Accomplice to the Villain (Assistant and the Villain, #3)(37)

Curse

Trystan tentatively reached a hand past the cage’s bars, and the guvre bumped his head into Trystan’s palm. His rainbow scales created a ring of color around him when the light hit. “I should be trying harder to undo your curse, Alexander. I shouldn’t have grown discouraged so easily. I want you to know that even if it seems so, I haven’t given up. I won’t.”

Alexander leaped toward his friend, hopping atop one of his shiny boots. When Trystan looked down, Alexander began shaking his head.

I watched you struggle for years, Tryst. I know you tried.

In the first few months of Alexander’s transformation, he could hardly wake a single day without falling into a well of despair. The Villain’s empire was just being built; Trystan had no allies, no resources, no reason to waste time on anything but building his business. It didn’t matter—meager as they were, Trystan used every one of his possible avenues available to break Alexander’s curse. He watched as his friend paid money he didn’t have to false enchantresses, curse consultants who refused to assist, false leads to find the enchantress who had cast the curse in the first place, failing again and again.

If Alexander were human, he’d tell Trystan they both lost who they were that day and they both had to claw their way back to who they were now. A frog and a villain.

But Kingsley’s foot was tired from all the writing he’d been doing of late, so instead of communicating the way he’d learned, he looked up at his oldest friend and said the only thing he knew how: “Ribbit.”

Trystan scooped him up and placed Alexander atop his shoulder. “Glad we’re in agreement on what an awful friend I’ve been. Ow!” Alexander used his non-writing foot to slap the back of Trystan’s head, effectively letting The Villain know they were not at all in agreement. “I’ll go see if Sage got back to her chambers safely, and then we should probably attempt a few hours’ rest before sunrise.”

Alexander nodded, but just as Trystan took a step away from the cage, a low whimper followed. Trystan stopped, taking another step away to test it. Another whimper from the lonely animal behind the bars.

Oh gods. The Villain was no match for it. The man was surely done for.

“Gods damn it,” Trystan grumbled. “How on earth am I meant to leave that sad sop in such a state? Listen here.” Trystan pointed toward the guvre. “I need to see that my apprentice has safely returned to her chambers, but I will return when I am through if there is time before I go to sleep.”

The animal whimpered again, and Alexander hopped off Trystan’s shoulder and toward the sign he’d left discarded on the ground, scribbling a word as quickly as he could.

Me?

Trystan’s eyes softened. “You’d check on her for me, Alexander?” His throat bobbed. “Perhaps that’s for the best. I’m afraid of what I might do if I see her right now.”

Alexander couldn’t erase and rewrite fast enough. The joke didn’t land the way it would if he could just speak it aloud. But he did it anyway.

Kiss?

“No!” Trystan yelled. “No kiss! There will be no more kisses.”

Alexander slowly lifted his sign.

Liar

Alexander blinked. Trystan blinked back. The guvre whimpered again, and that seemed to snap The Villain back to himself. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he stalked for the enclosure and slid down the wall nearest the bars, begrudgingly patting the guvre’s snout.

The animal calmed, instantly purring into his hand. “Check on Sage and then return to me at once, Alexander.” Trystan whispered his command, and Alexander nodded, hopping toward the stairs leading away from the cellars.

But as Alexander ascended, his surroundings began to muddle. He was hungry. The floor was cold. He needed warmth. Hopping at full force until he reached a brighter room, he leaped for the window ledge, searching for a sun that wasn’t there.

Unsure of his original path. He’d been doing something. He’d been someone before this moment, but everything was fading. Everything he was seemed to be, too.

And then the frog was no longer confused.

Because he was just a frog.





Chapter 22


Gideon


Gideon wasn’t certain his old friend at the Valiant Guard barracks could be trusted, but it would indeed be a boon to their scheme if they had someone to aid them on the inside.

If they were to have any chance of stealing back the female guvre, Gideon would need to provide a map of the place, but a map was fruitless if they didn’t know what part of the Gleaming Palace their rescuee resided in…if they had even brought the animal to the Gleaming Palace in the first place.

But that speculation was far too much negativity for so early in the morning. “Good day, Mother.” Gideon peeked his head into his mother’s open chamber door. He’d taken special care to keep an eye on her since her return, and she’d appeared glad for it. Clearly trying to make up an unnecessary debt for “killing him.”

Which she had not actually done, so said debt should be null and void for all intents and purposes. “Gideon, hainasi.” My life. She kissed his cheeks and smiled. “I had such a wonderful day with Lyssa yesterday.”

Gideon’s eyebrows shot up to salute his forehead. “That is rather good news. I do hope the wonderful part began after you nearly burned her like a week’s end roast.”