Her father smiled sadly at her, causing a dull ache to build in her chest. “It is painful even now, to think of what your mother did to your brother. What she could’ve done to you and Lyssa.”
“I don’t think she meant to hurt us that day, Papa.” After her mother had given birth to Lyssa, their mother’s magic awoke in a flurry of divine light. Nura Sage had been blessed by the gods with the power of starlight. A magic so pure and rare, when the magical specialist came to assess her, he’d brought tidings of joy from King Benedict himself. But what was supposed to be a divine blessing became their family’s very downfall.
The months that followed Lyssa’s birth were filled with unending sadness. Their mother’s magic seemed to drain every ounce of life from her; even the color in Nura Sage’s cheeks had disappeared. Evie’s father had urged her to distract her mother, lighten her load. Gideon had needed to focus on his schoolwork—something Evie would’ve liked to do as well, but Gideon hadn’t known that. He was the sort of brother who would give you his toy if he saw you wanted to play with it. Evie knew he’d give up too much for her if she asked, so she never did.
And then everything got worse.
“I hate even thinking of that day.” Her father’s face twisted into a bitter expression before relaxing. “I was working when your mother dragged you three to the dandelion fields, and I regret going in early that morning every day of my life.”
Evie’s mother had Lyssa in a sling around her neck the day she finally got out of bed. Her eyes had been crazed, but she’d looked alive. It was why Evie and Gideon had agreed to go on a morning stroll with her to what had been their favorite spot before Lyssa was born. Her mother had looked so beautiful. Her bronzed skin glistened against the rising sun, her eyes lined with kohl and lips rouged with red.
“She wanted to play with her magic. That was all,” Evie said so quietly, it was practically a whisper.
Their mother had made the dandelions glow, had made the light move like the plants moved with it. She’d held a ball of starlight in her hand and begged Gideon to go catch it.
Evie had watched her brother run past the field, seeing too late that the small ball of light was getting larger and larger. Nobody knew what was happening until Gideon’s screams enveloped the field and scorched ground took his place.
“She murdered your brother, Evie,” her father said with a ferocity that made her want to cower.
She had. It hadn’t been on purpose, Evie was sure of it, but it happened. He’d died right there, and Evie had collapsed to the ground in a fit of shocked screams. She’d gripped the ground with both hands, not looking up until she heard Lyssa’s cries. Her baby sister had been set beside her in the sling from her mother’s neck.
And her mother was gone.
Closing her eyes tight, Evie sighed out a heavy breath, willing her heart free from the vise it was currently in. “Do you hate her, Papa?”
A singular tear rolled down her father’s rough cheek. “Some days, I wish I did.” He pulled the medallion from the inside of his shirt and rubbed it between his fingers. “She gave me this when we first met. I keep it close because, despite myself, I miss her.”
“I do, too, sometimes.” She missed her mother’s laugh and the way the house always felt warmer with her inside it, but mostly she just missed the before.
Before life became harsher, before circumstances grew desperate, before Evie had irrevocably changed. Who was she before the last ten years?
Her father seemed to be contemplating the same question. “But it’s also a reminder, Evie, to protect your heart, for it so easily can be broken.”
Thoughts of Trystan, The Villain, clouded her mind. She wondered how long she would’ve kept the secret if she hadn’t quit, wondered how many times she could look at the people she cherished most in this world and deceive them.
It reminded Evie of a vase Lyssa had knocked off the windowsill a few years prior, how the two Sage daughters had sat side by side, gluing the pieces back together.
But that effort had been useless in the end.
A month or two after that, Evie bumped into it, knocking it over once more, shattering it a second time.
“Can we fix it?” Lyssa had asked. “With the paste?”
“No, love.” Evie had sighed. “It’s hard enough to put something back together once. A second time, I’m afraid, is far too much to hope for.”
They’d thrown the pieces away.
Her head and heart fixated on that moment until her breathing grew shallow and sweat stuck to her hairline. Too many lies. It was one thing to be living a double life but another altogether where she wasn’t trusted, as if her opinions and her confidence weren’t worthy.
Constantly fighting for a place, one that feels important, was the single most exhausting task Evie had ever given herself.
And she was exhausted; she felt it in the ache of her limbs and the weight of her eyelids as she laid back against the comfortable chair and closed her eyes.
Sometime later, the sound of her father’s groan startled Evie awake. She bolted from her seat and leaned over him. His eyes were closed, and his complexion was dull and colorless. “Papa?”
“Worry not. It hasn’t taken me yet.” Her father smiled lightly, opening his light-blue eyes.
“That isn’t funny, Papa.” They both laughed anyway, and Evie reached for his hand, bringing it up to kiss the back of it.
Her father was strong. After her brother died and her mother left, he did his best to keep busy at the butchery, ensuring that his remaining two children never wanted for anything. They saw less of him at home, but that had been fine. He’d hired a private tutor for Evie so she could stay away from the school and avoid conversing with the other girls in her village who reminded her of her past, girls Evie no longer seemed to have anything in common with.
Tragedy did that to a family, isolated them. Her father seemed the only one who still felt comfortable among the living, his many friends in the village by his side, comforting him in the months and years to come. As for Evie, she had been content to live with the ghosts.
Lyssa had grown up to be a social butterfly, enchanting every person she set her eyes on, untouched by the tragedy she witnessed as an infant, and Evie had remained just as she was. Odd.
Always saying the wrong thing, her mind and thoughts not built for polite company. It caused Evie such pinched worry with every interaction that she’d eventually stopped trying, had stopped living.
It had only worsened when her father grew ill. More of an excuse to bury herself in a job than actually letting herself be a person. Until she had begun working for The Villain.
It was ironic that a man who dealt with so much death seemed to have brought her back to life, but now it was over. Evie would slowly regress backward until every part of her burned to ash, like blackened dandelions.
Tears burned, but Evie blinked them back and smiled wide for her father. “Everything’s all right,” she said, echoing the words she’d spoken to Lyssa in that field of burned-up wishes all those years ago.
Everything was all right.
Chapter 22
The Villain
“What in the deadlands is this?”
The small man shook as he took cautious steps away from Trystan’s desk. “It’s— It’s cauldron brew, sir.”
He gripped the silver chalice containing the foul black liquid.
No cream, no sugar, none of Sage’s ridiculous attempts to make faces with the milk. It was all wrong.
“I did not ask for cauldron brew,” he said darkly.
“Of course, sir, but, um, you did say to me ten minutes ago, ‘Get me a cup of brew immediately, Stuart, or I will rip the skin from your bones.’”
Ah, yes, he had said that, hadn’t he? He’d thought he’d forego the brew until he could sneak some milk into it, but by noon he had a splitting headache and had grown desperate.
“I do not want this swill—take it from my sight this instant!” He stood, shoving the cup at the terrified man, who just barely caught it before he scurried from the room.