The room was so quiet, a strand of hair could fall from his head and they’d all hear it brush against the stone. “And…” Trystan didn’t recognize his voice; it was higher pitched than he thought possible.
“I…I.” Clare looked at him, visibly holding herself to keep from shaking. “I didn’t think it mattered, I swear!”
“Spit it out, Clare!” Tatianna said, exasperated.
“His name was Griffin Sage,” she said finally.
Sage.
No.
But there was Kingsley at his feet, holding a sign: Father.
And suddenly it whooshed through him like a wave. The horror.
Tatianna finished his thought for him. “That’s… By the gods, that’s Evie’s father.”
“Oh my—” Rebecka’s head whipped up from her desk. “Her notebook.” She stood and stalked over to Evie’s desk. “Where is it?” She ducked down, digging through her drawers.
“She always takes her notebook home,” Tatianna said, confused.
Becky pulled an ink vial out with a determined strike, nearly shattering it. “Evie and I were having one of our…friendly chats. I may have said something about her ordering subpar office supplies, and she bragged about her father gifting her this special ink.”
The vial was a vibrant purple, almost artificially so.
“When was that, Rebecka?” The Villain stalked over, grabbing the vial out of her hands and passing it to Clare.
“About a week after she started working here, sir.”
“When the ink was purchased,” Clare confirmed, hand once again wrapped around her mouth, eyes wide with surprise. She turned the bottle over and nodded, tears watering her eyes. “This ink has been dyed. Someone mixed a few drops of red ink in here to make it look purple, but it’s blue and contains all the magical properties.”
Becky nodded, looking right at Trystan. Her hazel eyes were serious and resigned. “Whatever Evie wrote in her book, her father was able to see it. Our plans, our safe houses, even how to get in and out of the manor undetected. She was always writing everything down.”
“Her father tricked her,” Trystan said, his voice devoid of all life, though in his heart, a tiny flicker of hope that Evie had been unaware of her father’s machinations started to grow. “He knew she worked here all along, and he used her.”
Since The Villain had met Evie, he had felt himself changing in new ways, perhaps even better ones. But now he didn’t feel better. He felt destructive.
“Let’s calm down,” Clare said, putting a hand on his tensed arm. “He’s her father, Trystan. Perhaps there’s another explanation.”
“He put a bomb in my desk.” He attempted to keep his words level, but the last three came out in a roar. “He nearly killed her— He would have killed her.”
And now she was there, alone with him.
“Fuck,” The Villain growled, breaking for the stairs just as thunder roared to life outside. He halted in his tracks for a moment, listening to the rain whip against the window. “One of you go make sure this isn’t because a guvre once again found themselves outside of their cage. Tatianna, you’re with me.”
He continued quickly for the exit as Tatianna called after him, “And what are you going to do?”
The Villain gripped the door, taking a deep, aching breath. “I don’t know yet.” He tore it open and stomped out, whispering harshly under his breath, “But I know who I want to kill.”
Chapter 54
Evie
Evie stood frozen over the parchment, blinking at the words. But no matter how many times her eyes shut and reopened, her mother’s name remained. Nura Sage.
She picked up the parchment with shaking fingers, the paper crinkling under her grasp. The ink was smudged, so there were few words she could make out, but the ones she could see were devastating.
Sorry. Please. I miss them.
When she saw Gideon’s name, she threw the paper down, unable to take any more. It knocked over her father’s inkpot, spilling the contents onto his desk.
Evie cursed under her breath as she picked up both inks that had spilled, one red and one—
Blue?
“What are you doing in here, Evangelina?” Her father’s smooth voice carried in from outside the door.
She froze, head hovering over the desk, ink staining her fingers. She had been caught literally red-handed. “What is this?” Evie whispered quietly, picking up the letter and the nearly empty inkpot.
“It’s ink for my letters,” he said flatly. “You shouldn’t be in here.”