Page 113 of The Lies We Conjure
“We find the Death master, that’s what we do,” Evander confirms. Sorrow is etched into the hull of his brow, pulled low—if only that master was something he’d found that first night. “We have no choice. It’s just now nine o’clock. We have fifteen hours until we’re locked in. And if she’s already here? She’s looking for it. We need to find it first. Or fight her in the process. There is no other choice but forward.”
“And what about these two?” Hex asks, arms crossed and jaw tight as he tips his chin toward Ruby and Wren. “Fake Lavinia is right. We can’t just let them go—they’re a liability. For all we know, Marsyas may be using them somehow to control us from within or to spy on us further.”
It’s possible. And I let it happen, right under my nose. Just like Ursula’s murder. Just like everything else that went wrong the past two days. I was supposed to look out for the Four Lines and protect them, and I couldn’t even build a wall around my own weak spots.
“They’re both compromised,” Evander agrees, and I feel the weight of his attention on me again as my world cycles through a spectrum of purples under the weight of my hands. “We can’t leave Ruby loose on the grounds. And we should remove anything Marsyas gave them in case she’s using it somehow to beat Ursula’s spell. What else do you have?”
“In my purse there’s a card she gave us with the money.”
Winter riffles through the sisters’ wristlets on her arm and fishes out a small card on thick stock.
“Saturday night. Formal. Wear solid black. I’ll be in touch.” She flips it over. “Tell no one.” Her eyes flash to Ruby’s. “You seriously accepted this and were like, ‘Yep, sounds good.Not fishy at all’?”
Ruby immediately blushes. Even though it’s ridiculous, my body reacts with a surge of warmth. She’s still exquisite. No denying that despite the circumstances. “I—no. Just. I wasn’t the one to say yes. But I went along with it.” Then, “The bracelets. You can’t get Wren’s, but you can have mine. Here, let me—”
“Don’t touch them. We’ll remove them.” Evander nods. “Auden?”
It’s posed as a question but it’s an order and an atonement.
I’m the one who trusted this person so completely. I’m the one who opened my cousins up to trusting them too. My gut knew they were out of sorts, and yet it failed me, just as my heart had, finding solace in this person who was no longer my childhood opponent. This person who had over the past day or more become a friend. A new and surprising light in this terrible darkness.
You aren’t going to ask me if I have a secret? A lie?
What would Ruby have told me if I had asked? Did she want me to know before this terrible moment? To place her truth alongside the rest we’d learned, another piece of ugliness bared to the light after Ursula’s death.
It doesn’t matter now.
That warmth in my chest snuffs out as I bow my head and approach. Ruby’s still watching me, sorrow heavy in her sable eyes, and I force myself to greet her back. To look at this person who is not the person I know at all. Her kindness and beauty need to mean exactly nothing to me. That’s what I tell myself.
“Hold out your hands.”
Without a word, she obeys, raising them in front of her body. This close, her pale cheeks aren’t rosy, but splotched with color, the wells under her eyes damp and tinged lavender, color bitten into her lips. Her wrists are delicate and bare save for the bracelets, which sway heavily beneath her pulse points.
I can’t touch them, not directly, without shocking my system with the power of death. It’s been said long-term contact with a Death Line relic can render the life element useless in an Elemental witch like me. The chain and clasps are, like most things in our Four Lines world, rendered of pure silver, and therefore highly conductive of not only electricity, but magic. Meaning the metal is just as destructive as the charged rabbit’s foot itself.
“I can’t remove these bracelets in a normal way,” I say, describing like I did that first night when I healed her injured hand exactly what to expect from my magic. It’s something Ursula taught us to do, a kindness and a way to inform consent, and I can’t stop myself from doing it again for Ruby now. “I’m going to burn them off.”
“You’re going to light my wrists on fire?”
“Yes. Don’t flinch and I won’t burn you.” My fingers brush hers. “May I?”
Ruby nods. I arrange her arm so that it’s angled away from her body and parallel to the ground, the top of her wrist presented for me to work with. Then, bringing my right hand in close, I focus my powers to a hot pinprick, a thin spout of flame cutting the metal chain in a burst and blink. The braceletthunksto the garden tiles.
I check her wrist for auxiliary burns. The pale skin is pristine.
She presents her other wrist in a mirror image to how I arranged the first.
When the second relic drops to the ground, and her skin is again untouched, Ruby catches my fingers in hers.
“Auden, thank you and I’m sorry.”
I swallow and drop her hand. “I’m sorry too.”
I step away from her, and though I don’t turn my back on Ruby, I firmly align myself, shoulder to shoulder, with my cousins, Infinity, the Cerises. My unusual, unbreakable family. As one, we assess what must be done now.
“As I see it,” Evander starts, and everyone is listening now, our priorities straightforward, “first we contain our guests—”
“Contain themhow?” He might be the de facto leader, but hell ifI won’t challenge him to be as thoughtful as possible. The sisters are liars, yes, but human beings in a terrible situation too. “Wren isn’t going anywhere for at least a day, which is past the deadline for Ursula’s tasks. Both sisters lied but it is our duty to protect them, which means if we’re ‘containing’ Ruby, it needs to be in a way that keeps her safe.”
