Page 7 of Accomplice to the Villain

But that would not have been half as satisfying as looking her boss in the eyes for the first time in two weeks, her expression even-keeled as he gazed upon her with alarm and concern, an awkward silence settling between them.

That was fine. Evie was well acquainted with awkward. They were old, dysfunctional friends.

“Oh.Thisblood?” She made a show of examining her hands, turning her wrists, scanning them from all angles. Her acting was exaggerated, bordering on animated, but the goal wasn’t to fool The Villain.

It was to drive him out of his gourd.

She shrugged, privately relishing the twitch in his eyebrow. Brushing a curl away from her eyes, she tilted her head curiously. “Why do you ask?”

The twitch turned into a full-blown jerk of his head, and she nearly jumped with glee. Oh, how she had missed this—pulling emotional reactions out of him until he looked ready to combust.

Don’t torment the boss, Evie!

Unless you think of a super fun way to do it!

“You’re a menace,” he growled.

She smiled demurely as she dipped into a small curtsy. “How kind of you to notice.”

There was a pause as The Villain took a deep, bracing breath. He was hanging on by a final fraying nerve, and one more push could have him snapping like a twig beneath her boot.

She frowned inwardly to herself. What she was doing…it occurred to her that it was rather cruel.

Her frown turned quickly into a smirk.

This charming development in her character was enough to assuage her guilt atpurposefullycausing discomfort. Usually when she did it, it was an accident, one she made an honest attempt to rectify. Now it was as if the leash on her brain had been untied, and her mouth was all too happy to accommodate her new level of freedom.

This two-week reprieve was kind enough of her. The Villain’s break was over, as was his peace.

With a ragged sigh and locks of his unshorn hair falling into his face, he looked at her with world-weary impatience.

Woo-hoo!

“Sage, I have more pressing matters than cracking the code of whoever you have mutilated this morning. Spit it out.”

Instead of answering as he asked, she reached for the handkerchief sticking out of his pocket, the maroon fabric so deep in color that it masked the blood she was now staining it with as she began cleaning off her hands.

A gasp sounded at her actions, and Evie felt the eyes of every office worker on her back, even as they pretended to shuffle papers, using the low murmur of conversations to disguise their eavesdropping. She glanced at Trystan to see if he would reprimand them, but he was evidently too busy looking like a cornered animal, ready to snap at the next threat of attack. “Are you finished?” he asked with a bored drawl, but the slight twitch of his eyelid gave him away.

“Almost.” She smiled again but wider this time, baring her teeth. Then she finished swiping over each finger with a flourish, folding the handkerchief carefully and tucking it back into his open palm.

She waited several seconds to speak, just to see if she could make the vein in her boss’s forehead protrude any farther. Another moment of silent staring passed.

Mission accomplished.

She used her victory as a call to mercy. “I went with Keeley to the East End Slums,” she said, clipped and succinct, as if she was speaking of going for a jaunt about a meadow filled with daffodils and gumdrops, not one of the most fraught and dangerous sides of Rennedawn, where every manner of reprobate spent their time.

Her boss included.

His eyes went impossibly wide, his jaw clenching in a bite that looked like it might shatter his teeth into nothing but bone dust. It was delightful.

“And what, pray tell, were you seeking there?” He stepped closer, his gaze hard, and for the first time since Evie had entered the office space, she felt like her control wavered. Because this was the first instance in two weeks where she was close enough to smell the cinnamon on his skin and see the depth of his black eyes as they saw right through to the heart of her.

“I—um…” Suddenly, she was at a loss for words. Which in and of itself should indicate complete and total disaster. She cleared her throat, banging a hand against her chest like a bit of dust had gotten stuck. “We were looking for leads on Rennedawn’s storybook prophecy. The waning magic is worsening. There have been reports of large gray patches of land leeched of color, like all the magic is folding back into the earth.” Evie worried her lip, and The Villain averted his eyes. “If we’re to have any hope of fulfilling the prophecy before Benedict can, every lead counts. The Malevolent Guards got a tip this morning about an elderly gentleman spouting poetic nonsense about the lore. Apparently, his great-grandfather was one of the early king’s advisors and he’d read some of it as a child.” She gestured to the papers that were nearly crumpled in his hands. “We found him, and all it took was a few battings of our lashes and some helpless sighs and he was spilling everything he remembered. Which, granted, was sparse…”

Trystan’s eyes flashed to the blood on her hands once more, this time with an intensity that felt like it could touch her. “So you decided to punish him for it?”

She faltered, remembering the other men in the bar grabbing for her, the scar on her shoulder tingling in response to the dagger hidden at her thigh. “A few of the tavern’s regulars caught wind of who we were and attempted to turn me in for reward money.”