Page 5 of Accomplice to the Villain

“Are you coming for breakfast, Lord Trystan?” Lyssa blinked at him, then gave Alexander a wide, innocent smile.

Trystan stared hard at the door, like he was willing Evie to stay far away from it. But Alexander knew his friend’s internal war well enough to understand that Trystan was simultaneously wishing her to walk through it. This had become, in Alexander’s opinion, a masochistic ritual over the past two weeks.

Admittedly, “The Villain” had been sneaking looks at the young woman all along; this wasn’t new. They’d started as curious glances, like studying a lab specimen, then begrudgingly moved to intrigued staring, and then to the current stage—pure agonizing, desperate glaring. The past two weeks, however, had taken the man’s self-inflicted torture to a new extreme. In the last fortnight, The Villain had crept around corners, lingered in doorways, and pressed his ear against any wall she was on the other side of.

All not especially different from before…

Except for the groaning.

“I’ll take breakfast in my office.” Trystan halted halfway to the door. “Is your sister…coming to retrieve you?”

Lyssa shook her head innocently. “No. She’s just returning from an errand.”

Trystan’s expression did not change, but his eyes became more alert, his gaze sharp on the little girl, though it gentled as he bent a knee to match her height. “What do you mean, little villain? What errand?”

Lyssa shrugged and gestured an arm toward the door where Evie’s voice had just sounded. “I don’t know. She just said it was off the property with Keeley and that I couldn’t go.”

Alexander was not surprised at the clench in Trystan’s jaw or the obvious worry shadowing his dark eyes. The manor had been located, and Evie’s face was plastered all over Rennedawn on awantedflyer with a generous award attached. The only protection they had now to ward against the Valiant Guard was a grove of thorns planted by a black-market gardener, which had proved to be an efficient deterrent for the king’s men thus far, but outside the manor doors…the danger was real. And it was great.

Still, Keeley—the head of The Villain’s guard—being present was an indication that Evie would likely have been in no serious danger. The young woman had been placed in charge for very sound, very violent reasons.

Logically, Alexander knew he need not worry. He suspected Trystan might know this, too, and though Alexander was a frog, not a mind reader, when you spent every moment of every day for ten years straight watching, you became somewhat of an expert observer. But that hardly mattered.

No expertise was required to look upon Trystan Maverine and know that the feeling boiling within him was the purest sort of anger.

But Trystan didn’t showcase any of that emotion to Lyssa, who looked at him with concern, her big brown eyes homed in. “Since Evie is so busy, shall we do our tea party today, Lord Trystan?”

Trystan looked relieved at the subject change as he nodded, a small movement upward tugging at the corner of his lips. “I suppose I can postpone my afternoon target practice.”

Lyssa squealed and made her way to the door—hopefully not knowing the target at said practice was the interns.

As both Alexander and Trystan watched Lyssa Sage’s dark head disappear, a somber mood descended upon the now empty and joyless space. Trystan sighed before moving to open the armoire and pulled out what Alexander knew was something of great import to his friend.

The scarf Evie had given him at their fateful first meeting sat in Trystan’s hands, and Alexander watched with a painful sympathy as Trystan brought the scarf up to his face and closed his eyes.

It was too sad even for a cursed frog to watch.

Alexander Kingsley turned his attention to the floor while his friend mourned a fate that Alexander swore he could prevent.

If only he were human enough to stop it.

Chapter 2

The Villain

Trystan Arthur Maverine took torture quite seriously, but the past fortnight was a newfound low even for him.

Attempting to stay away from Sage was akin to a horror spectacle he’d seen performed at a theater a few years prior: bloody, awful, and forcing him to question his ability to make sound decisions. The door was cracked open, and the morning buzz of the workers trickling in made an ache form near his temples. Even so, he couldn’t bring himself to close it.

Because while Sage was on the other end of the wide office space—and though he had to strain to accomplish it—he could still hear her humming.

He couldn’t close the door…and risk missing it.

Even if the sound ravaged as much as it healed.

The low din of the office beyond grew louder, the telltale sign of some new tidbit of gossip that would be in Tatianna’s ear before the day ended. He didn’t care to know; his foul mood had plowed through any sense of social decorum he might have had. Not that much had existed inside him even before he’d extracted himself from Evie for their own good. Sage believed their separation was in the name of protecting his magic, but in truth, he didn’t care about that. He cared for nothing but preserving the fragile thread between them without destiny cleaving it in two.

Evie Sage is meant to be your downfall, and you her undoing.