“It tastes watery,” Evie’s ten-year-old sister, Lyssa, muttered under her breath.
“Shhh.” Evie held her finger to her lips as her father moved slowly to the table, his own bowl of soup in hand. He’d been in a spectacular mood when Evie returned home that day. Which meant he would be cooking.
Since their father’s illness began, he’d found few pleasures, but one of them was that when he felt up to it, he’d cook dinner for his children. It was his way of taking care of them. So even though the things he made often tasted like liquid shoe leather, Evie would be damned if she and Lyssa didn’t swallow every drop.
Because her father cooking meant he was well, and it gave them a taste of what their family was…before.
Evie looked toward the two empty chairs at the table, one at the opposite end of her father and one beside her. The seats her mother and her older brother, Gideon, had once occupied but never would again. But still the chairs sat there, like their memory was haunting them.
“How is it, girls?” Griffin Sage was a large man, with a warm smile and a full head of thick brown hair. In his younger years, he’d been the catch of the town. A man who’d built a successful butchery business from the ground up. Their mother, a foreigner from a lovely string of kingdoms southeast of their continent, Myrtalia, Rennedawn’s home along with five other kingdoms. Her mother had loved her father to distraction until the incident…until she’d left them.
Evie’s earliest memories were of her parents laughing together, singing and dancing in their small kitchen. Clearing her throat, she smiled at her father.
“It’s delicious, Papa.” Pointedly looking at her little sister, she said, “I think Lyssa would like seconds.”
A small foot connected hard with her shin underneath the table. Chuckling, Evie ladled another large scoop of the lumpy liquid into Lyssa’s bowl. She wouldn’t hope for this lasting sense of lightness, where every living member of her family was well and happy. But there was no rule saying she couldn’t try and enjoy it.
“How’s your work at the manor?” Her father smiled warmly at her, a healthy glow to his cheeks that she hadn’t seen in months.
Swallowing a hard lump of potato, Evie began stirring the soup with her spoon, attempting nonchalance. “Oh, it’s been rather uneventful, actually.”
“I wish I worked in a castle.” Lyssa pouted, wincing as she took another bite.
Evie coughed, nearly choking. “It’s— It’s not a castle, Lyssa. It’s simply a manor house.”
“But it’s probably as big as a castle, isn’t it?” Her sister looked at her with wide, questioning eyes.
Evie loved far too much about her job—the people, the strategy. But she hated this part. The lying.
She couldn’t tell her family a single truth about what she was really doing. As far as they and the rest of the village were concerned, The Villain was a vile, reprehensible creature. Anyone even hinted to be associated with him was punished to the full extent the law allowed. But even knowing she could one day be found out, knowing that the wrath of the kingdom could so swiftly descend upon her, did not scare her. If anything, it excited her.
She was as reckless as her mother.
“It’s very large, yes.” Evie took a bracing sip of the wine she’d purchased on her way home, doing her best to divert the subject. “How are your lessons coming?”
To her relief, that single question set Lyssa on a tirade about the boy in her class who wouldn’t stop pulling on her braids. Evie sighed into the welcome distraction of Lyssa’s innocent life. What she wouldn’t give for just a touch of that youthful bliss.
Evie was only twenty-three years old, and yet she felt like she’d lived a lifetime. Between the way she took care of her family and the mistreatment she’d been dealt by those crueler and larger than she, it was a wonder her hair hadn’t gone gray.
It’s a wonder you made it to twenty-three at all with the ridiculous situations you get yourself into.
She supposed that was why she reconciled her work so easily in her mind. She had no idea what The Villain’s end goal was, aside from doing everything to screw over the king. But Evie knew the important things—he didn’t take advantage of his female employees, he paid all his workers fairly, and he requested his cauldron brew with at least a pound of sugar.
The last fact was not as relevant as his other virtues, but it was Evie’s favorite. Every morning she’d have to sneak his preferred amount of sugar out of the kitchen along with cream from the chilled box and add both to his drink as discreetly as possible. She was uncertain why he was so embarrassed about his preference, but she supposed it wasn’t good for his reputation to enjoy any such frivolities.
She loved even more that she was one of the only ones who knew, so much so that she found herself staring dazedly at the wall, smiling as her pulse quickened.
Her father finished his plate, clearing the table and placing the wooden bowls into the bucket near the stove. Evie stood so quickly, her chair wobbled. “I’ll take care of those, Papa!” She smiled and patted his arm, ignoring the frown marring his cheeks.
“Evangelina, I am perfectly capable of—”
“Would you tell me one of your stories?” Lyssa tugged at their father’s arm with a wide grin, then gave Evie a knowing look that made her seem much older than she was. Her sister wasn’t completely untouched by the harshness of the world, no matter how Evie tried to shield her.
The two of them sat down again, and Evie stiffened slightly as her father settled in her mother’s chair, Lyssa crawling into his lap and looking up as he dove into one of his many stories of villains and the heroes who defeated them. Her throat tightened as she swallowed the truth that she now worked for those he despised.
Turning back toward the bucket, Evie gripped the rag and scrubbed at a pot harshly. She felt her cheeks sting and her heart begin to pound around her shortened breaths. Feeling the water beneath her hands, she closed her eyes for a moment and began humming a light melody of a song her mother so often favored when she tended the dishes.
It was comforting to Evie somehow, despite all the pain her mother wrought. That tune was one of the last good things her mother had given her before that day, before the dandelion fields, just before.
Evie caught her reflection in the glass of the window in front of her, saw her father behind her carrying a dozing Lyssa toward her room. Looking back at her own face, Evie felt her lips pull up in a smile. One she’d practiced so many times before. Even when she felt like her lungs would collapse, even when her heart felt like it would give out from the strain, she’d always managed to tug her lips upward.
Her mother’s voice echoed in her head. Worry not, hasibsi. You could fix a broken world with just your smile.
She had been wrong, of course. Evie hadn’t fixed anything that day or in the days that came after.
But Evie still smiled.
Just in case.
And not for the last time hoped it was enough to keep those she cared about safe.
