Chapter 73
Evie
They were halfway through digging when Evie heard steps coming down the pebbled path. “Trystan,” Evie hissed, throwing her shovel in one of the butterfly bushes, pulling at his arm. “Someone’s coming.”
“Oi! There you are. I managed to find you a right pretty frock, that I did!” the guard started.
Then: “Hey! What are you doing?” His bushy brows were pushed together, a sneer on his lips.
He made it three steps toward them before something struck his head, knocking him out cold.
Standing behind him, rock still raised in his hand, was a man, staring at the rock like it was the one that had done the swinging.
“Kingsley!” Evie cried, grabbing his hands and hugging him. “That was a wonderfully timed rescue.”
Alexander Kingsley bowed, his borrowed cloak covering a white linen shirt, the fabric wrinkling when he bent. “I’m happy to be of service…for my friends.”
“Are the others already here?” Trystan asked.
Kingsley waved his hands around with a reassuring smile. “No, I followed when you two went overboard.”
“I didn’t go overboard,” Evie corrected pleasantly. “I jumped.”
Trystan sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Yes. We’re all aware.”
“I knew someone once who sighed like that,” Evie observed seriously. “She was a mother of five.”
Kingsley snorted, and Trystan turned his gaze on her. There was a warning in it that excited her. A dare. “Shall I help dig while you two—”
Trystan stared at him darkly; Kingsley took the hint and the shovel, getting to work.
Evie felt calmer knowing the guard was…out of the way and truly took in the memorial garden of Rennedawn.
It was beautiful. Rosebuds formed on a brightly green bush, trees of every shape and every color creating a canopy above them.
Plants she’d never seen before sprouted up from the grounds, near the fountains, atop the birdbaths. It was peaceful.
A place to rest.
Evie sat next to the tree and allowed the boys to dig, holding her knees and searching for peace within herself, within her magic. She wondered if there would ever be a time she did not have to put so much effort into it. She was tired of being resilient.
But Evie reminded herself that there was no shame in resting before you took on the world. Maybe she need not always earn it.
“What’s your favorite memory with Arthur?” Evie asked, weaving blades of grass between her fingers.
Trystan stopped shoveling for a moment and began to chuckle to himself. “He caught me trying to run away from home once.”
Kingsley chuckled, too. “I remember that. An interesting five minutes.”
“It was fifteen minutes,” Trystan corrected, looking delightfully boyish in his embarrassment. “I made it all the way down to the beach before he caught me.”
She was going to split a lip for how wide her mouth was pulling. “How old were you?”
“Six.” Trystan struggled through another shovelful of dirt.
“He ran me down before I could get on a raft that no doubt would have sunk. And dragged me back to the beach. He…he didn’t ask why I wanted to leave, and he didn’t use his Core Healer magic to fix what I was feeling.
He told me—he told me he’d be deeply saddened if I left. That he’d miss me.”
Trystan swallowed, and Kingsley turned his head away, but Evie saw how red his eyes had grown.
“He loved you,” Evie said softly, feeling a pang for the loss of someone so good-hearted.
Trystan sniffed. “He— He wasn’t a perfect man. But he was someone I used to wish very much…to be like.”
Kingsley’s voice was gruff. “You’re all the best parts of him. That, I know.”
“What about you, Alexander?” Evie asked softly.
Kingsley gave a shaky smile, putting the shovel down for a moment to think. “That’s too hard. He was always so welcoming to me. I always had a home in this village. He was a man who created warmth for everyone around him. Even when they didn’t deserve it.”
Evie was humbled, seeing the impact of one man. The lives he’d touched, the stories he’d altered with a gentle hand. How one life could touch so many, how no soul need be wasted, and how every act of goodness would live on even after they departed this world.
It was a privilege to witness. A life well lived.
Kingsley had stopped talking, too choked up to go on, and the men continued to dig at a brisk pace until they hit something that sang against their metal shovels.
