Assistant to the Villain

Evie always knew she’d die at the hands of her own foolishness. She’d landed herself in far too many dangerous situations, unintentionally, for the odds to not fall against her at some point in time.

She’d straddled her boss and then quit her job, all in one day.

Groaning into her hands, she rolled over in her bed, ignoring Lyssa when she hesitantly nudged the door open.

“I have to go to school.” She lightly placed something on the small table beside Evie’s bed. “I made you some tea that always helps Papa…when he’s feeling sick.”

Flipping over immediately to face her sister, Evie rushed to assure her she was not unwell, desperate to get rid of the forlorn look in her sister’s expression. “It’s okay, Lyssa, I promise I’m not sick the way Papa is.”

Her sister’s shoulders relaxed. “What kind of sickness is it, then? You never miss work.”

Evie tapped her chest with her palm, feeling the lump in her throat moving to sit underneath her hand. “It’s a sick feeling here. In my heart.” It was difficult to decipher her feelings on her own, let alone attempt to explain them to a ten-year-old.

“Oh, you’re sad,” her sister said, nodding.

“Well…” She waited, considering the words. “Actually, yes, I suppose that sums it up pretty nicely.”

“You use too many words to say simple things, Evie.” Her sister patted her head before grabbing a book she’d placed on the ground. “You should only use a couple. People understand better that way.”

Smiling and feeling a little lighter, Evie got out of bed and waved her sister off. She watched out the window as Lyssa ran in the direction of her school. Then she padded barefoot across the kitchen floor and pulled the spigot to get a cup of water.

She looked down to the employer’s bargain on her pinkie finger, narrowing her eyes at it. She’d expected some sort of recourse for disobeying the promise. After all, she’d quit. Where was her reckoning? Or was it a slow death? Would she be going about her day and then suddenly her heart would stop? She’d have to fix it, or Lyssa would be left all alone and—

A rasping cough came from behind her, causing her to jump and spill her cup on the floor. “I’m sorry,” her father rasped again, collapsing hard into the chair, face pale and drawn. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“Papa.” She moved to his side, crouching before him. “Have you been taking the medicine my friend made special for you?”

He smiled guiltily, taking a shaky hand to his forehead to dab off the sweat there. “I didn’t think I needed it. I’ve been feeling so much better.”

Evie shook her head, trying not to chastise him. Her father didn’t always do well to give care where he should. After Gideon died and her mother departed soon after, Evie’s father had fallen into such despair, he couldn’t bring himself to even hold Lyssa. They’d decided as a family that Evie would continue her education at home, away from the schoolhouse and all her friends, to assist in raising her little sister.

A sacrificed childhood was a small penance for how Evie had failed her family, her mother, Gideon. She wondered if that was why she could be so impulsive, so headstrong. Every childish part of her should’ve had the chance to change and grow. But instead, it was stifled, like a flower cut right as it was about to bloom.

Her father’s eyes suddenly widened, and he attempted to stand on shaky legs. “Is Lyssa still here? I don’t want to frighten her. She’s been so happy seeing me so well.”

“She’s off to school already,” Evie assured him. She moved his arm over her shoulder and walked him back to his bedroom. “Papa, you need to take better care of yourself. If not for your own sake, then for Lyssa’s.”

Evie helped him gently onto the bed, pulling the covers up under his chin, then reached into the drawer of his dresser. Quickly finding the small vial of medicine, she measured out a few drops. “Open,” she commanded.

After the medicine had a few minutes to make its way through his system, her father’s eyes began to close. “Why aren’t you at work today, dear one?”

Evie pulled the knitted blanket off the cushioned armchair beside her father’s bed and draped it around her waist as she sat down.

“I had a fight with my boss,” she said, pleased to be able to share at least an ounce of honesty with her father.

His mouth pinched. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it wasn’t all that bad.” Smiling at her, he continued. “Perhaps you might go and apologize.”

Evie tried to ignore the sting that her father assumed it was she who did something wrong. “I don’t think that would help the situation very much, unfortunately.”

He gave her a dubious look, his eyes beginning to droop again. “If you want an old man’s advice, be honest.” Clearing his throat once more and placing a hand on his chest, her father got a faraway look in his eyes. “There is so much that can be fixed by honesty, if you’re brave enough to use it. It’s something I wish I had been more with your mother.”

The mention of Nura surprised Evie. “I— You never talk about Mama.”

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.