But it was too late to listen to small voices when her own was screaming at her, LOOK INSIDE THE DESK. IT’S NOT LIKE THE FROG WILL TATTLE.
“Ugh,” she muttered, the word echoing in the quiet as she rubbed her head. When she walked closer, her nerves steeled themselves, despite the odd sense of satisfaction at finally finding the source.
She bent low, the skirts of her dress brushing the floor. Reaching a hesitant hand up, Evie grasped a small, cool object, carefully bringing it out and holding it up for inspection. The clicking was now screeching at her, though the object itself looked very unassuming.
Turning it over, Evie’s moment of victory was fast replaced with overwhelming fear.
“Of course,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady. Sighing a ragged breath tinged in annoyance, she said to only herself: “Of course it’s a bomb.”
Chapter 8
Evie
Everything seemed to move slower at first. The air stilled along with her as she stared down in abject horror at the little device sitting against her palm.
Then her heart began to catch up on the moment of impending doom, and she felt it pound so hard that she gasped for breath. Her free hand flew up to clutch at her chest, begging it to slow. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t do anything.
The device was gold and rectangular, a tiny timepiece dangling lightly off the bottom. With a shaking gentleness, Evie moved her hand to turn the round timepiece over. When her eyes found what they were looking for, her already cold blood froze solid, binding her stiffened limbs tightly together.
Three minutes. Only three minutes before the small gold-tipped arrows pointed to the twelve on the top.
A ringing began in her ears, one so piercing that it made her want to throw the device to the ground and squeeze both of her hands to the sides of her head. A ragged breath escaped her lips along with a light sob.
She was hysterical and—
She was wasting time.
Get rid of it!
She clutched the device, peeking at the timepiece once more.
Two minutes and thirty seconds left.
She thought about tossing it out the window, but Blade and the dragon trained directly below The Villain’s office window, so that option was out. Maybe if she could contain the blast, perhaps she could spare just a few people. Keep the castle standing at the very least. She looked up to see Kingsley watching her with a new word on his tiny sign. Run.
Throwing the doors open with one hand, Evie exploded into the main office space, ignoring the people stopping to stare at her. A few caught sight of the device in her pale fingers and gasped, diving out of her way as she searched for a place to get rid of the thing.
A voice, which under different circumstances would grate at her, grounded her in its familiarity. “The parapet!”
Evie turned toward Becky, who’d swung the door to the outside open, waving her hands frantically for Evie to move.
And move Evie did.
She burst into a sprint and ran into the cool, open air, huffing a quiet “thank you” to the woman as she passed. Evie had to have been in some sort of adrenaline fog, because she thought she saw concern on Becky’s pinched face.
The heat of the summer sun hit the top of Evie’s head—the first time it had appeared from behind the clouds all morning. Her heart was racing, her skirts kicking up around her with each furious step. The device remained cool in her hands, despite her rising body temperature, the ticking a cruel reminder.
You want the ticking! she reminded herself. No ticking means you’re dead!
If she could just get to the end, she could send the device over the small rise at the end of the parapet. She could save the manor, or most of it, at least. More importantly, she could save the people inside.
Had the parapet always been this long? It felt like she wasn’t even close to the end. She pushed her legs to the brink and ran harder, watching her destination grow closer and closer. Still not fast enough, she impossibly pushed herself farther, nearly reaching the end when— No!
The stiletto heel of her boot snagged beneath a loose cement block, bending her ankle unnaturally as she stumbled.
Evie watched in horror as the bomb slipped from her fingers, sailing through the air. Watched it soar up, high, high enough that it skimmed the top of the stone rise, but it didn’t make it over. It clanged down, landing far too close to keep her from the blast.
“Oh gods,” Evie whispered, diving to remove her heel from the hole it was now wedged into. Her breathing was so short that her vision began to blur, the tips of her fingers beginning to bleed from scraping against the rough surface of the brick where the heel of her boot was stuck.
But it wasn’t budging. Realization hit like a cool mist. She turned toward the opposite end of the parapet, toward the doors at the other end.
This is it. She’d never make it in time.
She had forgotten to hug Lyssa before she sent her off to school that morning, had of course assumed she would get another chance. She’d yelled to her father that she loved him, but had he heard her? Did he know?
A different face flashed in her mind—her boss, The Villain. Evie couldn’t believe she was leaving him when he needed her most. Who would make him begrudgingly smile now?
As a lone tear ran down Evie’s face, she thought that must be the saddest thing of all.
Chapter 9
The Villain
A little while earlier…
Trystan pushed his way through the western side of Hickory Forest. There were rockier mountains in this part of the kingdom, so it was easy to get turned around.
Even easier to hide.
Or at least that was what Trystan had thought when he’d started storing his safe houses below the mossy forest floor. His Malevolent Guards had dug small hideouts at various checkpoints along the textured ground, keeping his most valuable possessions dispersed throughout all of them.
Most of them contained stolen shipments that were sent to the king from the neighboring kingdoms. All allies looking to “aid” the king in his ongoing battle with the “dark figure” who had appeared nearly ten years ago to sabotage King Benedict’s reign.
Trystan’s lips ticked up in a smile. He loved his job.
When he’d started doing this all those years ago, he couldn’t have imagined the empire he’d build. All the people who would work for him, help him toward his goal.
To the people of Rennedawn, that meant interfering with the kingdom’s economy, slowly but surely leaving him and the rest of the kingdom impoverished. For Trystan, it meant ensuring King Benedict never got what he wanted, no matter the cost.
His Malevolent Guards had gotten better and better at intercepting shipments containing weapons, liquor, and wares, but he still sought something bigger, something that would derail everything Benedict held dear…
He shoved a branch out of the way, leaving his horse tied to a tree closer to the bottom of the hill. His magic coiled beneath his skin, like it sensed the danger he was approaching.
He hadn’t wanted to, but he’d left in a hurry that morning. A missive had arrived by one of his spies, or ravens as they liked to call themselves, letting him know urgently that another vital safe house had been compromised.
The frustration roared through him as he shoved the hair off his forehead. He approached the hidden door slowly, freezing when he caught the silver glint of the Valiant Guards’ armor.
Them. His anger rumbled and shook.
How had they found another safe house? The only people who knew their locations were his guards, who couldn’t give away his secrets even if they wanted to; Kingsley, who wouldn’t say a word for obvious reasons; and Sage, who said she’d torture someone for him.
And it was not the time to be thinking about that, not when Trystan saw one of his longest-standing guards lying face down in the copse of trees surrounding the entrance with a dagger in his back. More of his guards stood their ground, fighting the remaining knights, and he realized he’d asked them all here earlier that morning to load in extra cargo, out in the open, where they could easily be found.