Page 79 of Accomplice to the Villain

Years of practice at hiding his emotions was the only thing keeping his lips from falling open farther than a brief parting before he pressed them back together. But he had a strange feeling Sage saw it, that she watched his mouth and found something telling.

“Are you a mermaid?” Clare guessed, adjusting the ivy leaves around her skirt.

“A siren.” The voice that cut in sounded so foreign to his ear, lower and hoarser than his usual unemotional deliveries. It took Trystan three heartbeats before he realized that the voice was his.

Sage stared at him. Her eyelids were painted a glittering gold color. Though he supposed the gold could be considered more of a bronze? What in the deadlands was the difference?

Trystan only knew that he was morbidly appreciating glitter and that he had to stop immediately.

Sage quirked a brow, stepping forward, flicking one of his horns in a playful gesture. Not knowing how close Trystan was to dragging her into the nearest closet and tearing the netting away from her body. It didn’t look very sturdy. One hard tug and it would probably fall clean off.

Dear gods, man. Stop it.

A distant, raucous laugh reminded him that the lot of them were about to be in a room with all of Fowler’s closest acquaintances, and if the lord rubbed elbows withTrystanso readily, he could only imagine the other people Fowler kept company with.

He was no longer eager to enter the room and place Sage, Tatianna, and Clare in a space so wrought with dishonorable presences. His met their quota. If even one person made a wrong move toward any one of these three women, Trystan would…

No. They likely frowned upon violent murder before dinner was served. Could Trystan hold out for dessert? No. He was asking the wrong questions.

Could he hold out untilappetizers?

Sage flicked the horn again, snapping him back to the present, where she was looking him up and down with a mock pout. “Aw. They didn’t give you a costume?” She admired the horns like they were of her own doing—

Oh, that little—

“You did this, didn’t you?” Anger cast a dark enough shadow over his attraction to her for him to be sufficiently incensed.

She bestowed her usual wide-eyed innocence upon him. “I merely reminded Lord Fowler not to forget your horns.”

You drew me?he’d asked when they searched her father’s house a few weeks prior. When they were in her old bedroom and he’d found the sketch she’d attempted of him.

Yes.She’d been irritated that he’d found it.But I forgot to add the horns.

Dear gods, she must have been stewing on this for weeks. Waiting for the right moment to exact her revenge for teasing her. Trystan was impressed…and minutely terrified. But only minutely.

He wondered if it would make it better or worse if he told her he’d stolen the sketch and had been carrying it in his pocket every day since. Including right now.

Worse.

Folding his arms, he glared down at her. “You’re evil.”

She smirked, her eyes shining with vindication. Her words were smooth like the silk of his shirt brushing against his skin when she said, “Now you’re getting it.”

Tatianna hummed to herself. “Let’s take this spat into the party. I’m sure Lord Fowler would hate missing you two at each other’s throats, and the sooner we get this over with, the sooner we get the wand.”

Kingsley held up a sign.

Pocket.

Trystan swept him up, jaw clenched as he tossed the ingrate into his cloak pocket.

“He wants to reside in someone’s pocket for the duration of the party,” he explained, feigning a cough so Sage wouldn’t notice the wild movement as Kingsley fumbled with the paper drawing, trying to pull it out.

Sage folded her hands in front of her, the way she did during their morning debriefs. A ridiculous stance to see her in when she was dressed like a sea descendant, eager to drown him. “Oh.” She frowned, turning to reveal a wide expanse of her back, searching. “I don’t think I have any pockets for him.”

Kingsley seemed to almost besmirkingat him.

“Do you see any, sir?” Sage twisted and stumbled, trying to see for herself. “Maybe on the back?”