Accomplice to the Villain (Assistant and the Villain, #3)(53)
Chapter 34
Evie
When Evie entered her and Lyssa’s chambers that night, she was struck by a scene that appeared plucked from her own memories.
Her mother was in the corner of the room with Lyssa, pointing out the window. “There, sitting right on the top of that roof.” She had one arm around Lyssa and sat with her casually, the two of them the perfect portrait of mother and daughter.
And Evie felt a stab of envy so strong, she sucked in a breath against the rush of it.
Don’t covet opportunities for Lyssa that you never got, Evie!
Even if it hurt.
“What are you two doing?” Evie asked, lightening her voice so it wasn’t weighed with the force of a deep-seated bitterness. She was successful.
Nura smiled at Evie, patting the cushion of the window seat beside her. “Come see, hasibsi. Blue butterflies, two of them! Do you remember how we used to watch them together on the flower bush your father planted?”
Evie did remember. She also remembered that often, before those sweet moments, her mother would have spent weeks buried deep in one of her depressive episodes. Evie had watched those butterflies then with a sick worry that one wrong move would force her mother back into another sadness.
Her words just now had to be so careful. Happy. Upbeat.
Make it easier for Mama, Evie.
It had been her first command to herself.
Tucking her hair behind her ears, Evie moved to the washbowl in the corner of the room and splashed cold water on her face. When she dabbed a towel across her cheeks, she found her mother frowning at her. “Are you all right, Evie? Is there something I can help you with? The magical specialist won’t be here for another hour.”
Evie shook her head so fast she thought it might fly off her neck and clear out the window. “No, Mama.” Becky had hired a full-time magical specialist to work with Evie’s mother daily to ensure she could control and maintain her magic. “Please just focus on getting better and taking care of yourself.”
Nura smiled and glided across the room with an elegance that Evie had tried to emulate every day of her childhood. She laid a soft, golden-brown hand against Evie’s cheek, her beautiful brown eyes lined with kohl that made them appear deeper. “You are a wonder, sweet girl.”
Evie forced another smile, and Lyssa frowned, scrambling off the seat and running toward Evie, taking one of Evie’s hands in hers. “What about me? I don’t need to rest. Can I help you?”
The smile on Evie’s face turned true as she leaned down and tugged one of her sister’s braids. “Lyssa, can you grab me those notes that were left for you to go meet Papa in his cell?”
The words had barely left Evie’s mouth before her sister skittered across the floor, her socked feet causing a half run, half slide along the wood to one of the dressers. “Here!” Lyssa said triumphantly, running toward Evie and waving them in the air. “Did you figure out who wrote them?”
Evie gripped the papers and looked at the handful of scrawled words, unfamiliar as any she’d seen. “Not yet, love, but I think we’re getting close.”
Nura squeezed Evie’s arm, and she didn’t have time to brace for it; she winced away from her mother’s touch. Shit. The hurt in her mother’s eyes was plain as she pulled her hand back to her side, looking at the floor. “I know that I—I haven’t done much to earn your trust, but I’d like to help carry some of your burden, Evangelina. I want to make things easier for you in any way I can.”
No. No, she couldn’t deal with this now. Evie simply did not have the time to dredge up everything darkening her beliefs, one painful thought at a time. “That’s, um…very kind of you to offer, Mama.” She smiled as brightly as she could manage, and it made her stomach feel sick.
Stop faking it for other people. No one is asking you to. What is wrong?
Trystan’s direct analysis of her character commanded her attention as if he was presently speaking the words into her ear. He would tell her to stand up for herself, and why shouldn’t she? Everything she’d ever feared came true, even when she was careful. She was sick of being careful, sick of being scared. It felt well past time for her to embrace simple, reckless courage.
“Lyssa, why don’t you go up to the kitchen to check on Edwin?”
Lyssa’s shoulders dropped. “You’re trying to get me to leave, aren’t you?”
“Well…yes,” Evie admitted, not having it in her to lie. “But I would like you to check on Edwin. He’s been down today, and I know a visit from you would lift his spirits. That part is true.”
Lyssa looked between her mother and Evie, waving Evie down to whisper something in her ear. “I love you.” Her little sister squeezed her hand, looking far too wise for a ten-year-old, then skipped out the door.
And then they were alone. Evie and Nura. It had never been just the two of them, not truly, since they’d reunited, and the silence might as well have been exchanged for Evie’s screams of frustration. Must she lead them through this?
A horrible thought filled her with guilt. Her brother and mother had returned to her life. There was a time when she would’ve given anything for that to be her reality. For her family to be whole again.
But she’d been romanticizing it, romanticizing them. She’d stared at their empty chairs at the kitchen table over the last ten years, missing them, trying to remember them. She’d daydreamed of them both returning miraculously one day, hoping that it had all been a mistake and they would never leave her again. It had never occurred to her, in all those daydreams, that if they did return, nothing would have changed.