Accomplice to the Villain (Assistant and the Villain, #3)(56)

Tatianna chuckled and slid over to the closed door next to Evie. “We will keep your confidence, Rebecka. I swear it. Say what you need to say.”

Horrific, foolish idea. “I think that I am infatuated with…with Blade.” There. She’d said it, the sky hadn’t fallen, and all her limbs were still intact. For now.

Evie jumped and clapped. “I knew it! You have a crush! This is marvelous!”

“Stop jumping, you one-woman circus show,” Becky growled, pointing a warning finger at her.

Evie stopped, looking properly chastised. Tatianna was observing, a serene smile on her face that was almost worse than Evie’s zealous excitement. “I do not have a crush. I have an infatuation—they are entirely different things.”

Tatianna blinked. “In what respect?”

“Crushes are for children.”

“I have crushes all the time,” Evie objected.

Becky waved a hand at her. “See.”

Tatianna laughed, and Evie stuck her tongue out.

“Real mature, Evie.”

Evie dipped into a mock curtsy. “My goal is never maturity. I’m not that jaded yet.”

Becky put her hands over her face. “Oh, gods, I don’t even know why I bothered to ask.”

Tatianna pulled her hands away from her face. “Rebecka, are you perhaps trying to seek counsel on how to pursue your…infatuation?”

“No,” she said firmly.

Evie lifted a brow. “No?”

“No!” Rebecka yelled and then went silent.

One second passed, then two, then three.

Evie clicked her tongue. “Yes?”

Becky threw her hands up and then back down. “Yes! Are you happy? I can’t speak to Roland about this because then he will tell Reid, who will then tell Raphael, and then I will have to move kingdoms and change names.” Her eyes widened when it hit her. “Again!”

Tatianna poured tea into a small teacup and handed it to her. It was still magically warm despite it not sitting anywhere near a stove. “Before you claim another alias, why don’t we have a friendly chat and see if it helps?”

“Shirley,” Evie said, tapping her chin.

Tatianna and Becky both stared at her. “What?” they asked in unison.

Evie looked between them. “Shirley would be a fun alias. It means meadow… Never mind, go on.” She smiled sheepishly, and Becky was plagued with an annoying level of tender feelings of friendship for the human cannonball.

“I’ve worked hard to make myself strong enough to combat my brothers, to combat the men in the office who doubted my caliber when I assumed my position. I’ve made myself so impenetrable to affection, I’m afraid that I’ve forgotten how to receive it. Or…how to give it.”

Evie’s eyes softened. “Oh, Becky. You haven’t.”

“What do you mean? How can you be so sure?”

“Look at your hands.”

Becky squinted down at them, turning her hands palm up and back around. There was nothing but a pink flower that had been painted on her by Lyssa earlier that morning while Becky was sorting through paperwork. “What? The paint?”

Evie gave her a look that suggested Becky’s hopelessness, but instead of admitting to it, she merely picked up Becky’s hand and made her look at the flower again. “Aside from me, you’ve been kinder to my little sister than any other adult in her life. She adores you.”

Becky felt her cheeks heat and hated the burst of elation at the compliment. “Lyssa is an easy audience.”

Tatianna scoffed. “She locked Clare and me in a cupboard! I’d hardly call her easy.”

Becky clapped a hand over her mouth to trap the inappropriate laughter. “She, um, she should not have done that, certainly.”

The healer picked up another potion bottle, one in a funny shape and the color of melted gold. It clanged against the others as she placed it into a bag. “I admire her audacity, and I am not without my own issues when it comes to romantic entanglements. Seeing as I am still foolishly in love with my ex-betrothed.” Tatianna leaned against the wall by the window and slowly sank to the ground. Becky walked over to join her, and Evie did, too.

The three of them sat quietly side by side. Becky had to admit, it was a companionable silence.

“Clare still loves you.” Becky broke the quiet. “It’s obvious every time she looks at you.”

Tatianna rubbed at one of her eyes, and some of the pink glitter on her lid was transferred to the back of her hand. “You are probably right. And at one point in our lives, that would’ve been more than enough. But adulthood brings with it far too many complications to untangle.”

Tatianna took hold of one of Becky’s hands, and Evie took the other.

“In any case,” Tatianna added, “enough about me.” She looked at Becky expectantly.

“I don’t know how to flirt,” Becky blurted, and Evie’s head now whipped around to look at her, too. “I have no idea how to be charming or witty without being scathing, and every time I talk to Blade I lose all my faculties. That’s why I came to you two.”

Tatianna furrowed her brow and held up a hand, mock whispering behind it. “Have you seen Evie attempting to speak to Trystan? She doesn’t just lose her faculties—she loses her mind.”