Accomplice to the Villain (Assistant and the Villain, #3)(90)
No. Clare had also thought they were because of Trystan, for far longer than was forgivable. “I know that wasn’t all of it. I do. I just…”
“Can’t help but think things would’ve turned out differently?” Tatianna asked, propping Alexander up on the table. “They wouldn’t have. You know as well as I do that the problem wasn’t King Benedict, or The Villain, or even that I wanted to work for him.”
Clare licked her lips, sitting slowly on the plaid chair in a corner of the room. A small lantern just above her illuminated what was likely a defeated sheen in her eyes. “What else could it have been? I loved you.” Her voice cracked. “I love you. I have since before I was even old enough to know what that meant, but you were the one thing I’ve always wanted, the one person I want to be with every second of every day. Those years without you were”—she swallowed—“the worst of my life.”
Tatianna’s lip wobbled uncharacteristically, the confident set of her shoulders drooping as she came closer, taking the seat opposite Clare. “I thought that after I left, you’d come to the manor—that you’d come to me—but instead, you gave up.”
Clare’s eyes watered, and a hot streak of tears spilled down her cheek. “I didn’t give up. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was saving you from being stuck with me and my guilt.”
“Your guilt about what?” Tatianna questioned, reaching for her, but Clare pulled her hands away, not trusting herself to be touched, knowing she didn’t deserve it.
“I can’t.” Clare shook her head, hands trembling as she pushed them into her lap.
Tatianna’s gaze hardened. “It’s about your mother, isn’t it?”
Clare stood so quickly she knocked a glass from the side table, leaping back as it shattered hard against the stone floor, just missing a woven rug. “Why—why would you ask that?”
“Because she was the problem, Clare.” Tatianna stood, using her healer magic to sweep the glass pieces to the side the same way she used it to extract objects from beneath the skin. “For you, for Trystan, even for Malcolm. She was cold and cruel and forced you all to earn an affection she never had. Arthur was the only one who showed true devotion to any of you, but that didn’t undo what Amara had already wrought.”
Clare shook her head, her feelings so fragile she didn’t want to risk revealing them any further. But she couldn’t stop. “What is it you think she did?”
Tatianna’s hands came up to Clare’s cheeks, holding her face still, forcing Clare’s black eyes to her brown ones. “She made you and your brothers think the world is full of only right and wrong, good and evil. And because of it, Trystan’s decided that he can only be one thing, and you believe that, too.”
“You’re saying the world is gray and that she was wrong?” Clare sniffled.
Tatianna brought her lips to Clare’s forehead, gently pressing there until a sob leaked out of Clare’s lips. “Love, I’m saying that the world is full of color and your mother tried to take that from all of you.”
Clare leaned back as soon as Tatianna’s hands fell from her cheeks, trying to catch her breath, rubbing at her eyes. Not wanting to dwell in sadness any longer as she looked at her ex-betrothed, the woman who had been meant to be her wife, with steely resolve. “How do I get it back?”
Tatianna’s smile was no longer sad—it was hopeful and playful and everything they’d had before rolled into one. “Well… Wand!”
Clare blinked. “Is that a metaphor, or—?”
“No! Look!”
Clare followed Tatianna’s finger and the webbed toe Kingsley had pointed toward the other end of the room, and there, sticking out of a unicorn head mounted on the wall—fake, thank goodness—was a magic wand where the horn should be.
“Oh my gods!” Clare rushed for it, reaching to pull it out, but Tatianna stopped her.
“Don’t! Didn’t you just tell me to stop touching things? There could be enchantments on it. We can’t just pull it out!” Tatianna warned and then shuddered. “Oh, you forced me to be the responsible one. I’ll never forgive you.”
There was a moment of calm amusement as they both contemplated the wand, and then Kingsley wiggled free of the weight around his ankle.
The frog leaped upward, landing atop the wand and leaning his weight on it until the long piece of pure iridescent white fell to the floor with a clatter. Both women froze, their hands up like they were trying to cover themselves if the ceiling came tumbling down.
Clare exhaled. “Okay. I think we’re safe.”
But then the walls started shaking, knickknacks on the shelves rattling with them. “From growing old?” Tatianna quipped as a horrible creaking sound came from the corner. “That seems likely, yes.”
And then Clare realized that no, the ceiling was not tumbling down upon them.
But the walls…
The walls were closing in.
“Clare. Run. Now.” Tatianna shoved at Clare, and they sprinted at full speed down the hall, leaving the study behind them. The ground shook beneath them as they pushed faster and faster until they hit a dead end.
“Tati, move!” Clare cried, rushing past her, pulling a vial of orange ink from her pouch as the walls continued moving closer. The ink floated freely as she wielded it out of the vial, and then in one sweep of her hand, Clare seared the stone wall with the orange ink’s melting properties. The brick started to dissolve before them, slowly, as the walls closed in.