Page 37 of Accomplice to the Villain

She was too good at this. Trystan could do nothing but watch as Calvin’s throat bobbed. Had she broken him already?

“I won’t tell you.” Calvin’s chest heaved when Sage drew a shallow cut at his throat. “You’re gonna kill me anyway.”

Sage gasped, empty hand moving to her chest to convey some deep offense. “Really, Mr. Warsen. You are our guest! We don’t kill our guests.”

“Who is ‘we’?” Trystan drawled, and Sage gave him an exasperated glance, probably annoyed he was throwing out criticisms when he was lackadaisically watching her do all the heavy lifting.

Why was he letting her do all the heavy lifting?

“All right, that’s enough, apprentice.” He pushed himself in front of her and grabbed Calvin by the neck. “Here are your options, because I’m nothing if not in favor of choice. You can tell me all you know now, and I will make your death swift and painless. Or you can hold on, stay stubborn, remain true to a king who doesn’t give a fuck if you live or die. And to a father whose head we chucked into a trash pit last week because it had developed a smell.”

“I’llalwaysbe loyal to my father,” Calvin spat.

Trystan felt his magic pouring out then, wrapping around Calvin, and the man’s eyes darted down to look at it. “What—what is that?”

So it wasn’t merely Sage and her mother who could see it any longer. His magic was now visible to anyone.

Very well. Let it terrify them as much as it used to him.

“You may remain loyal to your father; that is a choice. But know that with that choice, you do not die—”

Sage interrupted, sounding confused. “Um, he doesn’t?”

“No. If he stays loyal, we keep him alive and we be sure to visit. Every day.” Trystan’s eyes hardened, and Sage’s lit up when she realized.

“Oh, you mean we torture him every day if he doesn’t confess!” She looked pleased to have deciphered it, her curls bouncing as she nodded. Her green summer dress was a hard contrast to the dark room and even darker conversation.

“Precisely, Sage,” he affirmed, forcing his eyes away from her exposed collarbones with a hard clearing of his throat. “Imagine, Mr. Warsen. Living your life each day in the darkness. No doors to go through, no windows to see the sun.”

Sage gasped, jumping and gripping Trystan’s arm so hard his magic flared and smacked Calvin in the face. “Oh, now I remember!” she cried, smiling so wide he nearly returned it with one of his own.

Instead, he stared at her like her head had fallen off—likely the only thing he and Calvin Warsen would ever have in common.

Calvin stared at her, too, half disgusted, half wary. “Is she on something? What’s wrong with her?”

“Watch it,” Trystan warned, pressing against his broken ankle before turning to Sage. Calvin’s scream drowned out his hushed whisper. “What’s wrong with you?”

“He was messing with the window! In the kitchen! When I came in, he was doing something to the window.”

The kitchen window? It was the only one Trystan had never touched or rearranged into a villainous depiction. The window with the sun shining down on a—

“That’s it. Well done, Sage.” He couldn’t hide how absurdly pleased with her he was. Not when she was beaming like the light reflecting after rainfall.

“I couldn’t remember at first because of the concussion,” she said too casually, knocking on her head like it was a door. “Guess it was locked up in there somewhere.” She laughed, but Trystan didn’t find anything about her head being injured amusing.

He sniffed and grabbed the knee splitter—a gleaming metal clamp with a top covered in spikes facing rows of parallel spikes on the bottom—and shoved it over Calvin’s legs so his knees were wedged between.

Then he flicked the switch. The two spiked ends began to close in slowly, and Sage—gods help him—looked at the machine with more curiosity than disgust. “Oh, is that going to… Oh, ew.”

He spun her around and nudged her toward the door as Calvin began to thrash in panic. “Yes, ew. Now, let’s go. The sound of kneecaps cracking is a bit grotesque even for my taste. We’ll see you again soon, Calvin. Have a pleasant break.”

“Do what you will, but I will die with what I know before I ever tell you! The satisfaction when you realize the truth will be enough to sustain me—and I suspect it will sustain my accomplice, too.” Calvin grinned, and the machine made its final descent just as Trystan bolted the door shut.

Sage stood there staring at it, her red lips parted as she pressed her ear against the wood. “Either he’s a very quiet screamer or this door works splendidly.”

He waited for her to cry or panic or flee, as he’d wanted to the first time he did something like this. But she did no such thing.

Merely looked up at him with a grateful sheen in her eyes. “Thank you for including me. I know you probably didn’t want to.”