Page 25 of Adversary to the Villain

Lyssa squeezed tighter, whispering into Evie’s sternum, “I don’t want to talk to her.”

Evie frowned, concern striking hard at her nerves. “Who?”

“I imagine she means me.” Nura Sage’s voice came from the far side of the room as she entered, her face gaunt and shadowed. “How are you, hasibsi?”

It made sense for her to ask. Evie hadn’t seen her mother since the truth of her parents’ misdeeds was revealed. There hadn’t been time, and Evie hadn’t wanted to. But there were some unpleasant conversations that couldn’t be avoided. And there was no more avoiding this one.

“You told Lyssa…about what your father and I did.” Nura appeared betrayed, and Evie almost laughed.

The two people meant to love her most had conspired to change her identity because they couldn’t accept her. And so many had suffered in the wake of their selfishness.

“I told her of the choices you made and how they affected us. I will not apologize for giving her honesty.” When she took a step forward to place herself in front of Lyssa, Evie saw her mother flinch away, and she felt the slash of pain. “I am not protecting you any longer, Mama. I’m afraid you cannot mend a burned bridge.”

“I know you’re angry,” Nura said shakily. “I know you feel betrayed again. Of course you do. I just want a chance to explain—”

“I’mnotangry,” she corrected. Her threshold for pain at the hands of her loved ones had been reached long before now. She had nothing left to give her mother. Not even her anger. “I’m unsurprised—disillusioned, perhaps—but no, Mother. I think I’ve finally learned the lesson you’ve tried to instill in me since birth.”

Nura took a hopeful step forward, reaching for Evie’s hands, and Evie let her, looking her mother square in the eye with the dullest ache in her chest. But it was one she could stand to live with.

Ripping her hands away from the woman she’d been waiting for since she was thirteen, possibly longer, she realized the version of her she’d wanted was never coming. “I won’t count on you anymore. I won’t hope you become what I always needed you to be. I will give up the idea of you, Mother. Forgive me for holding on to it for so long.” Her voice had never been more level, her body numb.

“I did it to save you, hasibsi. It wasn’t the right thing—I realize that now—but I was young and frightened. I trusted your father to know what was best for you, and I apologize with all my being for that.”

The few workers in the open office space were watching, whispering to each other. A burning prickle began behind her neck most unpleasantly.

“Everyone go to lunch,” Trystan boomed.

“It’s five o’clock, sir,” one of the men by the accounting desks objected.

“Now!” he boomed again, and she found his eyes on her face, not bothered in the slightest by how the workers scattered under his command, how quickly the room cleared completely. Becky urged Lyssa toward the kitchens, with Blade following loyally behind.

Suddenly, she could breathe again, without everyone’s eyes on her. “How did you know?” she murmured to him.

“I’ve spent an obscene amount of time staring at your face since your employment began. I always know.”

The words were too level for the way her stomach jumped, doing flip-flops around her heart. It was a common fear, being whispered about. But the common fears she’d been born with were no match for the new ones.

For everything she had to lose.

I could lose him.

By my own hand.She shuddered.

“Is there nothing I can say that might make you understand what I did?” Nura pleaded. “Does it move you not at all how regretful I am?” Her voice was strained, her gaze desperate as it searched Evie’s face for some kind of penance. An opening back into her heart.

She would not find it.

“You should go rest,” Evie urged, passing her mother. “Your starlight magic is gone, and there isn’t anything you’re needed for up here.”

Nura’s footsteps were all Evie heard as her mother ran for the stairs. When she finally dared to look, Nura was gone—but someone had taken her place.

Gideon had walked in, his mouth a grim line.

“Something to say?” Evie asked icily, feeling her hackles rise at the look on his face.

“You have a right to your anger, little sister,” Gideon responded, holding his palms up. “I’ve been looking for you all day to tell you that. But perhaps— You can tell me to go to the deadlands, but I worry for our mother’s mental state after the starlight was taken from her. Might you remember to be a touch gentler?”

She did laugh now. It was so unbelievably ironic, she couldn’t stop the cynical sound, or the welling of tears burning her eyes—tears she refused to allow to fall. “Gideon.” Her laughter faded into a pained smile, the strain pulling at her chest until it physically hurt. “I seem to be having some difficulty with that. Since no one cares to remember to be gentle with me.”