Page 131 of Accomplice to the Villain

“You,” she said boldly—not blurted, not word-vomited in haste to answer a question. This was Evie unabashed, and she liked herself like this.

His eyes flared, his searching gaze turning deep, burning, wanting. It was too intense; the moment was becoming too real, making her heart pound and her skin prick and her breath quicken.

“I was thinking about how during my first week of work, I started sneaking in little figurines of cats and hiding them in different places to see how perceptive you actually were.”

Trystan’s voice was outraged. “I’ve never seen any cat figurines in the office.”

She giggled, and the snort following was so strong she nearly let go of his hands, and likely would have, if he had not tightened his hold to steady her. “No, you didn’t see any, did you?”

He fumed.

She smirked.

He fumed harder.

“What a wonderful birthday.” Evie swung her arms wide, turning in a spin, raising her hands into the air as she moved in circle after circle, the way she did when she was young, and it was fun to see the world tilting beneath her vision, not scary or dangerous. She kept spinning until she was subtly moving away from the dance floor and into a secluded spot away from the noise. Stopping to catch her breath and to quiet the rush in her head.

Trystan appeared at her elbow, scaring the living dragons out of her. “Sage.” He ignored her yelp, grabbing her arm and tugging her farther into the shadows. “I was not finished with you yet. I have something else I want to give you for your birthday.”

“A raise? Along with my new promotion? Since I’m now your accomplice?” she said with a teasing smirk.

“Very well. But that wasn’t what I was going to—” He was irritated at first, then paused for a moment, his features softening. “Never mind that. I wanted to show you this.” He reached into his pocket and grabbed a crumpled piece of paper. Evie half expected steam to come out of his ears when he finally caught on to the fact that she really wasn’t jesting.

He raked a hand through his hair, a bit of it standing almost straight up as he handed her the piece of paper.

Evie ran a finger lightly over it, unable to make out any words in the dim glow of the lanterns. “What is this?”

“It’s the letter Arthur wrote me after you rescued me from the Gleaming Palace,” he said, shoulders moving up and down in steadying breaths as he proceeded. “I read it.”

Her first instinct was joy—pride, even. When he had crumpled the letter in his fist, she’d thought he’d never open it again, and here he was telling her he had. On his own. Her offer to be there for him while he read it dangled uselessly between them, and she had to box away the hurt so it wouldn’t touch him right now. He deserved comfort, support, not her silly disappointed feelings over being excluded.

The difficulty with feelings was you could manage them, keep them at bay, but eventually they would return, and they would demand penance. Evie feared the day they came to collect on all the times she had shuttered them away.

She forced her features to soften, her lips curving. “That is wonderful, Trystan. I’m so proud of you.”

Reaching up her arms, she wrapped them gently around him, curling her fingers in his hair. He grew rigid, and she prepared for him to pull away from her, for him to reject the affection she offered, but the hesitation lasted but a moment, and in the next, his arms were closing around her.

She was the first to break the embrace, and when he realized this, he jolted back so fast he knocked his head against one of the lanterns. “Ow!” He rubbed at the back of his head, grumbling, prickly as the thorny hedge in front of the manor. “All I did was read a letter, Sage. It wasn’t so very difficult.”

Her lips folded inward. “Wasn’t it?”

“It was merely drivel about how he was proud and how no matter what, I’d always be his son.” Scoffing, he planted his hands on his hips as he made for the railing overlooking the water. “Hardly anything groundbreaking.”

She could feel his defenses rising, the hackles going up, every barrier he had built to protect himself from others coming to the warfront. “No,” she said quietly. “There is nothing groundbreaking about someone loving you. It doesn’t surprise me a bit.”

His head turned to her so fast she thought it was about to roll off onto the deck like a wayward cricket ball. “Sage—”

She held up a finger. “No! No, you are not allowed to ruin this moment with something dismissive or naysayer-y.”

“That’s not a word.”

She ignored him. “One day in the future, when I am telling this story, I want to say that on my twenty-fourth birthday, I spent the evening on a ship that was pinker than a tulip, I danced with The Villain, and then I told him that he was easy to love, despite how much he wanted it to be difficult.”

Trystan held up a hand, not angry, just dumbstruck. “I do not want—”

Her hand closed over his mouth. The stubble prickled her palm, and the warmth of his lips sent goose bumps up her arm. His facial hair owned some magical quality—that could be the only explanation. He tried to mumble her name underneath her fingers, but it came out something like“Sigggg.”

Her arm fell to her side, and she waited for the fallout. Without even a helmet for protection.