Page 1 of Apprentice to the Villain

Prologue

Once upon a time…

It was an ordinary day for The Villain, aside from his body being on fire.

Evie Sage’s first week on the job was terrible—at least for Trystan Maverine. Wax dripped from one of the candles before him onto the parchment he was reviewing, just missing the tiny rim of its holder. He sneered at it. Its defiance mimicked the woman he’d hired when he’d been bleeding out and losing all sense of himself in Hickory Forest.

An excellent time to make life-altering decisions about new hires.

In his defense, he’d been certain she would quit almost immediately. But the woman was unbreakable. He’d tried everything, and not short of murder—he’d done that, too. But even a body on her desk didn’t make her or her wretched smile falter. No matter what tasks he threw her way, no matter the danger or the disgust they should’ve evoked, she smiled. And worse yet, shestayed. Her persistent presence inspired a feeling that he couldn’t figure out for the life of him.

He could sense her standing off to his side, practically glowing with heat, like an array of flickering light. Light he had to fight to stop himself from looking at, like it was physically tugging at his attention, his mind. But he wouldn’t let her distract him. Instead, he stared intently at the deep onyx of his desk, where another drop of wax fell. He was near the tipping point—hecould feel it like lighter fluid tipping near a powder keg.

The correspondence in his hands wasn’t helping.Blasted nobles. Another invitation from Lord Fowler, the only noble in the land willing to do business with The Villain. It would have been a mark in his favor, if the lord didn’t consistently send him dinner party invites. May as well send him dynamite. Fortunately, friendliness over mail correspondence was easy to ignore. It was decidedly less so when the source of friendliness was a mere five feet away, smiling and…dear gods, was shehumming?

No one should be this cheery. It was unnatural.

He wondered if the assistant he’d hired was, in fact, not human—perhaps she was some sort of manic sun sprite that had never seen darkness. And unfortunately, that unnatural disposition didn’t end with her. Her contagious energy was spreading through the office faster than the Mystic Illness, which had been brutally claiming victims through Rennedawn for the last decade. He seemed to be the last one unscathed by her. His workers seemed happier, the murderous depictions on the stained-glass windows brighter; even his guards seemed more amiable, less bloodthirsty.

He’d seen an intern skip through the office that morning. That had been his final straw.

Sage let out a second hum from across the room. He wanted to grab her shoulders and demand to know where it came from, this endless well of pleasant emotion. She hummed again, and his eye twitched. He was wrong.Thatwas his final straw.

He turned from his correspondence, his mouth open to chastise her, but stopped when he took in the dreamlike state of her expression. She was leaning into the wide-open office window, her profile illuminated by the moon and stars. The night air caressed her dark hair, creating the illusion she was flying. He stared at the slope of her nose, almost…charmed?

Something had to be done.

He tore his gaze away from her before growling, “This paperwork won’t sort itself, Sage.” He glowered, his calluses sliding over the smooth parchment as he pretended to sort the pages. A corpse on her desk might not be the thing that broke her, but late-night paperwork had an honest chance.

Her face danced into view as she neared his desk, nose scrunched as she angled her head toward him, black curls falling over her shoulder. “But wouldn’t that be convenient!” she responded brightly.

He was going to be sick.

Coughing, disgusted by the warmth spreading through him, he looked back toward his desk, at Kingsley—one of his oldest friends and his near-constant companion for the past decade. The once-human prince was the reason Trystan was in this mess in the first place. Kingsley’s wayward walks had led the amphibian right into the arms of the king’s magical guard. Which had led Evie Sage right into the arms of Trystan, literally. He could still feel her warm body pressed against him; her hair had smelled of roses.

The troublemaking frog’s crown currently was slipping precariously to the side as he held up one of his signs. It read:Pretty.

“You think I’m unaware of that?” Trystan grumbled, taking the sign from the precocious frog’s tiny, webbed foot, then slamming it face down on the desk before Sage could see it.

“Unaware of what, sir?” she asked.Shit.

“How your daydreaming is interfering with getting this done in a timely manner,” he grumbled, glaring when Kingsley shook his tiny head at him.I won’t be commanded by a damned frog.

Sage practically floated back to his desk, her light eyes a meld of mischief and sincerity. “I wasn’t daydreaming. I was making a wish.” Her bright-green skirts covered in little flowers swirledaround her as she cast the full force of her joy at him.

He almost ducked.

But he distracted himself with her comment instead. “A wish?”

She sat down in the new chair across from him, pushing her curls away from her face, grabbing a stack of papers to sort. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you that stars listen for wishes?” she asked, perplexed, as ifhewas the absurd one.

“I was never afforded that particular lesson in school,” he replied dryly and turned his attention back to a report from the head of his Malevolent Guard, Keeley.

Her brow furrowed. “Oh, no, I didn’t learn about stars in school. I learned from my mother and her family. Uncle Vale was an expert on them. My cousin Helena and I used to spend our summers learning of them—we’d lay in the grass at night just talking to the sky. It was fun.” Her joyful eyes were suddenly far away, the smile faltering just for a second. But he tracked it. Odd.

She kept speaking regardless—on instinct, it seemed.

“My school lessons were never so interesting, but I missed them after I left.”