A soft knock on the door of Trystan’s office was his final straw.
It was nearly an hour until the day concluded, and he couldn’t wait for the sun to go down and the day to turn to night. He wanted to drown in it.
Pushing back from his chair, he walked over and looked out the window. He nearly busted out of his skin when he heard the door creep open anyway.
“Unless there is another fire, I do not want to be disturbed,” he called out harshly.
The darker magic within him pulsed, aching to find a weak spot and destroy whoever dared enter his domain uninvited.
“I blew up half the parapet last week.” Every part of him went stiff as a board, and yet a deep, intrinsic part of him relaxed as the voice continued. “Does that count?”
Turning, needing to catch sight of her, he froze as an uncomfortable feeling fluttered in his chest. He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his breeches and stared at her.
His former assistant looked the same, still short, still dark-haired. Still with eyes that seemed to know too much and lips that were constantly pulling up at the corners. He went longer than this on the week’s ends when he didn’t see her, so the reaction his body was having was ridiculous.
But he was so happy to see her. What an obscene, unnecessary emotion, but there it was. He was happy… How positively vile.
And the lightness in his chest only grew when she began to speak. “I don’t like feeling as if I can’t do something.” The words tumbled out of her mouth, not practiced but honest.
“All right…” he said neutrally.
“It makes me irrational. It’s like it triggers something in me that—”
“Stop.” He held a hand up to interrupt her, looking over her shoulder to the open door. “Hold that thought.” He moved swiftly toward it, noting the crowd of onlookers trying to peek around the doorway, all dispersing when he glared.
All but Blade, who wandered by with yet another bandage on his head, noticing Sage and turning back to Trystan with a small fist pump.
Trystan flipped him off before closing the door and turning to Kingsley, who sat unmoving on his desk. At least he wasn’t holding up his earlier sign again.
“Could you go be…anywhere else?” Trystan asked, and when the creature hopped off the desk and over two feet to land on the windowsill, he sighed, then looked to Sage. “Proceed.”
“I know there are things you don’t want to trust me with. I even know there are things that I just can’t accomplish.”
He fiercely doubted that but didn’t say anything.
She moved to her regular seat; he chose to remain standing, leaning against his desk. “But not being able to take care of what I need to, of the people I need to… It terrifies me.”
His curiosity was piqued as his brows shot up in surprise.
Surely this woman didn’t really believe herself incapable of anything. Besides, she knew his overreaction and treatment of her was wrong, that he’d been wrong about the letter. So why was she explaining herself?
“I know that I can’t know everything, and I respect it. You’re a man with many secrets, unlike me.” She laughed a little at the end, the self-deprecating kind—he knew it well.
She continued, her light eyes finding his dark ones, and Trystan flexed his hands nervously at his sides to alleviate the almost ticklish feeling spreading through his limbs. “But when you accused me of being deceitful…”
Trystan’s shoulders straightened.
“It hurt me. You didn’t even give me the chance to explain.”
It hurt me.
He wondered if it would scar her for life if he threw himself from the window.
“However.” She paused. “I shouldn’t have quit so abruptly. My emotions got the better of me, and it was not a decision I would have made, had I given myself the opportunity to process that hurt appropriately.”
She took a deep breath, her gaze remaining steady on him. “For that, I sincerely apologize and ask you to allow me my job back.”
A silence echoed as they stared at each other. Trystan realized his lips had parted as she was speaking, and he was currently gaping at her like a deranged fish. Swallowing, he moved his jaw back and forth, trying to ease the stiffness. “You want to come back?”
The eagerness in his voice needed to be squashed under his boot like a roach.
She nodded, eyes glinting as the last dregs of sunlight spilled in. “I really love working here.”
He should leave it there. Both of them acknowledging he was in the right, that she had been absurd, and letting the pieces of their lives fall back together unencumbered.
It hurt me.
Guilt. He was feeling guilt in a harsh, raw way, and he couldn’t stand it. To see her sitting there looking open and reasonable, a courageous hope surrounding her. It grated against his skin, caused a pounding in the front of his skull.
Trystan found his chair and sat slowly, not letting another moment of silence step in. “Sage, I…” Tatianna must have poisoned his brew—that’s what it was. It was the only explanation for the feeling when he looked at her; it had to be.
Trystan’s distress only kept growing when he looked over to Kingsley, who was holding up a sign from across the room that said, Speak.
He stood abruptly again, and they both jumped, Sage quickly standing, too. He walked slowly around the desk, eyes never leaving hers. He wondered if there was a word for when you know you’re going to fail at something, one word to define that feeling where you know no matter how hard you resist that path, it will find you.
Evangelina Sage had found him.
