What the puppy didn’t realize was that the food on the floor was not his to eat and could harm him if he wasn’t careful.
“My favorite author is an evil hag, and she writes the most delicious romance novels. Her husband is an evil mage, and he helped my uncles fall in love. ‘Evil’ is only one part of who they are.”
“But evil doesn’t belong here,” Maximus insisted, with the full conviction of a proper royal champion. “That’s why we have the Kingdom Defense Spell.”
Delilah sighed. How to explain this to him? Not everyone had grown up with evil friends and family. “Is murder evil?”
“Yes,” he said, quickly, with no room for argument.
“Is murdering an evil mage evil?”
His mouth snapped shut and his brows bunched together.
“If murder is evil, then it shouldn’t matter who the victim is.”
Maximus shook his head sharply, refusing to accept her explanation. “It’s not the same if you’re trying to save people.”
Delilah nodded along with him. “What if an evil mage helps more people than they hurt?”
“Evil only cares about itself. It doesn’thelpanyone.”
She knew some happily employed minions who would argue otherwise. In the time she’d spent at the Lord of Grimnight’s lair, she’d seen how the minions flourished under Wilde’s care. At first, the lair had been as grim as his title, black floors and walls, trees growing through every possible opening. Within a few days, Fyodor and a handful of orcs cleared away the old growth, polished the floors, and decorated the walls with personal effects. Wilde had barely noticed the changes, too focused on his own work.
When a group of bandits took over the nearby buildings, instead of chasing them away, he’d simply waved off the guards’ concerns and said, “No one else is living there.”
Delilah had watched him treat the imps gently, scolding them when they caused mischief, giving them extra snacks when they behaved. They’d fluttered and danced around him, more like little faeries than fiends.
The people he’d helped weren’t alwayshuman, but that didn’t mean they mattered any less. What would happen to them if Wilde was no longer their master? Would they find a new one? Return to their old one, wherever he was? Would they threaten royal champions again, kidnap maidens for ransom, steal to eat?
“Give Wilde a chance to prove you wrong,” Delilah murmured. “Stop looming, stop glowering, stop threatening him.”
Maximus was now glowering ather. “What if he betrays us? What if someone getshurt?”
She knew Wilde had put magical contingencies in place to prevent serious injury, but she couldn’t explain those to Maximus. After all, if Wilde was the problem, he could never be the solution. “Then we’ll work together to help each other heal.”
Maximus continued to glower at her for a long moment before his anger melted away. “I’ve been an ass,” he muttered. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why, but I don’t like him.”
“We don’t have to like everyone,” Delilah said, trying to sound conciliatory but sure it was more exasperated. “Now, if you don’t mind, I want tofinallyfinish our shopping.”
Chapter Twenty-One: Trey
Twenty Minutes Earlier
On the Side of the Road
Trying to Get Some Answers
I grabbed Wilde’s hand before he could panic-teleport away. At least then he might bring me with him. Something shifted in his eyes and his form flickered before resolidifying. He rolled to the side and puked again.
My queasiness really had been motion sickness. Being whipped around from the food stalls to the shopping center entrance to the carriage had unsettled my stomach. Everything had happened so fast that I didn’t even have time to forget. I clearly remembered Maximus’ argument the firstandsecond time, word for word.
Wilde’s illness seemed different. A coughing fit wracked his whole body, and his arms trembled as he held himself up. Snot, vomit, and tears stained his face. No blood though, a small mercy.
Once he stopped puking, I wrapped my arms around him and gathered him close to my chest, pressing his face into my shoulder. He stiffened but didn’t have the energy to fight me. “Tell me what you need,” I murmured. Whatever it was, I’d give it to him if it stopped him from hollowing himself out.
He was quiet for so long that I thought he’d fallen asleep. Finally, in a whisper I had to strain to hear it, “I need to stop but I can’t.”
“Why not?”
