion to help the male guvre calm when she got Evie’s summons, and I don’t like to be excluded.”

“How unfortunate.” Trystan glared. “Since I so enjoy excluding you.”

“Is the male guvre still struggling?” Evie asked, knowing what an understatement this was to describe the turmoil the animal was going through every day he was separated from his mate and unborn baby.

Clare’s easiness faded into something guilty. “Blade’s been slipping some of the calming potions into his food, but he isn’t eating much, so it’s difficult to get him to take enough to stay that way. The poor thing’s either thrashing and fighting or lying in the corner, making this awful whimpering sound.”

“Hard to work up an appetite when the one you love is so out of reach,” Tatianna said, her dark eyes falling to Clare. The two women held each other’s gaze before sliding away. Evie made a note to follow up with them later. Their relationship status was hardly her business, but she needed something else to focus on besides her disastrous love life—or lack thereof.

A heaviness settled about the room; Kingsley seemed to sense this as he leaped on the table and held up a sign spelling out the word:

True

And another sign:

Live

Tatianna’s face twisted. “Is he attempting to tell us to live truly?”

Gideon bent low, squinting at both signs. “I think he spelled ‘love’ wrong.”

“Impossible,” The Villain snapped. “Kingsley doesn’t misspell words.”

“Um.” Evie paused, snapping her fingers, pretending to contemplate. “Halp?”

The Villain stared at her. “With what?”

“Oh gods.” Evie moaned into her hand. “Halp. As in, I’ve seen him misspell the word ‘help.’”

The Villain blinked, unfazed. “Oh. That doesn’t count.”

Fate must have been having a grand laugh at her expense, because her plan to torture The Villain into submission seemed to have been switched around on her. “How does that not count?”

“It’s an inside joke.”

He said this in the same dry tone he always used, but Evie caught it. The slight shift in his mouth, a near curve, eyes flashing to the flush creeping up her neck with a hint of satisfaction. “Are you playing with me?” she asked.

“Sage, I wouldn’t begin to know how.”

She folded her hands behind her back, giving him her best customer service saccharine sweetness. “I could loan you one of my books. They’d give you some inspiration.”

“I’m going to pretend you’re discussing a sports manual so that I don’t lose my breakfast,” Gideon said, waving his hands back and forth like he was attempting to wash an invisible window. “Mother, would you care for a stroll about the courtyard? Or perhaps a nosedive into the thorny grove?”

Nura had been noticeably absent from the conversation, her gaze taking on a faraway look that Evie had spent her youth in fear of, but instead of leaping to fix it, Evie felt her limbs frozen in place, the bottoms of her feet rooting her.

“Yes,” their mother replied dreamily. “And perhaps Lyssa might want to join us?”

Gideon hadn’t leaped to please everyone when they were children as Evie had, but he’d always been the laughter in the room, the lighter presence, and people who basked in light tended to avoid things that lived in the dark. “Perhaps,” he said, though his easygoing manner faltered for just a second. “Why don’t we go ask?”

When they shuffled from the room, Tatianna looked quizzically at Kingsley’s signs, picking one up to inspect it. He released them both, hopping toward Clare, who looked down at the frog with a fond familiarity.

The Villain leaned down and spoke quietly in Evie’s ear, his voice smoky and dark. “I don’t need your books.” His dark gaze on her was a caress, a finger running down her cheek. “I already have it.” It felt like a secret confided and a bitter confession all rolled into one.

What in the deadlands? “You already have what?”

His eyes lingered on her face, dipping to her red lips. “Inspiration.”

Now, why does that seemingly ordinary word suddenly sound absolutely filthy?

Probably because he’s saying it while staring at you like he wants to melt your corset. And pathetically…it’s working.

“Ms. Sage!” Marv rushed through her office doors, and the fragile moment shattered.

Evie kept a certain pleasantness to her, even though it felt a bit like steam was about to shoot out of her ears. “Not a ghost again, Marv?” she asked, feeling a twitch settling into her eyelid.

“Worse!”

Tatianna frowned, running a hand down her pink silk skirt. “Ew. A ghoul?”

“No, Ms. Tatianna.” Marv took a deep breath. “It’s King Benedict!”

They were all alert now, Kingsley included, though there was a vague distractedness to his expression Evie reminded herself to look into later.

“What about him, Marv?” The Villain barked.

Marv paled.

“He’s knocking on the front door.”