Page 27 of Apprentice to the Villain

It wasn’t an insult; it was honesty—blunt honesty. And it was oddly very comforting. She sighed in relief, her arms coming up out of instinct as she moved forward toward Becky. “Thank you.”

Becky held up a hand to stop her. They both blinked at each other, shocked. “Were you about to hug me?” Becky asked warily.

Evie just stared before replying, “Uh, I, uh—”

“Get away from me,” Becky said flatly.

“Okay!” Evie squeaked, ready to leave. But right then, Keeley, the head of the Malevolent Guard, entered the room in red leather garb. “Keeley? How are you?”

By some miracle, Evie’s exit strategy for the Malevolent Guard had been a success. There had been minor injuries, but nothing Tatianna and Clare couldn’t fix.

Thank the gods.

Keeley pulled her thick, honey-colored braid behind her head before grinning. “I am well. But I suggest you make your way downstairs, Ms. Sage. The boss has just noticed your little add-on to the entryway, and he seems…less than pleased.”

The Villain hadn’t seen it before now: the newest hanginghead.

Mr. Warsen.

Uh-oh.

Chapter 15

The Villain

Trystan stared at Otto Warsen’s head with a dumbfounded expression.

“She scared the wits out of me when she first brought the thing in, sir. But she made a nice, clean cut, just the way you do. A quick study, our Evie.” The front-gate guard, Marv, nodded beside Trystan, his spiky light-brown hair going in all sorts of different directions. It was a constant state for the man, always looking a bit frazzled, like he had just been electrocuted.

Fitting, as Trystan felt like he’d just been painfully shocked as well.

“Sage—she—his head was…?” Never had he had more difficulty stringing words together, and on top of that, he felt humiliated to be so tongue-tied in front of the Malevolent Guard sparring around him in the entryway. Their training room was undergoing an intense round of cleaning after one of the new, more obstinate interns had taken it upon themselves to feed a messenger raven prunes and set it loose upon the sparring space as a prank. After all his guard had done for him, he was more than willing to allow them to train anywhere they liked, but a bit less so when they were bearing witness to his pathetic display.

He should’ve departed already, anyway. Blade was in the back courtyard, saddling the dragon with Tatianna and Clare. Gods knew why his sister was coming, but he wouldn’t begrudgeanother magic user on a journey so fraught with peril. And the clock was ticking—they had to be there before nightfall, or the danger of their destination would increase tenfold. He didn’t have time to ruminate on Sage and her shocking act of violence.

But he would anyway, because there was no one he liked to torture quite as much as himself.

“Keeley! Where. Is. Sage?” He bit out the words, his patience at a minimum. He wanted his focus only on Benedict, only on vengeance, only on taking over this kingdom and destroying all the good inside it. But he couldn’t with this discomfort lodged where his heart should be.

Keeley ran in, already out of breath. “She’s right behind me!”

Sage stumbled down the stairs, wearing another pair of thigh-hugging pants that made him want to do bodily harm to anyone whose gaze lingered on them for too long.

“Are we ready to go?” she asked happily, gliding toward the back doors, giving Otto Warsen’s head only a cursory glance before practically sprinting to the courtyard, her pulled-back curls bouncing behind her.

He followed her with a purposeful gait, saying with a low growl, “Oh, you can run, little tornado, but you cannot hide.”

Blade waved to them as he tied a leather strap under Fluffy’s belly. The dragon shifted nervously. Sage did, too.

He hauled her by the arm into the arched stone alcove beside the back entrance and nudged her into one of the pillars. She looked sheepish as he loomed over her, like a dog that had chewed up some fancy shoes. Except in this case, the pair of shoes in question was a man’s severed head hung from the wall. “What exactly were you up to while I was gone, Sage? Anything interesting occur?”

“I knit some mittens,” Sage said pleasantly.

“Delightful. Anything else?” he pressed. She was deliberately keeping things from him, he realized. The thought made himpanic.

“I learned how to use a paperweight as a weapon.”

He followed her lead, realizing that forcing it out of her would be fruitless. “Fascinating. How?”