Page 40 of Apprentice to the Villain

“Memory loss? You expect me to believe nobody in the Valiant Guard barracks recognized you? When Father worked so closely with the king?”

“The king did.”

This caused her to go silent.

“He called me Gideon the first time he met me. My memory started coming back around five years later, in jagged bits. Even when it had all returned, I never revealed that it had—and the king didn’t reveal anything about my past to me, either.”

She glared at him, trying to kick her sympathies away. He didn’t deserve them. “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?” she asked while pulling soft pieces of grass between her fingers. “You never came back! We mourned you! This is the most heinous act I’ve ever seen anyone pull, and I’ve watched my boss cut someone’s tongue out for eating all the vanilla candies.”

Her boss.Trystan.

“He’s gone because of you,” she whispered. A tear slid down her cheek.

Gideon nodded, eyes getting red as he rubbed at them. “I know. But I’ve come to make it right. I’ve come to help you get himback.”

She sneered. “Why should I trust anything you say? You’ve been working for the king forten years.”

“I killed one of my own to save you. You think I would not betray the man who stole so many years of my life without a care for the one I had before?” He looked so sincere, so serious. So unlike the Gideon she remembered. “All I ask is sanctuary when we get him out. When the deed is done, all I ask is a safe place to go.”

She shook her head and pulled a hand through her hair before looking at him, more tears falling. “Why should I give you a safe place, when you stole mine from me?”

And like that, Evie watched her brother’s heart break.

She wanted to lock him away with her father, wanted him to suffer alongside him. The two men in her life destroying her trust and discarding her feelings like they were flimsy, inconsequential things. But there was a difference between Gideon’s eyes and her father’s, and it wasn’t the color. It was the hope.

Pure and honest and pleading. It grounded her; it pulled at her and rooted her like a tree.

And despite all her anger and hurt, she felt a little grateful for the brother who had abandoned them reappearing now. She needed a way into the Gleaming Palace—someone on the inside—and if he said he could do it…she’d allow him to help. With the knowledge that at any moment, she could have the Malevolent Guard tear him apart.

Gideon was slumped back against a tree trunk, his shoulders bunched. “I suppose there’s nothing I can say to make this right. But I hope to show you—”

“Can you get me into the Gleaming Palace undetected?”

The hope in his eyes had gone from a torch to a catching bonfire. “I can. I’ll do whatever you need me to do. But I will tellyou that the king instructed me to retrieve Mother’s letters and your, uh…dead body.”

She smiled.Perfect.

Gideon frowned. “I don’t remember you being this scary… Why is that making you smile?”

“Because I plan to give the king exactly that. And so much more.”

Chapter 24

Evie

Two weeks and a very awkward conversation later…

The ride back to the manor had been tense and uncomfortable. Which was generally how the vast majority of Evie’s interactions went, but it was a little more difficult to bear when so many people she cared for were in one place.

And they allhatedeach other.

Not only had Trystan been opposed to Gideon returning to the manor with them, he’d still wanted to kill her brother for how he’d gotten Trystan captured and kept his powers repressed while he was held in captivity. Evie had spent most of the flight on Fluffy tersely whispering to him about all her reasons for trusting Gideon and how those reasons were justified.

“I don’t understand what would prompt you to align yourself withmyenemies.”

Her face had reddened in anger, and a flash of intrigue won over her boss’s expression before it leveled back to rage. “I wanted to lock him up!” she’d hissed. “I wanted to never see his face again for how he betrayed our family. For how he betrayed me! But I put my personal feelings aside—for you!”

The Villain’s mouth closed, and he’d stared blankly at her before uttering one infuriating word. “Oh.”