Page 75 of Adversary to the Villain

Thisman wore a crown.

“Gods, Trystan. Is this…?” Evie started.

“It’s the first king of Rennedawn,” Clare explained, pointing at the small engravement at the bottom. “Julius Benedict Martin the first.”

“Martin?” Evie’s face pinched in confusion. “Is that— That’s not Benedict’s family name, is it?” She searched the room and found Tatianna already cackling in her arm. “Shut up. It is!”

“Sage, it’s a perfectly normal last name,” Trystan reasoned.

A wild choice, given Evie’s new life goal was to be entirely unreasonable.

“Whose side are you on?” She drummed her fingers against her arms, mock glaring.

He stared blankly. “The side of logic.”

“Well, that’s boring,” she said matter-of-factly before crossing to lean next to him, smiling at Alexander, who smiled rakishly back. “You found this in one of the storage cellars? How could you never have seen it before?”

“It was hidden under something with glitter.” Tatianna took a break from cackling to deliver this news with comedic evenness. “Trystan never would have touched it.”

“That’s what was under there?” Trystan stood, quickly collecting himself, clearing his throat. “A small oversight. I searched those rooms many times myself with Kingsley. And we never found anything of note.”

It was small, almost undetectable, but Evie swore she saw Kingsley flinch. “So, this is your ancestor, then?” Evie asked softly, staring at a man who looked very much like a king should. Regal, strong, kind.

It’s what Trystan would’ve been.

If you’d never been born.

Oh, good. She had been eagerly awaiting her mind to send her on today’s doom spiral.

“Apparently,” Trystan murmured, snapping her back. “We need to keep looking, everyone, so get the laughter out of your system and move on.”

Clare was still staring, almost scrutinizing the painting.

“What?” Trystan snapped. “Why are you looking at it like that?”

“Your head is definitely bigger,” Clare said, tapping her chin.

“It’s not to scale,” Trystan stated, exasperated, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Can you go and do something more useful than disparaging the size of my head?”

“It wasn’t disparaging. Just an observation,” Clare said brightly, patting her brother’s arm, then sailed from the room with Tatianna not far behind. “We’ll let you know if we find anything of note!”

Kingsley remained, and Evie was glad for it. “How are you, um—Alexander?”

He chuckled, shrugging. “I’m still me,” he replied, looking upward, contemplating. “Just taller.”

Alexander Kingsley was indeed still himself.

Still brightening the room, with one or two simple words.

Evie grinned, stepping forward to wrap her arms around him. “Wow,” she said, pulling back quizzically. “You’ve got a lot of muscle for someone freshly human.”

“Hopping.” He grinned in return.

Trystan looked pleased by the tableau of two such important people in his life coming together. It felt a bit like a merging to Evie, that she might truly be a part of this. Finally. “I don’t think he’d appreciate being snuggled to my cheek like old times. Unless—”

“He wouldn’t,” Trystan stated immediately.

Alexander laughed, and his eyes went somewhere else for a moment. Somewhere that appeared almost…sad. “I should go look,” he gritted out. Then the former frog pointed at Trystan, sending Evie a playful wink. “And…he would.”