Page 91 of Apprentice to the Villain

Lyssa looked at Trystan with stars in her eyes, nodding like she was cataloging everything he said for later.Good grief.

She pushed at her boss’s shoulder. “Stop giving her tips!”

A bone-aching exhaustion wrapped around her limbs, the expectations and responsibilities draining life from her body. She pleaded with Lyssa. “What the deadlands were you thinking? How did you even do this?” Evie tried to keep her relationship with Lyssa light; she lived in a balance of being her big sister, her friend, and her parent only when needed.

This was a parenting moment.

Lyssa rubbed at the soot on her face, softening Evie’s heart, but before she could move, her boss edged forward, handing Lyssa a black handkerchief from his pocket. Her sister rubbed the sides of her face but missed the soot completely. “Did I get it?”

Evie watched him visibly fight his lips pulling up in a grin, keeping his expression serious, his tone professional.

“You look like a chimney sweep, little villain.” He took the handkerchief from Lyssa’s small hands and lifted it in front of her. “May I?”

Lyssa looked at him shyly, but she warmly nodded. It was a startling thing, watching her boss, whom she’d seen in different states of violence—from torture to arson himself, to breaking bones, breaking hands, hanging heads… She could go on.

But this man was different—or perhaps he was the same, just softer, safer. He rubbed lightly at the soot spots on Lyssa’scheeks until the black had transferred to the handkerchief and he was standing, tucking it back into his pocket. “There you are,” he said with a heartbreaking grin.

Or rather, heart-mending. Like with that one small act, he’d taken a needle and thread to the two broken pieces of Evie, slowly pulling her back together, slowly making her whole.

She considered the absolute atrocity of kindness he’d just committed in front of her. How was she supposed to stay detached when he did things like that? She wanted him to reassert himself as the big bad in her life, but it was too late. He had already become too dear in her heart—so dear that losing him would eviscerate her. She’d never recover. Her feelings were threatening to swallow her.

Shove them down.Thatfeels healthy.

She shouldered her way past him to stand in front of her sister. “All right, I’ll be the bad guy, then, while you play him like a fiddle.”

Lyssa chuckled into her hand.

The Villain blinked. “What do you mean?”

Evie nodded sympathetically. “You were conned by a ten-year-old.”

He blinked in disbelief before saying in a low, graveled timbre, “No one can know of this.”

Leaving him to his existential crisis, Evie turned her attention back to her sister, crossing her arms. “Lyssa. The fire. How?”

Lyssa looked down, wiggling her toes in her shoes. “I was helping the dragon.”

The Villain cocked his head. “Fluffy?”

Lyssa nodded. “It’s so funny that we call him Fluffy. We had a dog with the same name!”

“I know,” The Villain said darkly.

Evie frowned. “Continue— Ah!” she shouted, gripping her chest when Fluffy himself appeared over Lyssa’s shoulder, hisgreen and purple scales bright. “For such a large animal, he has abnormally quiet footsteps.”

Fluffy’s head angled down and nudged Lyssa’s shoulder. She patted his nose, and he hummed into her hand like a cat.

“Lyssa…” Evie started. “Did you get the dragon to breathe fire?”

Her sister stopped petting Fluffy, who gave a little growl in protest. “Yes, I did! I’m sorry that he burned down the back wall, but since I’ve been here, it’s become very clear to me that everyone in the office needs my help. So I’m afraid it was just collateral.”

Evie stared at her with skepticism. “Do you even know what collateral means?”

“Something you sacrifice so you can do something even greater.” Lyssa, as she always did, put seemingly complicated things in the most simple terms.

The Villain nudged her arm with his own. “That was fairly well put, actually.”

Evie hissed at him. “Whose side are you on!”