Page 84 of Adversary to the Villain

“Enough!” the Valiant in charge boomed. “What will it be?”

“I’ll surrender.” Evie stepped forward, and all who stood on their side objected. “Just please let him go.” She sniffed, and the action felt so incongruous with his knowledge of Evie that Alexander grew suspicious.

The knights lifted Malcolm to standing, and then Evie yelled, “Now, Keeley!”

An arrow soared through the air.

And right into Malcolm’s heart.

Chapter 41

Evie

“Malcolm!” Clare screamed. “What did you do?” She turned on Evie, and Evie let her. The plan itself had been made in haste, but it had been necessary.

When the Silk that had escaped the dungeons appeared where Malcolm had been, arrow piercing its black hide, Clare’s voice cracked. “Oh gods. It’s not him? It’s not him?”

“I didn’t get a chance to tell you all before we came to greet them.” Evie winced, feeling slightly guilty for nearly giving Clare a heart attack. “A missive arrived from Malcolm a few hours ago. Keeley found it in a pile of correspondence. He and Winnifred are safely at your mother’s house.”

Kingsley shut his eyes, shoulders dropping, and Clare mirrored him.

Evie tsked. “A valiant effort, gentlemen.” Then she snapped her fingers with a small laugh. “Oh, look at that! Living up to your name. Do me a service and deliver a message to Benedict for me.”

Scare them, she urged her magic.

Dark mist surrounded her feet, not unlike a cat brushing against her ankle, scenting her before it surrounded the knights.

“Go and tell Benedict that wherever the coward is, there will be deadlands to pay when we meet again. That he will suffer, and may the gods help anyone who gets in my way.” She felt their lifelines, the colors lighting up around them, the bit of darkness over their jugulars. She could kill each and every one of them; all she needed to do was will it.

The magic would handle the rest.

But no.

She released the knights, taking a deep breath when one of them crawled away from her, whimpering with a sound that should’ve tugged at her sympathetic heart. It did. The kindness she’d lived by all her life screamed and begged for mercy.

She ignored it.

And, one by one, willed the magic to strike them where it would wound—hurt but not kill. Each man dropped at once.

“Tell the king I did this!” she yelled, feeling overcome, a bit like she was watching someone take hold of her. Someone she didn’t know.

And that someone was content—content to be feared, to be hated.

Content to be…The Villain.

“Tell me yourself, why don’t you?”

The familiar voice gripped her violently, and her magic flared out in every direction, stripping color from the nearby trees, tingeing the grass gray. The voice of goodness and reason in her head begged her to stop, to tamp down the anger, the fear, the violence taking over. But even optimistic souls could wither in the darkness.

“Benedict,” she spewed hatefully, stalking forward, her dress tearing further on the fallen branches with each step. The king sat atop his horse, surrounded by blindly loyal men, carrying out his orders with lethal execution.

Evie unsheathed her dagger.

Benedict grinned. “That’s it, Ms. Sage. Allow yourself to be who you truly are.”

Something was wrong. Benedict looked far too smug for a man who was down a book of Rennedawn, two guvre younglings, and a curse anchor.

Had they missed something?