Page 112 of Adversary to the Villain

“What happened to your shirt,boss?” Blade emphasized the word, because apparently he wanted Trystan to kill him.

He’d forgotten the garment hung in tatters around his shoulders. When they’d thought the manor was in trouble, Sage went off to search for Lyssa in the kitchens, and he went right for the main offices.

And regretted it.

Immensely.

He’d found Blade, Rebecka, and Tatianna examining the book opened upon his desk with rapt attention, barely acknowledging when he came in the room. “I was in an altercation, and it tore.”

Tatianna narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Was the altercation named Evie?”

“Out!” Trystan barked, pointing toward the door.

“Wait!” Tatianna objected, handing Trystan the children’s book. “My Love My Sun. We found the passage and a drawing of it, but it isn’t anything we’ve seen before.”

“You’re telling me that Keeley left in search of a children’s book…and returned with one of the most powerful beings in existence?” Trystan remarked, composing himself remarkably for having just bolted up the stairs, fearful that someone was dead.

“I thought she was a librarian!” Keeley defended herself with a slash of her hand.

Clare’s reply was instant: “Same thing.”

A croak from Alexander was confirmation. He was back in his frog form, and Trystan swore the animal version of his friend seemed different now from the last time he’d turned amphibian.

Probably the lack of crown.

Trystan removed the golden headpiece from his pocket and placed it gently atop Kingsley’s head. The frog looked up at him, then scribbled something down on a sign.

Thief

Trystan chuckled darkly. “I found it in an escaped prisoner’s pants pocket. Must have swiped it from my room. Apologies, but to be fair, half the time it would be far too small for your head.”

Kingsley croaked and leaped onto his desk to be closer to eye level with the rest of the room, putting his webbed foot atop the children’s book, and when Trystan took a closer look…he gaped.

“I’ve seen this.” Walking toward the open window that angled in his favorite direction, he put out a hand and brushed his fingers against the frame. “It…it was here. That window. When I first found the manor.”

Kingsley wrote down two words on two different signs.

You’re

Sure?

“I remember it distinctly because I hated to look at it. Something about it was very unsettling.” He’d lived with it staring down at him for the first week and then made the executive decision to never see it again.

Until now.

“Where sunlight shines the purest,” Clare murmured. “If we reconstruct the window and, in the sunlight, we bring together the guvre venom, Lyssa’s starlight, your magic, and Evie’s, it would fulfill the prophecy.”

“Probably,” Blade added carefully. “There’s no way to know for sure.”

“No,” Trystan rasped. “I’m sure.”

Kingsley furiously wrote something down.

How

“Where sunlight shines unvarnished. The purest. That stained glass covered the window, shining into my office every day…right where Evangelina sat.”

He didn’t look at any of them when he tilted the chair toward where the light hit. “I fell in love with her in that light.”