Page 43 of Accomplice to the Villain

Alexander couldn’t erase and rewrite fast enough. The joke didn’t land the way it would if he could just speak it aloud. But he did it anyway.

Kiss?

“No!” Trystan yelled. “No kiss! There will be no more kisses.”

Alexander slowly lifted his sign.

Liar

Alexander blinked. Trystan blinked back. The guvre whimpered again, and that seemed to snap The Villain back to himself. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he stalked for the enclosure and slid down the wall nearest the bars, begrudgingly patting the guvre’s snout.

The animal calmed, instantly purring into his hand. “Check on Sage and then return to me at once, Alexander.” Trystan whispered his command, and Alexander nodded, hopping toward the stairs leading away from the cellars.

But as Alexander ascended, his surroundings began to muddle. He was hungry. The floor was cold. He needed warmth. Hopping at full force until he reached a brighter room, he leaped for the window ledge, searching for a sun that wasn’t there.

Unsure of his original path. He’d been doing something. He’d been someone before this moment, but everything was fading. Everything he was seemed to be, too.

And then the frog was no longer confused.

Because he was just a frog.

Chapter 22

Gideon

Gideon wasn’t certain his old friend at the Valiant Guard barracks could be trusted, but it would indeed be a boon to their scheme if they had someone to aid them on the inside.

If they were to have any chance of stealing back the female guvre, Gideon would need to provide a map of the place, but a map was fruitless if they didn’t know what part of the Gleaming Palace their rescuee resided in…if they had even brought the animal to the Gleaming Palace in the first place.

But that speculation was far too much negativity for so early in the morning. “Good day, Mother.” Gideon peeked his head into his mother’s open chamber door. He’d taken special care to keep an eye on her since her return, and she’d appeared glad for it. Clearly trying to make up an unnecessary debt for “killing him.”

Which she had notactuallydone, so said debt should be null and void for all intents and purposes. “Gideon, hainasi.”My life. She kissed his cheeks and smiled. “I had such a wonderful day with Lyssa yesterday.”

Gideon’s eyebrows shot up to salute his forehead. “That is rather good news. I do hope the wonderful part beganafteryou nearly burned her like a week’s end roast.”

Their mother’d had a fragility to her when they first reunited, but Gideon had spent the most time with their mother out of all the Sage siblings, and he knew the woman to have a wicked sense of humor.

And because of his mother, he knew how humor could heal a heart.

Her brown eyes twinkled like the star she’d once lived as. “Fortunately, it began later, in the office’s kitchen.”

“Ah, where most good things begin.” He smiled wide but faltered when the door nudged open farther and there stood Captain Keeley, her long braid undone. Gideon had never seen the captain’s hair undone.

It did unpleasant things to his stomach. Very…unpleasant indeed.

“Captain, good morning! Come to call on your attempted murderer?”

His mother slapped his shoulder. “Gideon Bernard Sage, that is not funny!”

Keeley snorted as she hobbled in, and Gideon took his censure as well as he was able, dragging a chair from the corner of the room for her to sit. She didn’t look at him as she took the seat, wincing in a way that made Gideon feel so useless he wanted to do bodily harm to the nearest throwable object out of frustration.

“I received your note, Mistress Sage.”Note? What note?

His mother smiled and knelt before Keeley as if the captain was a queen and his mother a humble subject. “I am so appreciative that you are willing to see me at all after yesterday and allow me an opportunity to apologize.”

Keeley’s lips curved up, and Gideon ignored what that small movement did to the organ in his chest. “Let me assure you I hold no ill will. I’ve been in business with The Villain for many years, and this is hardly the first time I’ve been hurt.” She placed a hand atop his mother’s. “It is merely the first time I’ve been hurt byaccident.”

“Regardless. You protected Lyssa,” Nura said gratefully, holding a hand to her chest.