Something in his tone had changed, and when his large frame moved into the office, for the first time in her life, Evie felt nervous in her father’s presence.
“But it’s blue ink,” Evie pressed, feeling like the room was spinning suddenly. “It’s incredibly rare; why would you want it?”
“It’s useful for reading documents.” There was a coldness in his words, and though his mouth was tipped up in his normal friendly smile, Evie saw a flat, lifeless glimmer in his blue eyes that turned her blood cold. “What are you trying to say, my dear?”
“If I look in this desk,” Evie said, hand hovering toward the drawer, “what will I find?” Even as she asked it, she scoured her mind for any other explanation. This was her father. There had to be one.
“Evie.” Griffin Sage laughed, but it was a sound she’d never heard from him before. A laugh with no humor.
“What. Will. I. Find?” she pressed.
Both their eyes darted to her hand on the top drawer. Evie moved quickly.
She ripped open the drawer just as Griffin barreled toward her, knocking into furniture on his way. Evie shoved the large chair toward him as she reached in to rip the papers out. She ran for the door, but she only made it halfway.
Her father yanked on the back of her hair, prickling pain burning her scalp as she cried out. “Let them go,” he hissed in her ears. “Do not make me hurt you, child.”
“You’re already doing that,” Evie cried out, the pain nothing compared to the betrayal coursing through her. Evie shoved the heel of her boot into his shin as hard as she could, the small stiletto hitting bone and making a satisfying crack. He released her on a howl of pain as he crumpled to the floor, and she leaped for the door once more. Throwing it closed behind her, she managed to bar it with a chair in the entryway just in time for it to begin shaking under her father’s pounding fists.
“Let me out. This instant!” he ordered.
“Shhh,” Evie called, anger coming hard and fast. “You’ll wake Lyssa. And I know you’d never want to harm one of your children, would you, Papa?” She swallowed down the hurt, the betrayal, and returned her eyes to the papers in her hands.
But they were her papers, her handwriting, from her notebook.
“You’ve been using the ink to spy on me,” she said, tears burning her eyes as she looked at every piece of damning evidence. She leafed through the pages of her words, so carefully written. She had been so innocently oblivious to the fact that her father was reading every word.
But she froze again when she found another letter in the mix. This time in an unfamiliar hand, but the name—oh, the name, she knew.
“King Benedict,” Evie whispered, her heart falling to her feet, her face heating and black spots appearing over her vision. “You’ve been working for the king?” This would drown her. This most horrific of truths would bury her in a sea of despair with a current so strong it would drown her brutally.
The other side of the door was quiet for a moment before her father said, “Open the door, Evangelina, and I will explain.”
Evie hesitated for a moment, but she needed to investigate his face when her father, the one person she trusted above all to keep her safe and protected, told her that he had damned her.
She said only one thing after moving the chair and opening the door carefully. “Did you plant the bomb?”
He looked stunned by her question before backing slowly into his office, finding the pushed-aside chair, and taking a seat.
Evie stalked in after him, moving to stand over in the corner closest to the door. “I’ll ask again. Just in case you did not hear me,” she said coldly. “Did you plant the bomb that almost killed me.”
Her words were sharp, fit to kill, and her father knew it. He looked at her like he didn’t recognize her—well, that made two of them.
He took a deep sigh before pressing his hands to his temples. “Yes. I did.”
“How—”
“You had the entry points written in the cursed journal. I relayed to King Benedict where to attack when necessary, to ensure your…employer…didn’t interfere.”
“With killing me!” she screamed.
“Hush!” the man she was beginning to no longer recognize hissed as he started to stand up, but he halted when he saw the flash of fear in her eyes. “You’ll wake your sister.”
“Afraid she’ll see what a monster you’ve become?” Evie asked, disdain dripping from every word.