“I’m sorry.” The apology came out fast, and he was almost certain his voice went up an octave, which was not only mortifying but enough to make him want to consider the window idea again.
“You’re…sorry?” Sage’s jaw hung so low, Trystan wondered if it would catch the dirt from the ground.
“Dispense with the dramatics. It’s not as if I told you I have a night-light.”
Sage’s gaze sharpened at his words, and Trystan cursed under his breath.
Her wicked eyes gave her away as she rubbed her chin like one of the older magical specialists. “Sir, do you have a night-light?”
Trystan shook his head and rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand, mumbling, “I don’t…not have one.”
The giggle she let out was loud and at a pitch that should call the birds to the window, looking for their brethren, but it was adorable, and he hoped she would do it again.
Fuck.
“You have a night-light! For what? Does it burn insects? Trying to lure something to its death?” Her words were coming out so quick, her mouth could barely keep up.
He sighed and shook his head, taking this as his penance. “I use a night-light for the purpose it was assigned, to make the night…lighter.” He winced.
Gods, that sounded ridiculous.
“This is the best day of my life.” Sage’s nose scrunched, and she chuckled as she began her little bounce of excitement, like her laughter was going to launch her into the sun. “Why do you need to ‘light the night’?” She mimicked his voice.
Placing one hand on his hip and another against his forehead, Trystan felt exhausted. “I find myself fearful of the dark, particularly when I’m alone or in my bedchamber…or both.”
Sage’s jaw seemed to find the floor again, shocked into silence. Concerning.
Trystan bristled. “Is that a problem?”
“No. Of course it’s not,” she said, amusement dwindling into softness. “How long have you been afraid of the dark?”
“I am not afraid of the dark, Sage. I am The Villain—the dark fears me.” He let his chest puff out to prove his point, which only made her giggle again.
“My apologies, sir,” she said contritely. “How long have you been afraid of the dark…particularly in your bedchamber?” The last part, she deepened her voice again to sound like his.
“Since I was a child,” he admitted but didn’t mention how it had worsened over the years or why. She must have sensed it, though, because she reached out a hand and placed it on his. He stiffened at the touch, the way he always did with human contact, his head whipping down to look at her small hand laying over his.
“I’m afraid of ladybugs,” she said, nodding seriously.
Trystan gawked openly, looking to the ceiling, wondering how on earth he’d gotten here. Apologizing to an employee—badly, he might add—because somehow the conversation had been diverted to insects.
When he didn’t say anything, she added, “The spots scare me.”
“Of course they do,” he said defeatedly. “Sage, I was attempting an apology?”
“Oh, right! Sorry, go on!” She looked embarrassed as she took a step back and gestured her hands forward for him to go on.
Sighing, he continued. “You have done nothing that would indicate to me you are incapable or unworthy of my trust. I overreacted to the letter, and it was very unfair of me—”
She interrupted quickly. “The letter wasn’t—”
“I know,” Trystan said, holding up a hand to stop her. “Blade told me.”
Sage’s mouth pulled down in a frown. “Sir… You didn’t… That is to say, is Blade…?”
“Still breathing.”
“See, the way I’ve seen you torture the men you drag through here, that somehow doesn’t make me feel better,” she said blandly.
“He’s alive, unharmed, and still has a job here.” Trystan didn’t want to continue speaking of his previous mercy, as it made him feel ill. He quickly added, “As do you. If you would like to start over again.”
The already uplifted corners of her mouth pulled up higher, lighting her entire face. It made his rigid limbs feel softer, like she was liquifying his bones. Stepping toward him, Sage held out her hand.
Hesitating just a moment, The Villain clasped Sage’s hand in his.
“My name is Evangelina Sage. A pleasure to meet you. Shall I call you ‘sir’? Or ‘Evil Overlord’?”
Shaking his head, he pulled a grin, and Sage’s eyes darted to his left cheek, looking pleased. The woman was unnaturally obsessed with his dimple. “I will allow either, if you go get me one of those fried things from the kitchen. And a chalice of sugary cauldron brew.”
“Sold!” she screeched, nearly tripping over her own feet to get to the door.
“Sage?” Trystan called, immediately regretting it when she turned, looking at him expectantly. “I just want to understand…why is it that you want my trust in the first place?”
She leaned a hand against her cheek, and one eyebrow rose thoughtfully. “I want to know you, that’s all.”
That’s all? Like that sentence alone wasn’t enough to knock him completely off his axis. Sage disappeared through the doors, and Trystan leaned against the wall, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor, arms resting on his knees.
I want to know you.
Trystan felt unfettered fear as he sat there, because for the first time in a decade, the idea of that didn’t sound so very bad.
And yet, he somehow knew in his bones she was going to be the death of him eventually.
