Page 85 of Apprentice to the Villain

She trusts you.

Well, why in the deadlands would he tell methat?

Trystan swallowed and began to pace in front of the door again, Kingsley clinging to his boot now as he walked. “Well, that’s just prudent. I’m her employer, and there needs to be a certain level of trust and honesty for us to have any measure of success.”

Gideon looked at him almost piteously. “You are so far gone, aren’t you?”

Rebecka rounded the corner then, trying to look casual as she eyed the still-closed cellar door. “Has she come out yet?”

A knowing smile curved Trystan’s mouth, and it made Rebecka scoff.

“I amnotasking for myself! Nobody is getting any work done! Word of her confronting her father has swept through the office, and it’s causing an uproar. She needs to hurry it up down there.” Rebecka parked her hands on her hips. “If one more guard asks me where the provolone cheese is, I’m going to break my glasses against the cement just so I do not have to look upon them any longer!”

Another head bobbed around the corner, interrupting Rebecka’s rant. “She’s still in there, then?” Gushiken shifted nervously.

Trystan pinched the bridge of his nose. “I gave an order for everyone to return to work.”

Tatianna didn’t sneak around the corner as Blade and Rebecka did but floated around with an authority that Trystan seemed to no longer have. “I thought that was just a suggestion.”

Trystan growled. “Apparently!”

Tatianna smirked and nodded toward the door. “How is she?” But the healer’s immovable composure crumbled for a moment when Clare brushed past her.

It would’ve been more nauseating if even the whisper of a touch from Sage didn’t also make him weak in a way that disgusted him.

And intrigued him…but mostly disgusted him.

“No word yet,” Rebecka said. “But if she’s not out of there in the next sixty seconds, I’m sending all of you back to your desks.”

The door burst open then. Almost as if Rebecka’s ire was so powerful it had conjured her, Evie barreled out into the hallway, blood running down her cheek and neck.

“Sage, my gods!” Trystan yelled, immediately searching her for injury.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Rebecka said. “Can you please tell everyone you’re fine so that they may return to their— Evangelina!” Rebecka yelled, clearly having just noticed the gore smeared across Sage’s body and face. But Sage seemed to only have eyes for Gideon, who was waiting against the wall.

Sage raised her dagger, a wild look in her eyes, and stalked toward her brother, shoving him hard until his back hit the surface. “Eve! What are you doing?” Gideon yelled.

“I’ve just been to see our father.”

Gideon’s eyes darted around before he moved to leave, shouldering past Sage so hard that she stumbled backward, tripping on the uneven ground and slamming to the floor with a pained yelp.

In every life before he’d met her, Trystan would have gone after the knight now darting down the hallway, escaping for reasons that couldn’t have been favorable. But the only thing his body recognized was her hitting the ground—and immediately after that, the uncomfortable sensation playing within his chest atseeing her in even an ounce of pain. He dropped to his knees beside her on the floor in a panic.

But by the time Trystan had shoved enough wisps of curly black hair out of Sage’s eyes to see the violence there, she was already darting to her feet, dagger still in hand.

“Sage, the blood…” he started, trying to sound emotionless.

But it didn’t matter—she was clearly not interested in his concern, just the path she was now tearing down the corridor after her brother, calling back behind her before she distressingly disappeared: “It’s not mine.”

It was like a lightning strike to his skin, sudden and hot. He stared after her with too many tangled bits of feeling that couldn’t sort themselves. Wonder, pride, concern. But it was the concern that stood out in the harshest clarity.

Ellia’s words before he’d crossed into the Heart Village washed over him like frigid water.Do not cause any harm.

Sage was trending closer to darkness, and as much as he enjoyed her deserved ruthlessness, as much as he admired her perseverance and strength, that voice in his mind—the one that reminded him every day that he was only good for one purpose…

That voice wondered if the worst harm he’d ever commit would be to the one person he wanted to save.

Chapter 51