Page 39 of Apprentice to the Villain

Because she knew that mop of hair. She knew that chin, the nose, the green eyes. So like her father’s…

The knight before her was Gideon.

Her older brother, who she’d believed dead for the past decade, was laying before her, clutching his groin and moaning into the grass. “I deserved that, I suppose,” he rasped, breathing deeply through his mouth. His skin was red and tanned and…not corpse-like at all.

She blinked. “You are dead.”

“Eve,” Gideon said, climbing to his feet—because he had feet. They moved and everything—they weren’t decayed or rotting; they moved quite efficiently as he slowly edged closer.

“No!” She held up the dagger. “Stay there.”

Gideon halted, his throat bobbing as he rolled his lips androcked back on his heels. “I, um. I know this is probably very confusing, but if you’d just give me a moment?”

“Are you a demon?” she blurted, then almost covered her mouth to hold the embarrassment in. But what in the deadlands did she have to be embarrassed about? She was not the one who had come back from the dead. Although…her plans weren’t veering so far away from that.

Irony was funny sometimes, and other times it was like someone had slapped you with an umbrella.

“I am a Valiant Guard, so…you’re close!” Gideon said with a smile, and a beat of recognition ran through her as the shock began to wear off. She stepped closer, her hand drifting up toward his face, brushing over a faded white scar on his cheek. He’d gotten it from a fall he took while climbing a tree to retrieve her favorite kite. Her fingertips brushed over it, and tears burned her eyes.

“Gideon?”

He nodded, tears brimming, too, and Evie brought her other hand up.

And knocked him square in the jaw.

“What. In. The. Deadlands!” she screamed, pulling her fist back to hit him again, but he was already on his feet.

Her brother stumbled away, deeper into the trees, and she ridiculously followed him.

“We thought you were dead for ten years!Ten years!”

He kept stumbling, trying to keep his eyes on her as he moved back and away from her swinging hands. “I know, Eve, I know! Please let me explain! Did you just throw a rock? Villainous work has really hardened you, huh?”

She picked up another rock.

“I’m sorry!” he cried. “I practiced this a million times, and I’m already mucking it up. Just let me say my piece, and then you can hit me with whatever you want.”

“How about an anvil?” she grumbled. The sun was sinking through the trees in a display of muted greens and golds, nearing its descent beyond the horizon. Like it didn’t want to stick around for this horrendous display.

“Years ago, in the field, when the light hit me. It didn’t actually…hit me.”

Her brows shot up, and she was ready to protest, but he kept talking—likely knowing his time to do so was limited. “Remember that fever I got at school? When I was in bed for a week?”

She remembered. She’d had to console her mother and play nursemaid at his bedside, but she hadn’t complained. They needed her, and she’d needed that. “I remember.”

“The trauma of the sickness woke up my magic. Father didn’t want to alarm any of you until we knew what sort of magic it was, so he called for a specialist while you were at school. It’s a magic that sort of, um…suppresses other kinds of magic.”

Dots were connecting in a very ugly way. “You’re the knight who messed with his magic, aren’t you?” They both knew who she was talking about.

“I had to, Eve. I was following orders. Several of those knights have magic of their own. Should I have fought back, even if I’d wanted to, we would’ve been outnumbered. He would’ve been taken anyway.” Gideon cleared his throat and pulled at his silver armor, which was caked in blood. Blood from the knight he’d felled to save her after she killed Otto. “I was always going to step in, I swear it. I knew Mr. Warsen was a creep—by the gods, I would’ve liked a shot at murdering him myself, but you beat me to it.”

It wasn’t that her knees were weak; it was just that her body was tired of holding the weight of all the realizations. The whiplash of her father’s betrayal, her boss’s capture, and her brother’s revival, all within a twenty-four-hour period. She knewshe was chaotic, but this was a bit much, even for her.

She sank to her knees in the grass, then sighed when Gideon sat beside her, maintaining a careful distance. “I want to help you. I didn’t know about Father, or I would’ve—”

“Don’t.” She cut him a look so mired in hatred that he flinched.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Regardless, the crux of it all is that I was able to save myself that day in the fields, but Mother’s magic was unstable and strong. I was knocked practically into another dimension—like actually another dimension, for a second—but then I landed somewhere in the vicinity of the Gleaming Palace with practically burned-off clothing and no memory of who I was or what I was doing there. Someone pointed me toward Valiant Guard recruiters, and it all sort of spiraled after that.”