Page 35 of Accomplice to the Villain
Her boss stopped, giving her a look so disquieting Evie felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise. “Why, Sage, the sun’s nearly down, the workers have gone home, and it’s time.”
Evie rubbed at the sore spot on her head. “For?”
He smiled, his dimple peeking through.
“For you to try your hand at torture.”
Chapter 18
The Villain
The way down to the dungeons was lined with blazing torches, the crackling sound a small comfort in the damp darkness before them. There was no reason for Trystan to carry his own torch, but he felt he needed to hold on to something, preferably something too dangerous to drop.
He kept a foot of distance between Sage and himself, a strange sensation of pins and needles pricking at the bottoms of his feet, eventually climbing until they hit the back of his neck. As they finally made their way to the bottom of the stone staircase, a screeching sound came from farther below, where the guvre was being held.
“It’s creepier down here at night,” Sage commented, brushing past him, her heels clicking on the stone. One scraped it, and she stumbled, immediately righting herself. She glared at the ground. “You should get that fixed.”
“Your inability to walk in a straight line? I wasn’t aware it was fixable,” he responded flatly.
“I feel as if your sense of humor only crops up when you want to irritate me.”
He didn’t deny it. Thatwaswhen his sense of humor cropped up.
“What sense of humor?” he deadpanned.
She laughed, and his heart stopped beating.
There was a fear Trystan had carried with him all his life, and most of it hinged on failing. First his parents, then Benedict, then the entirety of the kingdom. He’d resented being The Villain at the beginning, resented having no choice in who he’d become because of his magic, because of who he’d always been destined to be. But he settled into it when he realized that, thanks to his new profession, he never needed to fear failing again.
Being The Villain gave him a new set of rules, and if that was all he’d ever be, he was going to hold on to it with both hands.
Except he’d just made Sage laugh so hard her cheeks were turning red in the dim torchlight, her joy so powerful it overcame his fear of the darkness.
And that very much did not feel like a failure.
It felt terrifyingly like happiness.
“So am I actually going to get to torture him, or did you just say that to freak me out?”
Thank the gods for Sage and her ill-timed, jarring questions.
He kept walking. “Are you finally admitting the prospect ‘freaks you out,’ as you so eloquently put it?”
“No. But sometimes it feels like you say stuff just to see how far you can push before I’ll run.”
The keys in his hand clanged against each other. “I was testing your mettle. I appreciate the eagerness to learn, but I need to take the lead on this. You’re still recovering, and I have a bit more experience in the torture department than you do. Oh, and Sage, in the future,” he warned, his voice low, “don’t attempt to analyze me.”
Especially when you’re so frighteningly on the mark that I am now concerned you’re a private mind reader or a witch.
“I’m not analyzing. I’m observing. I thought that’s what you wanted, Your Evilness,” she said, folding her arms.
He got to work on the lock in the thick wooden door. It muffled the sounds—specifically, the screams. “Very well. Then observe this.”
When Trystan entered the room, he saw that Otto Warsen’s son was chained to a chair, his ankles bolted down, his waist wrapped in two cords of thick metal. His face was dirtied and bruised, as if it had been struck repeatedly, his light hair lying flat on his head. Trystan took two large steps before slamming a fist hard into the man’s jaw, forcing the gag from the intruder’s mouth.
“You don’t scare me, Villain.” He sneered, spitting in the direction Sage was standing in.
Trystan gripped the man’s cheek with one hand, responding blandly, “That’s not a requirement for what’s about to happen to you, but I caution you not to spit in her direction again unless you desire doing so without a tongue.”
