Page 69 of Apprentice to the Villain

“You get used to it,” Becky reassured him, downing her cup in heaving gulps. Gideon looked at her like she had several heads. And Blade glared at Gideon like he wanted to remove his. That was…new.

“You’ve returned! Wonderful! Just in time for pie,” Edwin called, turning toward them. A white chef’s hat sat precariously upon his blue head, and his small glasses had a slight fog on the lenses from the oven’s heat. His cheeks were flushed to a deep purple as he put plate after plate on the wood table, each with a piece of gooey apple pie.

“Welcome back, conquering heroes!” Gideon grinned, looking far too at home in an office he’d not been at yet a week, but he shrank when he saw the boss’s glare. “Or conquering…villains? I’ll stop talking.”

“Thank the gods,” The Villain muttered, yanking out a chair and gesturing to Evie. “Sage? A seat?”

Her cheeks matched her dress as she sat down, aware that every eye in the room was on the gesture. They couldn’t read what had happened between Evie and her boss as the waters rose around them…could they?

Please kiss me.

She almost put her hands over her ears and screamed.

Lyssa turned away from the stove, fawning in dreamy delight. “He’s such a gentleman!”

Blade chuckled in the corner, taking a sip of cauldron brew, then mumbling under his breath, “Oh, sure, when he’s not severing heads and plucking eyeballs.”

But of course, Lyssa heard, because ten-year-olds seemed to hear none of the things they were supposed to and all the things they shouldn’t.

“I saw an eyeball in the hallway! It was huge!” Lyssa screeched with a little hop, just as Edwin plopped a tiny chef’s hat on her head.

Blade winced. “Oh no.”

“Lyssa! We have cinnamon rolls to prep,” Edwin said cheerily, giving Evie a wink, and she mouthed a quietthank youfor the distraction.

“Has there been any change to the map, sir?” Evie asked, gently pulling the velvet pouch from her pocket and reaching two fingers inside.

The Villain grimaced before striding to the hall and dragging the large map-that-was-once-his-desk to the table. No longer glowing, no longer marked in any way. “I’m afraid the stardust wore off.”

Her fingers halted on something cold and hard inside the pouch. She frowned and looked up. “It can wear off?”

The Villain set the large, useless slab off to the corner. “Apparently so. We do have a small thimbleful left. We could take a chance and pour it on to see if it lights up with another lead.”

The object inside the pouch was pointed on one end, with a textured surface, and Evie felt her heart stutter as she dumped the contents into her palm.

Becky wandered over, looking at the object with confusion. “What is that?”

“It’s from my mother.”

In Evie’s palm laid a large corner piece of a gold frame that had been broken away. It was lavish, with swirled inlays she remembered tracing as a little girl… Evie quickly turned it over and stiffened when she read what was etched on the back.

Property of the Sage Family

Gideon almost dropped his cup as he moved closer. “I recognize this.”

The Villain’s ears perked up. “You do?”

Gideon held out a hand to Evie. “May I hold it, Eve?”

She licked her lips and dropped the gold chunk into his waiting palm. While Gideon inspected it, Evie untied the scroll affixed to the ribbon. Her fingers went to her lips when she read the words etched there.Find me here, hasibsi. I’ll be safe. I’ll be with my friend.

She frowned, her brow furrowing as she rubbed a hand down her cheek. “Her friend?” She looked up to her brother. “Gideon?”

“This is from a painting in our house, Eve. Father had a ton of these frames, remember? Got them all specially made from a vendor in the village for Mama’s birthday, for her art collection.”

The words pulled a memory from the depths of her brain, like it had been archived until this moment. Her mother had loved art, had loved portraits and landscapes of people and places that held meaning to her, but her father had put nearly all of them into storage when her mother disappeared. He said he couldn’t bear to look at them, but now she wondered if his motives were less romantic and more nefarious. It was always that way, she pondered. When someone revealed themselves to be something worse than what you thought, you were then tasked with sorting through what good parts within them were real, if any.

“Are you implying she could’ve been in our village the whole time? With the vendor? Were they friends?”