Chapter 67
Evie
Night fell, and so did Evie’s hopes.
“Maybe it’s a misunderstanding,” she suggested as the boss stared out into the distant night sky.
“Maybe the lines of communication got blurred.” The rest of the crew had returned to their duties, the ship settling into a comfortable lull as it traveled along the Lilac Sea.
The sun’s descent had prompted the crew to light small lanterns around the ship, casting a warm glow over an otherwise dismal situation.
Trystan said nothing, which normally wouldn’t have deterred her. In fact, under the guise of their everyday interactions, Evie would have continued into a babbling session that spilled one or two inappropriate thoughts aloud, but her mind was unusually quiet.
And unusually filled with dread.
After a deep inhale, he addressed her, keeping his eyes on the horizon. “The ship’s cook is baking you a cake.”
She blinked. “A cake?”
He looked at her quizzically. “A birthday cake.”
“Oh.” She paused, rocking back and forth on her heels. “What flavor?”
“Vanilla.”
Her vanilla drop candies. It was one of the most popular flavors when it came to sweets, so there was no reason to suspect that was why he’d chosen it. But the way he gave her a sidelong, searching glance…she knew.
Evie reached out and gently squeezed his arm. She swore he flexed. Or tensed. Either way, there were muscles moving in delightful ways beneath her touch, and she was not one to complain about such things. “That was very kind of you, sir.”
“Don’t remind me.” He shuddered like kindness brought a level of disgust his body could not abide. “In any case, as far as birthdays go, this is a dismal one. The least I could do was mask it with something sweet.”
She leaned up to kiss his cheek, and he went so rigid she thought he’d crack right down the middle. “The cake wasn’t necessary—you’re sweet enough.”
“So, you thank me by being offensive?” he responded dryly.
One of the crew members began playing a jaunty tune on his harmonica, and two more followed with strange instruments Evie did not recognize. It was a playful and light melody that made her want to twirl in circles.
Folding her hands behind her back, she gave the boss a sly glance. “Well, if you’re so determined to celebrate my birthday, where is my present?”
He leaned away from her, sensing the danger in her question. But somehow it didn’t stop him from settling into a resigned, amused twinkle in his dark eyes. “Anything within my power.”
“Dance with me,” she whispered, like they were conspiring, like they were in one of their morning meetings planning a way for him to mess with Benedict, something specifically malicious.
The night air was pleasant, the breeze combing through her hair, and she smiled fondly at how content she suddenly felt. A few of the crew members were skipping along to the music, whistling, some already lost in their cups. Evie held up a hand expectantly, pouting ever so slightly.
Her boss hated pouting, she knew. She had once seen him nearly rip the lips right off a Valiant Guard during a torture session. Something about the vulnerability of it, Evie wagered to guess. Or perhaps it was just outward displays of emotion in general that discomfited him. No exceptions.
Except for Evie, of course, considering she had been in the middle of a mental breakdown when they met. He hadn’t hated her hysterics then.
In fact, he had hired her.
She pouted harder and with a blinking upward glance.
He held his ground for approximately—Evie had begun to count— 1, 2, 3, 4 …
“Little tornado,” he grumbled, taking her hand and tugging her toward the makeshift dance floor. “Chaos demon. Siren.”
“Add accomplice to that,” she said cheekily, smiling wide at his eye twitch.
“Two promotions within the month. Happy birthday to me.” She laughed, her hand settling on his shoulder, and then his came to rest lightly on her hip.
The touch was a perfectly gentlemanly one, but it made her whole body shiver.
His fingers tightened against her waist, holding her like she was a lifeline, and her body heated in response, wanting more, wanting him.
Everything in her was softening. “I’m just teasing. I know it was a slip of the tongue.”
He spun her then, and when she returned to his arms, their faces were much closer, her lips hovering just below his, his lids growing heavy as he stared. “Evie, I—”
She felt her cheeks burn bright. “Yes?”
His dark gaze was burning her from the inside out. “It wasn’t a slip… Happy birthday.”
