Page 12 of Apprentice to the Villain

This has nothing to do with me and you know it, you wretch.

Benedict stepped closer. “And now I will reveal the horrible traitor to you all!” Benedict got right up next to him, murmuring low. “Ready, my boy?”

Trystan nodded in deference, keeping his voice low, too. “I must say this role suits you, Benedict.”

The king narrowed his eyes. “What role?”

He curled his lip, knowing the effect his words would have. “Why, that of the villain.”

Benedict’s nostrils flared, his eyes wide and furious. He reached out, gripping Trystan’s shirt, but before he could fully raise his hand to strike, an ear-piercing scream wrenched through the room.

“Sh-She’sgone!” yelled a noblewoman.

Everyone, including Trystan, looked to where she was pointing—to the coffin that had been ignored for the last few moments.

He didn’t have a clear view any longer. The crowd had pushed forward, hiding his nightmare from view. All he saw was aglint of glass beyond the writhing mass of noble heads as more screams arose from the onlookers.

His heart raced as prickles shot up the back of his neck, a roar echoing in his ears. The chains clanked and rattled behind him as he strained against them, angling his head up, desperately waiting for the crowd to part.

“Move, you godsforsaken peacocks!” he boomed, and miraculously, they heeded his command, the nobles diving to either side of the room, revealing what was beyond.

And he saw.

The glass coffin, previously filled with the fruition of his greatest fear, was empty.

“What in the deadlands is this? Who is responsible?” the king shouted, pounding down the stairs of the dais. But there was no time for speculation…as a light and familiar whistle danced through the air.

Time stopped.

The room rapidly fell silent—silent enough to hear the nervous shuffles, the jittery clanking of the guards going to grip their swords. It sounded like fear.

And fear it was, as every set of eyes in the room followed the whistling sound to the top of the grand staircase.

There, with flowers falling from the length of her hair and a wicked smile on her red-painted lips, stood Evie Sage.

Alive.

Her smile widened as the crowd gasped and screamed in terror at the dead risen. An answering smile impossibly pulled at the corners of his own mouth, overriding the muscle-tensing shock freezing his limbs. That shock thawed slowly as his eyes drank in every inch of her. He’d never be able to look away again.

“What a lovely party,” she said, her smooth voice like a beacon cutting through the fog of his earth-shattering bewilderment. He was unsure if what he was seeing was real.

But with the next words out of her mouth, he knew it was truly her. Sage was alive.

His knees buckled as her blue eyes caught his, and her smile pushed even wider still.

“I am perhaps a little hurt that you neglected to send me an invitation.”

Chapter 7

Evie

There was quite a bit more screaming after that.

Evie would’ve been amused by it if she wasn’t so out of sorts. It hadn’t been her intention to make an entrance of this caliber—in fact, it hadn’t been her intention to make an entranceat all.The cure to the sleeping-death fruit—the rare magical fruit Becky had procured to make her appear as if she’d lost her life—was supposed to take effectbeforeshe was displayed like a macabre painting to a room full of nobles.

The coffin, morbid as it was, had thankfully been propped open by a stack of thick parchment for her escape. An escape that had been rather…less than graceful—akin to an enormous slug trying to cram through a drainpipe. She’d flopped to the ground with a humblingthudand made a beeline for the stairs, hoping to escape to the shadows while the guards were otherwise distracted. It was safer there. It was where she was meant to be while her plan unfolded.

But she’d made the mistake of turning back, of searching the room, of looking right athim.