“You’ll have to be sure you get all the pieces.” Evie stood, watching them uncover the box. When its smooth black surface was cleared of dirt, Trystan jumped down into the hole to extract it.
“Sage?” Trystan’s tone was light, his eyes soft as he stared up at her. “Remember how Clare assumed Arthur had no idea what the glass pieces were?”
Evie grimaced. “Yes?”
“We were wrong.” He stepped to the side and revealed the stained glass window from the book of Rennedawn, recreated in perfect likeness. Except the field of flowers was even more detailed, dandelions scattered about the air, as the two figures reached for each other.
“We did it.” Trystan gaped. “We can fulfill the prophecy.”
Alexander Kingsley stared at the large pieces of glass in disbelief. “You— It’s perfect.”
Evie saw something flash in Kingsley’s eyes. But her mind drifted from it when Trystan leaped from the hole with a laugh, spinning Evie about, and she squealed her delight. “Trystan! What’s gotten into you?” She laughed, and he put her down, kissing her soundly, his joy infectious.
“Whatever it is, you should hide it, because the funeral party is going to be here any minute,” she added soberly, and he let her down, cheeks red, rubbing at the back of his neck.
“Right. Yes. Of course. I’m going to just— Alexander, would you hand it to me?”
Kingsley reached down, staring at the window with a shuttered expression, then slowly passed it off to Trystan. He immediately grabbed a shovel to fill the hole back in.
“Go meet the others,” Evie encouraged Trystan. “I’ll help him.”
Trystan gave her another firm kiss, a promise in it. “It’s going to happen, Sage.”
“What is?” she asked, endeared by how excitement seemed to completely overtake him.
“Our girls,” he whispered with a sly smile. “Two of them.”
Evie wondered if too much joy was dangerous for her health, because her heart thundered and she felt a little like she might die from it. As Trystan disappeared into the greenery, Evie grabbed the second shovel and assisted in replacing the dirt.
Kingsley seemed to take a moment, hunched over his shovel with his back to her.
“You don’t seem happy?” she observed sympathetically. Of course he didn’t; the poor man was still half cursed with no hope of being any different. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
As he turned to her, Alexander’s dark golden eyes had a kindness in them, one she knew was intrinsic to his person, as much a part of him as the color. “You’re a very caring person. Trystan is lucky to have you. The office is, too.”
“And to think I almost took a different job,” she huffed in amused disbelief. With that one choice, she’d altered the entire course of her life.
Alexander kept digging, growing entranced by the motions. “No, you never would have taken it over that mother. And I think you were far more suited to being The Villain’s assistant than a maid on a quiet estate.”
It was true. Evie never would’ve survived there; her restlessness would have cropped up eventually, and her life would’ve changed anyway—
She froze, her smile fading, her heart falling toward her toes. “Kingsley, how did— I’ve never told anyone…that I gave that job to someone else.”
Kingsley faltered but kept to his task. “You must have,” he murmured quietly, but Evie heard it differently.
Like a warning.
“No. I didn’t.” She stepped away. “How do you know about that?”
“Evie, please.” He looked up at her, and his eyes were pleading and sad.
And in that moment, she felt something beautiful die.
“Evie!” Clare’s voice was an echo of her pain, as Evie turned to see her sprinting toward them with Tatianna at her heels. In that moment, she could sense what was coming, didn’t even need to hear the words. She just…knew. “It’s Kingsley! He wrote the notes! It was him!”
In the time it took her to blink, it seemed, Alexander had dropped the shovel and grabbed Evie by the collar, a lethally sharp blade at her throat. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered in her ear as he started to back them both away from Clare and Tatianna. “I’m so sorry.”
Trystan burst through the trees next, and when his eyes found hers, his mouth flattened. “Well, Alexander. Are you ready to tell the truth?” Trystan walked forward, hands in the air, but his next words shocked them all:
“Took you long enough.”