She smiled, squeezing his hand. The one around her waist moved to her lower back, tugging subtly closer as she whispered back, “Thank you, Trystan.”
They spun in another circle and another.
A warm glow stayed around him like a beacon of safety…or a clear arrow pointing to her doom. Destiny had seemed to decide he was the latter. But Evie was so tired of people making decisions for her, about her.
You want to ruin my life, Destiny?
Get in line. I’ll call your number when the rest of my family has finished.
She laughed at her own joke and stepped on Trystan’s toes as a result.
He hissed, pulling her tighter against him, and took a stronger lead as he swept her around the boat in smooth turns.
“There. You are publicly humiliating me in front of a crew I’ve known since I was six, and you got to stomp on my toes.
I’d say my present ranks at the very top. ”
He didn’t stop dancing. Neither did she.
“I do not know. Lyssa’s card last year was hard to beat, plus Tatianna figured it out yesterday and snuck a bottle of wine into my pack.” She ticked each item off on her fingers. “Oh, and Marv packed me a ton of Edwin’s cookies for the road.”
“I do not want to be put up against Marv,” he replied with the smallest hint of offense.
Evie nodded sympathetically. “I wouldn’t, either, if I were you. He’s kicking your ass.”
In a whirlwind, she was spun, the black iridescent glitter skirt blurring in her vision, and then she gasped as she was dipped low. Trystan caught her, his face hovering over hers. Trapped in her sphere as she was trapped in his, an invisible force tugging the two of them closer and closer until—
A whistle broke them apart. She laughed, and he blushed.
For a split second, they were not Villain nor Assistant nor Apprentice nor Accomplice.
They were Trystan and Evie, exactly as they could’ve been in a different life, with rules that were fair and lives that were without pain, without struggles for power.
For another split second, Evie wanted that life. And in the next, she did not.
Who they were now was what she wanted; who they were now made her breaths easier, her steps lighter, her heart inflating until it felt too big.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked, searching for something in her expression that Evie was not sure of.
“You,” she said boldly—not blurted, not word-vomited in haste to answer a question. This was Evie unabashed, and she liked herself like this.
His eyes flared, his searching gaze turning deep, burning, wanting. It was too intense; the moment was becoming too real, making her heart pound and her skin prick and her breath quicken.
“I was thinking about how during my first week of work, I started sneaking in little figurines of cats and hiding them in different places to see how perceptive you actually were.”
Trystan’s voice was outraged. “I’ve never seen any cat figurines in the office.”
She giggled, and the snort following was so strong she nearly let go of his hands, and likely would have, if he had not tightened his hold to steady her. “No, you didn’t see any, did you?”
He fumed.
She smirked.
He fumed harder.
“What a wonderful birthday.” Evie swung her arms wide, turning in a spin, raising her hands into the air as she moved in circle after circle, the way she did when she was young, and it was fun to see the world tilting beneath her vision, not scary or dangerous.
She kept spinning until she was subtly moving away from the dance floor and into a secluded spot away from the noise.
Stopping to catch her breath and to quiet the rush in her head.
Trystan appeared at her elbow, scaring the living dragons out of her. “Sage.” He ignored her yelp, grabbing her arm and tugging her farther into the shadows. “I was not finished with you yet. I have something else I want to give you for your birthday.”
“A raise? Along with my new promotion? Since I’m now your accomplice?” she said with a teasing smirk.
“Very well. But that wasn’t what I was going to—” He was irritated at first, then paused for a moment, his features softening.
“Never mind that. I wanted to show you this.” He reached into his pocket and grabbed a crumpled piece of paper.
Evie half expected steam to come out of his ears when he finally caught on to the fact that she really wasn’t jesting.
He raked a hand through his hair, a bit of it standing almost straight up as he handed her the piece of paper.
Evie ran a finger lightly over it, unable to make out any words in the dim glow of the lanterns. “What is this?”
“It’s the letter Arthur wrote me after you rescued me from the Gleaming Palace,” he said, shoulders moving up and down in steadying breaths as he proceeded. “I read it.”
