Assistant to the Villain

“No more.”

“Just one more try,” Evie pleaded. They’d been at this for what felt like hours, but she was growing tantalizingly close to being able to stand while the dagger was within inches of her. A vast improvement, considering when she first started this exercise, she was nothing more than a fetal ball on the ground, nearly swallowing her own tongue.

“We can try it again tomorrow. You need rest,” Tatianna insisted. The daylight was beginning to fade, and the boss still hadn’t returned.

“Yes, I suppose.” Evie smiled sadly. “I better get home. My sister will need dinner, and I want to check on my father.”

“Oh! That reminds me!” Tatianna sprang into action, pulling out jars and tonics from her small cabinet compartments. “I found a new type of pain potion for him in one of my old books! I’ll mix it up for you before you leave. Now, sit and rest for a moment.”

Tatianna turned a knob and ignited the small stove she kept in the corner, the smell of medicinal herbs crowding the tight space.

And Evie smiled lightly, dabbing the sweat on her forehead with the back of her hand. She was close now to overcoming the pain well enough to use the dagger for its purpose, as a weapon.

Massaging a crick out of her neck, Evie smiled as Clare sat down beside her. The woman was wringing her hands lightly while toeing the ground with her foot.

“I’m sorry you have to go through all of this.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” Evie said sincerely. “Bad things happen to good people sometimes.”

Clare nodded, staying silent for a few moments before speaking again. “I’m very stubborn.”

“And not very good at segues, either, apparently,” Evie quipped.

Clare nodded and smiled. “Precisely.” Her laugh sounded like the little bells Evie imagined fairies must sound like when she was younger. “I’m also sorry if I was less than cordial when we first met. I’m not good with new people.”

“Oh.” Ever so eloquent, Evie.

“I was so ashamed. That I had unwittingly helped King Benedict.” Clare looked up and around to Tatianna, who was intensely focused on her task. “I don’t approve of how Trystan conducts his business or his little vendetta. But I hate the king.”

The words made Evie feel a sort of kinship with the woman. She understood complicated family dynamics better than most. “How could you have known?”

“I didn’t realize the man was a Valiant Guard until after he’d signed my purchase log. I didn’t think twice about it. I was distracted that day.” Clare rubbed her eyes. “One of my regulars—the sweetest man—his wife left him. The blue was her favorite, so he always went out of his way to get it. He was overcome when he came in for his regular order, and the knight followed right after.”

“Almost done,” Tatianna called over just as something began to burn. “Shit. Okay, not quite yet.”

Clare smiled when Tatianna’s back was turned, the crinkle around her eyes the same as The Villain’s.

“What sort of properties does blue ink have, anyway? Why would someone specifically want it?” Evie asked.

“Nothing spectacular, to be honest,” Clare said, shrugging. “My regulars who preferred it mostly used it to read what others had written with it.”

“How does that work?” Evie angled her head.

“When you use ink from the same vial, with one drop, any word that was written with that inkpot can be made to appear on the page before you.”

“Any word?” Suddenly Evie’s heart was pounding, like she was slowly tipping over the edge of a cliff.

“Any word that was written with it, yes. When I enchant the ink, it becomes like a body. Even when the drops are separated, they can be linked again by the words. Think of it like if one of your fingers was cut off but you could still move it. Because it was once a part of you.”

“So the ink will always reveal the truth?”

“Until it runs out.”

Evie nodded, her mind racing.

Clare snorted, looking around the room. “It’s actually most useful in office settings. Whenever you write with that ink, it takes just a drop of it to copy what you’ve written.”

“Don’t tell the pixies that. They’d be out of a job.” Evie smiled and pressed a finger into her temple, exhaling slowly. “Magic ink, magic scar, magic dagger. It really is a part of everything, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry.” Clare smiled. “Having magic is one thing, but I know being around it without fully understanding it can be confusing, even frustrating.”

“When did you get yours?” Evie asked quietly.

“When Trystan became The Villain,” Clare said, a haunted, faraway look in the beautiful depths of her eyes. “It was a…hard day.”

Evie nodded, unsure what to say, which in and of itself was cause for concern. Words rarely failed her; it was the ones that came out that usually did it.

“Got it!” Tatianna walked over, looking between them like she knew she was a welcome interruption. “Here you are. Let me know how the poor man likes it—I can always switch back to the other mixture.”

Evie pushed up on her toes and kissed the healer’s cheek. “Thank you, my friend.” She turned to smile at Clare. “And thank you, too.”

The Villain’s sister eyed the vial in her hand with a sympathetic expression. “Your father has the Mystic Illness?”

Evie nodded and placed the medicine in the pocket of her skirt before moving over to the table to pick up her cloak. The last few hours had been such a blurry mixture of pain and relief, she couldn’t begin to recall how it had made it in here from the hook beside her desk.

“Evangelina, before you go!” Clare called, and Evie turned to meet her eyes. “I’m making another batch of different inks this afternoon. Would you like some?”

Evie shrugged, grinning lightly. “Why not? I’m sure I can find a use for a blue.”

“Great!” Clare called. “I was making another order for East Marigold, anyway.”

She froze, her blood chilling.Tatianna snorted. “Great name. Is your customer a flower?”

Evie’s smile didn’t fall from her face somehow as she turned and left the room, a renewed sense of purpose in her steps and more than one vial in her pocket.

Of all the fancy bottles on the shelves near the door…Yes, Evie had good use for this one.