Page 88 of Apprentice to the Villain
He frowned, crossing the room to open the armoire and retrieve a shirt, then shutting it quickly like he didn’t want her to see inside. He slid the dark fabric over his head before speaking. “With Tatianna, maybe?”
“I can’t find her, either.” She gave him a suggestive look. “Or Clare.”
“You’re kidding,” he said with a small grin. Suddenly, they were two old friends gossiping over tea.
She clasped her hands together, grinning. “Nope!” Her smile fell. “Wait. Focus. Lyssa. Lyssa is missing.”
Trystan nodded, solemn, before pulling an amethyst from his pocket and ordering into it, “I need everyone searching for Lyssa Sage and reporting to me with any sightings of her.” He put a reassuring hand on Evie’s shoulder. “She’s around here somewhere. You needn’t worry.”
“I’m not worried; I’m murderous.”
“Don’t be that, either,” he advised, contemplating her. “Tati said that you stabbed your father in the leg.”
She didn’t deny it, merely shrugged.
“Are you okay?”
“Nope!” she said cheerily, then looked around desperately forsomething to change the subject while they waited for any reports.
His room looked different during the day. She could see more lines of detail along his quilted comforter, the million pillows on his bed. She turned around and flopped back onto it—it was brutally uncomfortable. Her boss was a sociopath.
“This is outlandish,” she grumbled.
“I was going to say that about you lying onmybed,” he said in a strangled voice, one hand on his hip, the other pressed over his eyes like he couldn’t bear to see it.
Her sister was missing, likely up to gods knew what mischief—probably toppling an army or creating a potion that would turn her into a worm—but that didn’t stop Evie from acknowledging the dragon in the room. “Okay, so are we going to talk about our kiss? Or is this a sweep-it-under-the-rug sort of situation?”
“Sage,” he gritted out, looking up like he was hoping for the sky to tumble down.
“I don’t see why you’re so outraged. You kissed me first!”
“It was an accident!” he objected and then winced, probably realizing how silly that sounded.
An accident?She deserved a better excuse. With a raised brow, she looked him up and down. “A fairly long accident, if I recall.”
His gaze narrowed on hers. “Ifyou recall? It happened yesterday. Do you forget so easily?”
She looked at him boldly. “Do you?”
He went rigid, his muscles so tense he seemed like he was turning to stone. There was an intensity in his expression that she’d spurred, but now she glanced down at her hands instead, unable to hold his gaze with hers.
“A momentary lapse, perhaps. Like eating something spicy because it looks good and then it makes your stomach sick,” she said, nodding succinctly.
When she looked up, he was staring at her hands, soundingacutely uncomfortable when he replied, “Spicy food would never make my stomach sick.”
They weren’t speaking of spicy food, but that hardly mattered. He looked haunted.
So she decided she’d give him the smallest bit of mercy. “I’ll let it go if that’s what you want. But I demand we revisit it after my mother’s found. No matter the outcome.”
He hesitated.Coward.“Fine,” he finally agreed. “What did your father say? Who was in the painting?”
“Renna Fortis,” she said, walking over to his drawers and starting to riffle through them. She pulled out an oddly colorful pair of socks. She held them up, biting her lip. “Polka dots?”
“Give me those! You’re worse than a racoon,” he griped, ripping the socks from her hands. “Renna Fortis is the matriarch of the Fortis family. If your mother is at the Fortis Family Fortress, that…could be a serious problem.”
She frowned, wandering to the armoire. “Why?”
Next thing she knew, she was over his shoulder again, being gently flopped onto the bed like a rag doll. Though she had the sudden, foolish hope his body would land on top of hers, it didn’t. Instead, he was already across the room, leaning against the armoire doors. There was something in there he didn’t want her to find.
