Page 38 of Apprentice to the Villain

Kingsley landed on Trystan’s boot, eyeing the hugging pair.

Trystan looked at his frog friend. His frog friend looked at him.

A sign slowly crept upward that read:Uh-Oh.

“That’s helpful,” Trystan hissed, rolling his eyes before scooping up his little nuisance and placing him on his shoulder.

Sage separated from the man—finally. But Trystan’s pulsing anger worsened when she began fussing over him, putting all her caring attention into brushing back his golden-brown locks, wiping a dirt smudge from his cheek.

This was what Trystan wanted. He wanted her to develop affection for someone else; it would be easier to not care for her, easier to not think of her as his. But there was a rather primitive part of his mind—and magic—that did not care about any of those things. Just wanted to take the knight’s discarded helmet and beat him over the head with it till it dented.

The comforting thought calmed his heart rate.

“You were supposed to meet us right after the unmasking! What happened?” Sage cried, shoving the knight’s shoulder. Trystan’s head spun. She’d done it; she’d flipped a hero to their side. Next she was going to ask the sun and the moon to host a dinner party together…and she’d likely be successful.

“I was waiting for the right moment to slip away without arousing suspicion. Then, when I heard the king order the menhere to steal the stardust from you, I saw the perfect opportunity for a grand entrance.” The knight held his hands out in a flourish.

Sage rolled her eyes, but there was affection in it. “You and your theatrics.”

The vein in Trystan’s forehead was about to break skin when she dragged the knight toward him—unwise of her, but Trystan kept his face impassive. She wouldn’t know he was planning the man’s death, that he hated him with the fire of a thousand suns, that he thought the knight a reckless ingrate who needed to be put down and—

Sage presented the knight proudly. “Sir, I’d like you to meet my older brother, Gideon Sage.”

What? Oh.

The impassive mask cracked into stupefied shock. “Th-That isn’t possible. Your brother is dead.” But then he saw them—the similarities between the two: the same tick in Gideon’s lip, the same high cheekbones, the same mischief in the eyes. Her godsdamnbrother.

I am pathetic.

Chapter 23

Evie

Two weeks earlier…

It had been a mere handful of hours since Trystan was taken. Lyssa was happily settled into a suite in the west wing of the manor, a place Evie couldn’t bring herself to linger—not without him. She watched Otto Warsen’s head sway gently with the draft coming in from the front door with a morbid satisfaction. She didn’t know how long she’d been staring. She should’ve been disgusted with what she’d done. She should’ve been appalled and frightened by her brutal actions. But instead—

She smiled.

A plan was brewing in her mind, like chemicals melding together to create something lethal, a poison so toxic and pungent it could kill in seconds. But the malevolence was burying something, and as soon as she glanced to the gilded ink ring around her pinkie finger, she choked on it.

Loss.

Trystan lived in every inch of the walls, in the kitchens, in the offices, in the decaying heads above, in everything. The manor was him. But he was gone, and she couldn’t breathe. Stumbling out the front door, she ran past the manor’s barriers, past the safety and protection, past any reminders of him, and dropped to her knees on a keening cry. Fisting wet grass in her palms, she stared at a flower she wanted to tear from the ground. She pinched her eyes shut instead.

Too much loss, too much heartache, too much pain.

“Please no, please no,” she chanted. The scar on her back no longer stung, but it tingled as if sensing her distress. The dagger at her thigh warmed in answer. “I’ll get him back. I will.”

“I’d like to assist with that, if I could?”

The unknown voice mixed with the wounded ache in her heart, and the combination proved lethal when her eyes darted upward and saw the glinting silver. Saw the king’s insignia. Whatever was left of her reason snapped like a rotting branch.

“Aaaaah!” She screamed, dagger unsheathed, and ran for the knight, swiping through the air like she was chopping flying vegetables.

“Hold on!” the knight shouted, stumbling back. “Just let me explain.”

But Evie didn’t. She kept coming, and when she finally got close enough, she brought her booted foot up between his legs as hard as she could manage. The knight went down with a howl, his helmet rolling off his head into a puddle of mud. Evie blinked.