Her first instinct was joy—pride, even. When he had crumpled the letter in his fist, she’d thought he’d never open it again, and here he was telling her he had.
On his own. Her offer to be there for him while he read it dangled uselessly between them, and she had to box away the hurt so it wouldn’t touch him right now.
He deserved comfort, support, not her silly disappointed feelings over being excluded.
The difficulty with feelings was you could manage them, keep them at bay, but eventually they would return, and they would demand penance. Evie feared the day they came to collect on all the times she had shuttered them away.
She forced her features to soften, her lips curving. “That is wonderful, Trystan. I’m so proud of you.”
Reaching up her arms, she wrapped them gently around him, curling her fingers in his hair. He grew rigid, and she prepared for him to pull away from her, for him to reject the affection she offered, but the hesitation lasted but a moment, and in the next, his arms were closing around her.
She was the first to break the embrace, and when he realized this, he jolted back so fast he knocked his head against one of the lanterns.
“Ow!” He rubbed at the back of his head, grumbling, prickly as the thorny hedge in front of the manor.
“All I did was read a letter, Sage. It wasn’t so very difficult. ”
Her lips folded inward. “Wasn’t it?”
“It was merely drivel about how he was proud and how no matter what, I’d always be his son.” Scoffing, he planted his hands on his hips as he made for the railing overlooking the water. “Hardly anything groundbreaking.”
She could feel his defenses rising, the hackles going up, every barrier he had built to protect himself from others coming to the warfront. “No,” she said quietly. “There is nothing groundbreaking about someone loving you. It doesn’t surprise me a bit.”
His head turned to her so fast she thought it was about to roll off onto the deck like a wayward cricket ball. “Sage—”
She held up a finger. “No! No, you are not allowed to ruin this moment with something dismissive or naysayer-y.”
“That’s not a word.”
She ignored him. “One day in the future, when I am telling this story, I want to say that on my twenty-fourth birthday, I spent the evening on a ship that was pinker than a tulip, I danced with The Villain, and then I told him that he was easy to love, despite how much he wanted it to be difficult.”
Trystan held up a hand, not angry, just dumbstruck. “I do not want—”
Her hand closed over his mouth. The stubble prickled her palm, and the warmth of his lips sent goose bumps up her arm. His facial hair owned some magical quality—that could be the only explanation. He tried to mumble her name underneath her fingers, but it came out something like “Sigggg.”
Her arm fell to her side, and she waited for the fallout. Without even a helmet for protection.
He shocked her when he brushed one of her curls behind her ear, fingers grazing her cheek as they went, soft eyes looking at her like he had never seen anything as fascinating as what was in front of him.
“When you tell this story, you can also say that the moment The Villain read that letter, the first person he wanted to tell was you. The first person—” He swallowed, struggling with the words. “The first person he wants to tell anything has always been you.”
Her smile was big and bright and honest.
Real.
Trystan must have known, because he answered it with one of his own. So big and beautiful, his whole face changed into someone gentle, someone tenderhearted and open. And Evie made a simple vow to herself.
I will kill Benedict for trying to take this from him. If it’s my final act in this life.
“Well, I’m going to check on the cake.” Evie smiled, folding her hands behind her back, and slowly moved away, ignoring her instincts to get as close to him as possible.
“Very well.” Trystan’s grin faded. “Sage. I meant to ask—who exactly are you planning to share this story with?”
Evie flung her arms wide in a dramatic curtsy, faking exasperation. “Our children, obviously. Girls, I think. Two of them.”
She was joking, of course, but that did not mean she didn’t enjoy the way he paled, looking seconds away from fainting. “Girls. Two of them,” he repeated slowly, like it was happening, like she’d currently summoned the children just by mentioning it, like she was conjuring gremlins.
“Not to worry, sir!” Evie spun around, calling behind her as she strode away, head high. “They’ll probably be just like me!”
Yes, this was the best birthday she had ever had.
She just hoped it was not the last.