Apprentice to the Villain (Assistant to the Villain, #2)

by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

He wondered if the assistant he’d hired was, in fact, not human—perhaps she was some sort of manic sun sprite that had never seen darkness.

Her bright-green skirts covered in little flowers swirled around her as she cast the full force of her joy at him. He almost ducked.

Hopelessness was a horrid feeling, not to mention a useless one.

He’d learned long ago to lean in to the hurt instead of away from it.

This woman could convince someone to defy the hands of time if it suited her.

He would follow her off a cliff without question. And Evie knew she was in love with him. Right then, right there.

She was making him wonder. Curiosity is so obscenely annoying.

we are always expected to plaster a grin on our faces even when we don’t wish to. I used to do it so often, I stopped being able to tell when I was smiling for me or for someone else.

The reason Becky could barely stand the woman: she was in a constant state of fulfilling the needs of others, and it reminded Becky just a smidge too much of a person she no longer knew.

she still had faith in goodness, in people, in magic.

Being a cynic doesn’t make you wise. It makes you a coward.”

She didn’t have the will or the self-control when it came down to the things she wanted, the things she loved. Because she loved him.

the humans have become greedy, wielding the magic like it is a thing to manipulate instead of a partner.”

“Greed. Humans desire to take; they rarely seek to give.

I cannot leave it to hands that will hurt or destroy it. Precious things must be protected.”

humans demonize what they cannot understand. It isn’t our job to educate them, just to live the way we’re meant to with the knowledge that being called a monster does not make you one.”

there was a difference between Gideon’s eyes and her father’s, and it wasn’t the color. It was the hope. Pure and honest and pleading. It grounded her; it pulled at her and rooted her like a tree.

Nobody had ever done that, had ever tried to lighten things for her.

“Sometimes family isn’t a thing we are born into but a choice we make. Sometimes”—Evie smiled—“the people who love you most in your life are the ones who choose you.”

I can’t spiral through my anxieties without proper nourishment!

“Aren’t you a curious bit of magic?”

“When you’ve been lied to so often, the truth becomes easier to discern.”

This was one of the most marvelous mysteries about Sage—that she so readily handed out praise but it was always so specific. Like she found her favorite part of every person she came across and then presented it to them.

she couldn’t stop smiling, awestruck by the splendor

She was often amused, trying to find delight in life where she could. It was her drive, what kept her up when she felt the urge to remain low.

Her entire life was being needed—it was her value; it was her feeble placeholder in this world. She was his assistant. Not being needed by him was robbing her of her purpose. It was cruel, and he knew it. He’s The Villain, Evie.

“I am of the belief that art is the world’s most valuable commodity. Please take it. I can’t think of a single thing that would be worth more.”

It had occurred to her many times over that “impossible” was merely a word people used to describe limitations they wished for you to adhere to, so you wouldn’t upset the balance.

“You think I do not care? As if thoughts of you and your well-being don’t plague me daily. Nightly. Every second we are apart! I watched you die! I thought I’d never see you again! I have never known such darkness, and I never wish to again. If you think that makes me overbearing, so be it. But do not ever claim I do not care about you.

she was inevitable, from the moment he first saw her and every moment since. He loved her.

Love shriveled and disappeared differently, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, but she realized now that it was the most brutal, the most painful, when it was abandoned. Her love was too big, and it had been given too freely to people who didn’t deserve it.

“I’ve suffered more at the hands of those who claim to be good than those who are deemed to be evil.”

It was the one beautiful thing Evie could find in this mess: being held by siblings who had been hurt by the same set of hands that had hurt her. She would never be known like that by anyone else.

Her mother’s golden skin glowed in the starlight, her arms held out as tears glistened in her warm brown eyes. “You found me, hasibsi.”

“And Papa? You know about…him, too?” There was no force in the world, no wrath greater than the burning rage in Nura Sage’s eyes. Her voice was as hard as granite. “I do.”

Gideon could see the pain at not having been there to watch her children grow up. At missing the things she should’ve been a part of. Only time would mend such hurts. Only new memories could soothe away the loss of the old ones.