Chapter 71

Chapter 71

Gideon

Meanwhile, back at the manor…

Gideon wasn’t certain what he’d expected when he abandoned his post with the heroes to join up with The Villain’s team, but it certainly wasn’t eating pastry with an ogre and discussing severed heads.

“How long do you keep them up there? Is no one concerned for the smell?” he asked with a mixture of disgust and curiosity.

Keeley threw something at him, and he dodged it, then picked up the foreign object—and dropped it with a cry of revulsion. “You threw a finger at me?”

“A middle one.” She turned up her long, elegant nose, revealing the loveliness of her profile. For the leader of brutal killers, she really was adorable. He supposed that’s what made her so dangerous.

“Can I see?” Lyssa charged for where he’d dropped it, and Gideon scooped her up.

“Nope. Sorry, baby sister.” He plopped her down next to Edwin, who reached over to ruffle her hair. Pixies floated in and out, enjoying the small cookies Lyssa had just made, which were no bigger than a fingernail—the perfect size for the twinkling beings who played with Lyssa’s hair in thanks.

“I’m not a baby,” she objected, handing one to a pixie with ice wings. The being kissed her cheek. She smiled wide, then looked at the window in the corner and frowned. “When will Evie return with Mama? I hate waiting.”

Gideon sauntered over to the window. There was a strange familiarity to the artful stained-glass piece. “I’ve seen this before,” he observed to himself. The window was a depiction of a book with the sun shining down on it, and when he looked closely, he saw it bore a startling similarity to…Rennedawn’s Story. “Huh. What are you doing here?” he asked it.

Edwin laughed, stirring the dark liquid in the cauldron. “Your sister has the habit of talking to it, too, like it’s sentient.”

Lyssa skipped across the room and plopped a tiny cookie in Keeley’s waiting palm. “Evie does that with everything. She used to scold the front door when it wouldn’t latch! She called it a lot of different words.”

“I think you should not repeat them,” Gideon said, turning just as Lyssa knocked into him with the full plate. The cookies tumbled to the ground. “Shoot. I’m so sorry, Lyssa. Let me—” A silver key lay on the ground, apparently having fallen from Lyssa’s apron pocket. “What’s that to?” he asked curiously.

Lyssa’s brown eyes widened as her face went white. “It’s for our bedchamber,” she said, rushed and jumbled, shoving the key in her pocket before Gideon could investigate further.

He was amused, folding his arms across his wrinkled cotton tunic. “If it’s more of your schemes and you’re planning on locking someone in…just be sure that you let them out eventually?”

There was no accounting for the strange glint in his sister’s dark eyes. “Don’t worry. I will.” The words were light, but they made his muscles jump uncomfortably, like his body was warning him.

“Lyssa…is everything all right?”

She didn’t look at him, just at the window with the mysterious depiction of the book of prophecy. “It will be.”

He wanted to ask more questions, but right as he opened his mouth, Marv came charging into the kitchens.

Keeley was already handing the panting man a glass of water. “Marv, I beg you to start taking the lift.”

There’s a lift? Like the ones that move on belts? Why does everyone take the bloody stairs, then?

Marv huffed, holding his stomach with one hand as he chugged the water, then straightened with alarm. “The barrier…”

“Isn’t in top condition, we know,” Keeley said. “None of the cloaking spells we’ve found have been sticking, but it’s still just a window here, a doorway there—”

Suddenly, loud bells rang through the air, clanging so hard they shook the entire room. Lyssa gripped her ears, and Edwin, too. “What is that?” Gideon yelled over the noise, wincing with every toll.

“The manor is completely exposed!” Marv shouted. He pulled his hand away from his middle, revealing a gaping, bloody wound as he dropped to his knees. “The Valiant Guards have found us.”

By the looks of Marv’s wound, they certainly weren’t here for peace negotiations.

But without The Villain and his power, Gideon had a bad feeling this wouldn’t be a fight at all.

It would be a massacre.