They both sat down on the worn sofa, Evie fidgeting with her hands, squeezing then releasing, squeezing then releasing.
Silence permeated the air, the only noise the creaking of the old foundation.
She wasn’t sure why her heart was beating so fast, but she felt like something big was going to happen.
Her boss looked like he was in great pain, the pinched look of his mouth making her chest hurt. He crossed his arms, then uncrossed them, finally settling them on his thighs. Evie wouldn’t mind having her hands there as well.
Focus, you absolute nincompoop.
But instead of speaking, he froze, turning in a flash and grabbing something over Evie’s shoulder. She gasped at the nearness of him, the heat and scent of him, but his body left hers quickly, returning to his side of the couch with something in his hand.
“Kingsley?” She had no idea the little frog had come, too.
The animal’s only response was to ribbit as he looked to both of them with a blank expression.
“Little stowaway,” The Villain growled. “He must have slipped into my saddlebag when I wasn’t looking. You could’ve gotten yourself killed, you fool.”
Evie leaned over and straightened the crown that by some miracle never seemed to leave the frog’s head. “He was worried about us, you little darling.” She fawned over Kingsley, and her boss’s eye twitched.
The Villain placed the frog on the small table before saying, “Stay put, for once.” Kingsley didn’t seem to have his signs with him, because all he did was nod. Her boss turned back toward her with an expression of dread as he started speaking.
“I found out about the guvres when I became an intern for King Benedict, almost ten years ago to the day.”
Evie was knocked speechless. She literally couldn’t think of a single thing to say, something that hadn’t happened to her in— Well, that hadn’t happened to her ever. He looked at her, but she kept her gaze forward.
Should she be angry he hadn’t told her this sooner? She didn’t feel angry, but she’d already been through a lot that day, so maybe her brain had shut down her emotions out of self-preservation.
It didn’t feel like something he’d kept from her on purpose, but it was obviously painful for him. Speaking even that first sentence looked like he’d just pulled metal spikes out of his mouth.
“If you don’t want to—” Evie started. She didn’t want this from him if he felt he had to. But he held up his hand to stop her.
“I just… I haven’t spoken of it aloud since it happened, but if there was anyone I would share this with, it would be you.”
“Okay,” Evie said kindly, placing a careful hand on his shoulder. “But only tell me if you want to. I don’t want you to feel like I’m holding you down with a knife to your throat.” She was going for sympathetic, but then the words were out in the open and Evie realized too late how explicit they sounded.
His dark brows furrowed together, and his lips squeezed tight.
“I meant because— I meant I wasn’t going to pin you down— You know what?” She fake-locked the corner of her mouth with an imaginary key and opened her boss’s hand, placing the key inside his palm.
His hand nearly curled around her fingers, their eyes whipping up to each other’s, but then they quickly returned to their original positions on the sofa.
“I met King Benedict when I was nineteen years old.” His jaw tightened, and he pressed his fingers into the couch. “I had been considering attending the university near the city, and on one of my visits I caught the attention of a magical specialist. My magic hadn’t awoken yet, but he sensed something in me.”
Evie wanted to ask how a specialist could sense magic that hadn’t awakened yet, but she kept her mouth shut, knowing she needed to allow him to finish.
He looked at her, sensing the question in her eyes anyway. “My magic is very distinct, which makes it easier to detect. The specialist then referred me to someone he thought could ‘foster’ my abilities to their fullest potential.”
Another silence followed, and Evie knew he was gathering himself to tell her the worst of it, the reason he dragged men through the office by their hair, the reason she was greeted by severed heads so often on her way to work, the reason he looked uncomfortable at any sign of affection.
The reason her boss had become The Villain.
“The king met with me the next day.” Evie couldn’t see his power, but she could feel the air in the room change as it thrummed underneath his skin.
“He offered me a position with him at his summer home, as his personal apprentice.” Trystan sighed, pressing his eyes closed once more, scratching at the stubble around his jaw. “I agreed so quickly, too quickly. But the king knew exactly what words to say—his words were like webs, and by the time I realized I’d been caught, it was too late. He told me I had potential, that I was capable of great things.”
There was a sheen to Trystan’s dark eyes as he stared at the crackle in the fireplace. “No one had ever said that to me before.” He chuckled. “And no one has since.”
That infuriated Evie, picturing a young and vulnerable Trystan looking for scraps of praise because he was so unused to it.
“The first few weeks were…incredible. My mother and father were hesitant to let me go, but I wouldn’t be deterred. I had become obsessed with pleasing the king, with making him happy. I did everything he asked of me. Everything.”
Evie found herself overcome by his words, as she knew that feeling well. Being desperate to make others happy, to feel like she’d earned her place in the world by the standards of another.
They looked at each other, and Evie realized the comfort she found in every part of his face. The crinkles in the corners of his eyes; those rare times he smiled; his subtly expressive mouth, which drew her attention far too often.
And as what he was saying truly sank in, she realized what exactly he meant by everything. “The guvre?”
He nodded, his hair finally dry after the rain, curling against his forehead. Sighing, he said, “I helped him capture the guvre. There were theories that the venom of a baby guvre acted as a sort of cure-all. He kept telling me the end justified the means. I didn’t know what he meant then, and I never had the chance to find out.” Evie stood, her skirts tangling around her ankles as she paced away from the couch. “Why? What happened next?”
The Villain was very still for a moment before saying, “Would you mind sitting…for the next part?” He remained rigid, but there was a vulnerability there that knocked Evie silent. She walked back over and slowly sank beside him, and he exhaled hard.
“The king had me working with a magical specialist in the month that I was with him, and with each session the specialist grew more and more timid. I tried my best to make him comfortable in my presence, but something was unsettling him, and after another odd session, I finally had enough.”
Evie’s hands formed into fists. “What happened?”
“I asked the king—demanded, really—to know why every servant in his summer home seemed to cringe away from me, why the Valiant Guards walked in the other direction when they saw me coming down the hall. What I had done wrong.”
“And?” she pressed.
“He told me that my magic was dangerous.” He stood then, startling Evie, and he walked over to the fire, stirring it with the poker. “I had spent weeks and weeks with the man; he’d built me up so high I felt like nothing could touch me. When he told me that whatever was dormant inside me could hurt people, it shattered me.”
“But your magic hadn’t awoken yet—why would King Benedict do that?” Evie asked, starting to see the tangles of the story unwinding.
“He claimed he brought me there to see if the problem could be managed before it was too late. But after observing me carefully, there was no hope. The king told me that if he allowed me to go free, I would be a danger to myself and everyone I loved.”No. Her heart broke for that defeated young man only looking to belong.
“He told me his priority had to be the rest of the kingdom and it wasn’t personal. It was for my own good.”
“What was?” Evie asked carefully.
“The Valiant Guards taking me into custody then and there.” The Villain had a steel to his voice as he turned back toward her. “I begged the king, I told him I would try to be better, but he wouldn’t listen. They took me to the cellars below and locked me in the dark. There were no windows, no torches. I was trapped with the darkness, and it was trapped with me.”
Evie was gripping her dress tightly in her hands. “How long— How long did they keep you down there?”
“A month.”
A month. A month of darkness with no hope for its end, with no way out. “It took them a month to let you out?”
“They didn’t.” His lips lifted a little. “I let myself out.”
