Evie and her boss turned back toward the carriage. Kingsley was holding another of his signs, this one reading Halp.
The Villain reached back, quickly ripping the sign from the animal. “Give me that, you little traitor.” His words came out on a growl, which morphed quickly into a cough when he saw Evie’s and her sister’s amused expressions.
After dipping into a small curtsy, Lyssa spun on her heel, then ran back toward the edge of the house, where two other little girls waited. All of them giggled as they ran off.
“She’s in big trouble,” Evie said grumpily.
“Go easy on her—she’s young,” The Villain said diplomatically.
Evie turned toward him, planting her hands on her hips, a look of mock outrage on her face. “Aren’t you supposed to be evil?”
“Encouraging children to neglect their education fits under that bracket, does it not?” He tilted his head as if considering it.
Plucking a stray weed from the walkway and then another, Evie said, “Where did the name Trystan come from, anyway?”
“My mother, I imagine.”
Evie straightened like a rod, slowly dropping the weeds and coming to stand, staring at him with wide, unflinching eyes. “Are you saying…the name you just gave my younger sister…is your real name?”
Disbelief overrode her senses even further when he squinted in confusion. “There’s no need to overreact, little tornado. It’s just a name.”
“Like the deadlands it is!” she sputtered. Trystan. His name was Trystan Maverine.
“If you’re having some sort of episode, may I suggest you sit before you faint and crush the tulips?”
“You’re being far too casual about this. You just told a ten-year-old, who can barely lie about a fictitious school holiday, let alone the identity of my ‘employer.’” She began pacing up and down the walkway, trying to regain some of her equilibrium, but her frenzied brain was buzzing, keeping coherent thoughts out of focus.
“I shared a name. One that nobody else knows me by. My identity as ‘The Villain’ and as Trystan Maverine have never been connected.” His face was a mask of calm, his voice steady. “Nobody will know working for me means working for The Villain. Do not distress yourself.”
“I wasn’t worried about that,” she said. “I was worried about the danger it would put you in.”
His head reeled back as if she’d slapped him. “Do not take it upon yourself to worry about my safety, Sage. Your job is quite literally to ‘assist’ me in the areas I request. My protection, you will find, is not included on the list.”
“Fine. I won’t,” she huffed, turning in the direction of the front door, but her anger dissipated when she replayed his name once more in her mind. “Trystan?” She spun around.
Something about his name on her lips must have triggered an unpleasantness, because she caught sight of the fist of his ungloved hand tightening, his knuckles turning white.
“It’s really…Trystan?” She frowned.
“Do you dislike the name?” he asked dryly.
“No…it’s just…not what I expected.” She leaned back on her heels, noticing dark clouds coming over the horizon.
“I am going to regret this with an alarming intensity, but what were you expecting?” He had his head slightly leaned away, as if she was about to strike him.
Smiling crookedly, taking a step toward him, she dealt her first blow. “Fluffy.”
The response was beautiful.
His mouth gaped open like a fish. Opening and closing, trying to find the right words. But of course, there were none. She clasped her hands behind her back, waiting.
After a few moments of silence that for once Evie didn’t mind, he said, “Fluffy? You looked at me and thought to yourself, He looks like a Fluffy?”
The name in the rough gravel of his voice, which seemed to be getting higher pitched in his outrage, sent her tittering.
“Fluffy is a beautiful name. I had a dog named Fluffy once.” She nodded succinctly and then deadpanned, “He used to growl at lint.”
The noises coming out of him were not in any language she’d ever heard.
“I suppose Trystan is a fine substitution,” she continued. “I am, however, a little offended you trusted my sister with that information before you told me.”
He seemed to come back to himself then, shaking his head, looking a bit dizzy. “I didn’t think I needed to tell you. My real name is on a small plaque on my desk.”