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

Evie

“My mother is dead,” Evie called down to the king, solemn. “Hadn’t you heard?”

Benedict pointed a finger at her, shaking his head like he found her amusing, and Evie caught herself wondering how difficult it would be to break a finger and how badly it would hurt. “Lying does not become you, Ms. Sage.”

“Evie?” Lyssa asked warily, not quite tall enough to see over the wall down to the king.

“Take Lyssa inside,” Trystan said at her ear. “I will handle this.”

Evie turned and looked up at her boss with defiance as she uttered a word she was growing rather fond of—one she’d had such trouble with in the past. “No. Keeley. Please take my sister inside, if you would?”

Trystan’s jaw clenched, the muscle moving with the motion, and Evie found herself fixating on it to keep herself calm. He didn’t fight her, just nodded stiffly, accepting her choice with no protestation as they stood there together against the man who had taken so much from both of them.

Behind them, Keeley quietly ushered Lyssa back into the manor, handing off the undetonated pumpkin lightly into Evie’s palm as they passed. The captain whispered words of reassurance to Lyssa until they disappeared. Evie allowed herself a moment to pretend she believed them, for the part of her that still wanted to.

She glanced to the side and internally groaned when she spied Lyssa’s wide eyes through the stained glass window, openly defying her. Oh, the lecture that girl was going to get when she was through— No. That was a Becky thought. Oh dear, how’d that get there?

Trystan called back to Benedict. “You were a fool to come here, Benedict. But in the interest of destroying you at a more opportune time, I’ll allow you ten minutes to get as far away from Massacre Manor as you can before the Malevolent Guards descend upon you.”noveldrama

Benedict laughed again, and something buried deep inside Evie’s mind snapped. She rushed the wall, climbing atop the edge and holding the undetonated pumpkin high, ready to pull the stem and detonate it.

The king stopped laughing, the thin veil of the patient ruler dropping to reveal what the king truly was. “Ms. Sage, be reasonable. Is this really the person you want to be? A murderer?”

She could feel Trystan at her back, but he didn’t pull her down, didn’t stop her when her red lips stretched wide, the wind billowing her shirt, her fear of heights melting away behind her anger, her fury. Her darkness. “Do you know, Your Majesty? What happened to Otto Warsen that day you left him behind to kill me?” Her voice was melodic, light; it almost didn’t sound like hers.

Benedict edged closer to the grove. “I suppose your traitor brother dispatched him with your help?” he responded coolly, though Evie could hear the masked curiosity in the vagueness of his answer.

She tsked and shook her head, unsheathing her dagger from her thigh. “Close! Gideon was a help with the remaining guard, to be sure, but Otto was mine, I’m afraid. I slit his throat.”

The king stilled, his head angling for a moment before snapping straight. “Oh?”

“Yes. It was a quick death and my first. So I wanted to be sure to commemorate it in the way Mr. Warsen deserved. One that paid tribute to the life he’d lived and those he left behind.”

Benedict was eager to hear the rest. Evie could tell by how he pressed: “And how did you do that?”

Evie held up the pumpkin projectile in one hand, her dagger in the other. She grinned wide as she used the tip of the knife to lift the stem, speaking strong and loud so all could hear. “I removed his head.”

She flicked the stem fully off and threw the pumpkin as far as her arm would allow, only a few short strides from where she threw the ticking bomb she found beneath the boss’s desk when this had all begun. Except now she was no longer throwing the danger away from her.

She was throwing it toward someone else.

And that made Evie do something she knew even The Villain didn’t do during his acts of violence.

She smiled. A real one.

The king and his men moved in a flurry to get away, the explosion hitting just where Benedict had been standing, leaving a small crater behind.

Now Evie laughed. “I think you’d better go, King Benedict. Next time, I won’t miss.” There was a buzzing in her ear, and when she looked down, she realized that the cool breeze hitting her ankles and tangling with the curls of her hair was not the wind at all.

It was The Villain’s magic. And Benedict…was looking right at it. Furious.

“Well, Ms. Sage.” Benedict’s crown was tilted, his clothes no longer as pristinely crisp as they had been a moment ago, but infuriatingly enough, he kept his composure. “It seems I made a mistake.” Though he didn’t specify which one. “I wonder what your dear parents would say if they could see you now.”

Evie dipped into a curtsy, steadied by the power wrapped around her ankles. She didn’t dare glance at her boss, didn’t dare see the look in his eyes, knowing her resolve would crumble and she’d do something desperate. Like ask him for a hug.

She steeled what was left of her spine. “As I told you before, my mother is dead. But please send Father my regards and tell him I look forward to seeing him again. We have much to discuss.”

Benedict’s horse backed away, but his composure remained. That confidence rang alarm bells in Evie’s mind. “And as I told you before, lying does not become you. If your mother is dead, then who is that behind you?”

The hairs on the back of Evie’s neck stood on end, and she turned her head slowly in the direction of the open side doors. Her mother stood there, dark eyes round with horror.

Benedict called up, “Pity. It appears you have a ghost problem after all.”

Evie’s heart stopped, and her boss went rigid behind her as they exchanged a glance that said something unmistakable.

How did the king know about that?

The clomping of hooves signaled their departure, but Evie hardly noticed—she was too fixated on her mother.

“Mama? It’s okay,” Evie said carefully, reaching for something to hold on to so she could step down. Her hand closed around the boss’s gloved fingers, his strength supporting her weight as she left the parapet’s ledge. As soon as her feet were back on solid ground, he released her.

“Mama?”

Nura stood there, staring in horror, watching The Villain’s death magic swirl around Evie with an accuracy that could only mean one thing.

The Villain’s magic was visible.

“What. Is. That?” Her mother’s voice was tainted with fear.

The Villain boomed. “Gideon! Someone get Gideon! Right now!” The shuffle of footsteps sounded behind her, and Evie knew the urgency. She’d seen this look on her mother’s face before, but unlike the others she’d come to know, this was a look Evie had only seen once.

In the dandelion fields.

Evie walked toward her mother slowly, as if approaching something wild, something delicate. “Mama, it’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.”

Her mother’s dark eyes were spilling tears freely, her whole body shaking with a force that made her teeth rattle. “My poor daughter. My poor Evie. My sweet girl, what has happened to you?”

Evie flinched, her hand going to her chest like her mother had just run her through the heart. It would explain the pain, the tingle from her dagger in her palm, the scar glowing on her shoulder. “What’s. Happened?” Anger burned behind her eyes, blurring her vision. “I survived. I did what I had to without any help. Without you.” Evie’s voice broke, and she closed her hand over her mouth to stop herself from going any further.

But The Villain’s power seemed to sense her distress anyway. It seeped closer, and then, much like the pumpkin Evie had just thrown, Nura Sage glowed brighter than a firework. A beam of starlight was about to shoot from her chest.

“Mama, no!” Evie ran for her mother, but her boss grabbed her by the waist and threw them both to the ground, covering her body with his.

“Stay down, Sage!”

Under The Villain’s protective arms, Evie watched in horror as the same beam of light that had destroyed their family all those years ago shot out toward the manor.

Toward the stained glass window.

And worst of all?

Toward Lyssa.