She angled her head at him, curious as to the concern creeping into the edges of his voice, like words bleeding through to the next page.
“Yes, I know the way. It’s brightly lit with lanterns and perfectly safe.”
He nodded before mounting the creature and looking down to her with an unreadable expression. “Thank you for coming with me tonight.”
She nodded, a grin pulling at her lips. “Of course, sir. It’s my job.”
He looked like he wanted to say more, but then his mouth shut tightly. With a sharp nod, he turned and rode on into the night, leaving her in the darkness.
But as Evie walked home, she couldn’t help feeling he was still nearby, keeping an eye out that she made it back safely. Or maybe that was just the fanciful thinking brought on by too much bad wine. Either way, it lightened her step and put a slight smile on her face.
Until she got home and realized that someone wasn’t just trying to kill The Villain. They had wanted to use his brother, someone close to him, to destroy him.
After she changed and climbed into bed, she lay for hours, her stomach twisting with one thought. Would this enemy try to use her next to get to him?
Chapter 15
Evie
The Villain never missed a sunrise when she was there.
Evie had decided to go into the office early that morning. Her week’s end had been spent in the village’s very small library. The dust had gone up her nose as she sifted through page after page, looking for anything she could find on magical ink, and further, on explosives. But the limited selection only had one book on magic.
Her village was small, so informative magical texts were harder to come by as the prices increased, and few people ever developed magic. Fewer still were magical specialists, the educators of the magical world. They were charged with documenting and assisting when someone’s magic awoke, helping them understand it. Evie wasn’t aware of any new magic users in her own village, but she knew nowadays having a specialist was a privilege not many outside the Gleaming City received.
The book she had managed to find in the sad excuse for a library was useless. All the information was general, things she knew just from listening to the people around her. The breaking point was when she came upon the last five chapters that summarized controlling your magic before it could control you.
Evie had shut it tight, placing it back on the shelf, ignoring the lingering feeling of her mother’s unruly presence. Magic hadn’t just controlled Nura Sage; it had destroyed her and in turn destroyed Evie’s sense of safety. Her childhood gone in the blink of an eye.
This is what you get for reading books with no naughty words in them.
The chirping of birds brought her back to her present, determined to make this day a good one.
Lyssa had spent the previous night at a friend’s house, and Evie’s father had been in such good spirits, she figured she could spare the extra time that morning for herself.
Her original plan was to wander for a while. The dark mist of the morning air had yet to abate, giving the atmosphere a crisp bite as she walked through it. But like a moth to a very bright flame, Evie’s aimless wandering led her right where she wanted most to be—at work.
You live a sad, sad life, Evie Sage.
She’d been here this early before, to help with odd tasks or check in weapons shipments to the manor. Evie looked down at her watch when she saw shooting colors of light begin to appear over the horizon. The office was expected to be full and bustling before the clock struck nine, and hers had yet to hit thirty minutes past five. Shaking her head, she touched the glittering barrier slowly forming under her fingertips, waiting for it to recognize the imprint of her palm, and swiftly entered the place she felt the most herself.
When Evie finally made it past the stairs of doom, she found her boss where he always was this early in the morning.
The grand balcony could be found just one floor below the main offices, and to Evie’s knowledge it was almost never used. Likely because it was accessed through the large training room for the guards and the rest of the staff. She imagined it was hard to find the time to enjoy the fresh air between brawls. Its large glass windows were clear, unlike the stained glass of the rest of the manor, lighting the space when the sun was well in the sky. The doors, plated against white wood, stood as tall as the high, vaulted ceilings, and unlike when she normally saw them, today they were flung wide open.
Evie had no way of knowing that this was how The Villain spent every morning. But the handful of times she found herself in this spot at this time, when the sun’s rays finally began to brush the gray stone railing, he was there.