The Viin


    Someone was attempting to break in.


    Trystan—who had barely found an hour of restful sleep—awoke to rattling. He didn’t wait to investigate. In a true act of finesse, heunched himself off the crooked, ufortable excuse for a sofa and threw himself at the bed until he was blocking Sage with his back, frantically scanning his surroundings. Safeguarding her.


    In red silk pants.


    If this ever got out to the public, he’d have to kick a litter of kittens one by one to recover his reputation. He wondered if kicking Valiant Guards would have the same effect.


    His mist surrounded them, eclipsing the quickly rising sunlight beginning to stream into the room, but it was useless. Expletives fell from his lips as a piece of the wall nearest Sage’s bed gave and two figures stumbled in.


    Sage jumped out from behind him, dagger slicing through the air like a butcher drunk on mead. “Back up, knaves!” She dove for the shadowed figures, but as Trystan’s eyes adjusted, they widened, and he grabbed a iling Sage from behind.


    “I take it back,” he said incredulously. “You’re not a little tornado; you’re a godsdamned hurricane. Stop stabbing!” he yelled, tugging her back before she could pierce skin. “It’s Tatianna and re!”


    And Kingsley, who leaped up and held a sign with no words on it, just a poorly depicted skull and crossbones.


    “Oh!” Sage said, sounding too joyful for a woman who was on a spearing spree. Her dagger nged to the ground, and she broke away from Trystan to throw her arms around them both. “I’m so d to see you!”


    re gave him a look—one he was sure all little sisters gave their big brothers when they’d caught them in a situation they would be teasing them aboutter. And possibly until the day they died.


    “Are you wearing Trystan’s shirt, Evie, dear?” Tatianna said, scanning the fabric with obvious distaste.


    “Are you wearing Tatianna’s lipstick again, re?” Trystan asked, his voice hardened and cold.


    re’s pale cheeks went bright red as she found the nearest mirror and rubbed at her mouth with the back of her hand—the nearest mirror being the one on the ceiling.


    re halted in her ministrations with a feline smile as she realized what she was looking at. “Did you enjoy your night with The Wicked Woman, Trystan?” re asked airily, and Trystan had the childish urge to shove her under his arm and dig his knuckles into her hair.


    He was prepared to give sputtered excuses, to fumble and il to spare himself, but mostly Sage, the embarrassment. Except it seemed his apprentice had skated well past shame, because Sage retrieved her dagger once again, then bumped him out of the way with her shoulder, walking toward the passageway his sister and Tatianna had just stumbled in from.


    “He could have.” The look she gave over her shoulder was so chilling, it was like a de of ice had sliced down his spine. Her attention was off him, but he still felt it. Sage had perfected a phantom re.


    As if he didn’t have enough problems already.


    “Well. We did not enjoy the walls in those tunnels nearly closing in on us,” Tatianna said, removing her pink nightrobe and cing it over Sage’s shoulders, tying the sash tight in an act of sisterly affection. “But I suppose it was worth it.”


    “To catch us looking guilty?” Sage asked, tugging at the hem of the robe so she wouldn’t step on it.


    “Well, that, too.” Tatianna shrugged, pulling something free from the back of her nightdress’s sash. “Ta-da!”


    Trystan gaped, staring baldly. “Is that the magic wand?”


    re nodded, her expression suddenly shuttered, like she’d remembered something terrible. Maybe the fact that Trystan was her brother. “We heard a few guards earlier talking about a set of stairs at the base of the tree. It’s attached to the tree manor. I think it’s best if we make our departure before Fowler gets any more unhinged ideas.”


    Trystan tugged on his shoes and took the wand from Tatianna’s outstretched hand, tucking it away into his boot and cing Kingsley atop his shoulder. “Lead the way.”


    Together, they moved out of the lovers’ suite, but they halted when they spotted the guard posted just down the hall. Tatianna quickly threw some sort of powder to where the guard stood. They all poked their heads out to watch the man fall until his head cracked against the floor.


    Everyone winced, even Trystan.


    “Where did you get that?” he asked Tatianna, impressed.


    “Lord Fowler’s study had many intriguing items in it,” Tatianna answered cryptically.


    “This way,” re dered. “It’s off the library.” They made it down the suspiciously quiet corridor before finding a loose panel. Trystan kicked it in to discover a small circr door with rounds and rounds of stairs going down countless floors. Trystan gaped. “That’s too many stairs.”


    Sage pped a palm against her forehead. “You have just as many in the manor!”


    “Yes,” Trystan agreed. “But I had the sense to have a magical lift installed.”


    An indignant huff escaped Sage’s lips as she began her descent. “You do not have a magical lift.”


    “Of course I do. I can’t expect everyone in the office to climb that many flights each day. Stuart in ounting has a bad knee, and Marv has asthma. I’m not nearly that unreasonable—though it’s certainly a goal to aspire to.”


    Tatianna pinched his arm, running a finger across her neck, apparently signaling for him to stop, though it was farter than was helpful.


    “There’s been a lift this whole time and I didn’t know?” Sage pped his arm with both hands. “What’s wrong with you! Why didn’t you tell me? Are the stairs some kind of psychological torture?”


    Her reaction was odd. He was almost positive he’d told her about the lift on the day of her orientation. He’d showed her the heads first, to get her limated, to which she’d just giggled nervously and said somethingplimentary about his decorating, and then he’d gotten distracted by the way she smiled at him and noticed a beauty mark on her corbone and—


    And that’s it. He hadn’t ever gotten to the lift part. He’d been too distracted by her sted corbone freckle.


    “I—” He halted, realizing her ire was safer than the truth. “Yes. I thought it would be humorous to not share the information with you. Mwa-ha-ha-ha.” He attempted his most sinisterugh, but that was one facet of viiny he’d never gotten quite right. It came out as stiff as a marite puppet.


    “Oh, Trystan.” Tatianna rubbed a hand against her temple, putting herself between Sage and him before his apprentice could grow violent with her dagger once more.


    Step by winding step, they made their way down, and after about an hour, they finally reached the bottom. Shoving aside arge branch, Trystan busted through the opening out into the early dawn air and froze.


    For standing on the other side with an insidious smile…


    Was Lord Fowler.