Page 56 of Apprentice to the Villain

“Tatianna said the antidote for the sleeping-death fruit doesn’t have any long-lasting side effects, but I’m beginning to question it.” She stopped to remove her shoe and shake out a pebble.

The Villain’s voice was dark, forbidding from beside her. “I beg your pardon?” Before she could protest, she was being dragged bodily into a small alleyway between shops and gripped by the shoulders, pressed against the wall.

Oh, that wasn’t— Uh-oh, that had been a secret.

This was hardly the way to prove to him that she herself could be more villainous, that she was an asset, needed. But her rescue plan had worked out anyway, and she knew he believed in her abilities. His anger was likely due to the reminder of being trapped with Benedict in the first place…or possibly the reminder of having seen her “dead.”

“Are you saying that you faked your death by eating a sleeping-death fruit?” The Villain was so furious, the vein in his forehead was throbbing. She wanted to poke it.

“Can we talk about this later, when there aren’t three of you ganging up on me?” His figure was spinning in several different directions, and they all looked pissed.

He barreled on. “Do you know how dangerous that is? How perfectly timed the antidote needs to be? There’s only one cure! Of all the foolish—”

“Two,” Evie interrupted before taking a large bite of bread. The flaky crust melted under her tongue.

“What?”

She chewed for a moment before speaking, which seemed to incense him, so she began to chew slower just for the fun of it. “There aretwocures to the sleeping-death fruit; everyone knows that.”

He shook his head. “The other is a myth, a lie we push for children’s stories. It’s positively evil, even for me.”

She blew air out of her lips, feeling strangely let down all of a sudden. “By the gods, alert the town crier! I’ve found a man who doesn’t believe in love.”

He lifted a brow, angling his head down when he responded, devoid of emotion: “I do believe in love.”

She stood on her tiptoes to get closer to his face, her heart pounding. “You do? Then why—”

“I just do not believe in it for myself. I am The Villain. Any woman willing to love me would be out of her gourd.” Heflinched at the words, like the thought of someone that unhinged was terrible to even imagine.

She had to stop herself from raising her hand and saying,GUILTY!

Lowering back down, she grumbled, “Yes, an absolute nincompoop of a person.” She broke off a piece of bread and chewed it slowly, wanting to change the subject. “Becky had a connection to obtain the fruit, and I waited to eat it until after Gideon had smuggled me into the castle. He slipped me the antidote before I was brought into the ballroom. I wasn’t in any danger.”

“But now your sleep is disrupted.”

She shrugged. “I haven’t slept well since they took you. This isn’t new.”

That seemed to knock him silent. He opened his mouth to speak again, but Evie took the opportunity to rip off another piece of bread and shove it in his mouth. “I ate the fruit, and I survived. The plan worked, and now we are on the road to your ultimate revenge—stopping the king’s prophecy and stealing Rennedawn right out from under him. All is right with the world, Your Evilness.”

He chewed, even he unable to resist the deliciousness of the flaky creation, eyes shutting as he savored it. As she looked upon his face, memorizing every angle, every dip, curve, and hollow, a thought plagued her. “Gideon… He was supposed to signal to you that I wasn’t dead, that help was on the way. He—hewasable to do that, wasn’t he?”

Her boss’s eyes flew open, and he swallowed hard. Then waited a moment. “Yes, he did. Fear not. I knew it wasn’t real.”

Evie exhaled. She hadn’t known how The Villain would react to her possible demise, but she wasn’t so obtuse as to assume he wouldn’t care. He would—probably in a quiet, closed-off way.

She blinked. Her head felt lighter, the effects of the flowerbeginning to wane a bit. “So where do we begin? Was there a specific spot in the village the map had marked?”

The Villain held out a hand for more bread. She smirked in satisfaction, ripping him off another piece. He spoke after he finished chewing. “No, that would be far too easy. I’m thinking we start in one of the shops, ask a few questions. Mention your mother’s name offhandedly so we don’t appear suspicious.”

She began to argue as she turned to exit the alleyway. “You always look susp—”

An“oof”sounded behind her. She turned to investigate. “Sir?”

But he couldn’t answer, as several men in an array of costumes—ranging from a jester’s garb to a large hat with a feather sticking out the side to a fur cape with pink polka dots—had pinned The Villain to the ground.

The one with a tin crown pointed a sword right at the boss’s back, awantedflyer in his meaty hand. Only this flyer didn’t have the usual cartoonish depictions of her boss. In fact—

That was The Villain’s true face, almost exactly, and worse…his truename.