Page 115 of The Lies We Conjure
Wren and I are alone.
Until we’re not.
“I thought they’d never leave.”
It’s a curse as much as it is a sigh of relief, meant for the speaker and no one else. A low, raspy voice, one I haven’t heard in two days. One I hadn’t expected to hear again.
Marsyas.
My periphery isn’t enough, only giving me the barest hint of movement over my shoulder, a person materializing from beyond the kitchen service entrance below the terrace. Moving, swathed in endless black, checking all the corners and edges for the six remaining witches.
There’s more movement—someone with her. My vision blurs so much it seems as if there are four of them, not three, but I know it is because I know exactly who it is by her side.
Her real granddaughters.
I crane myself and push the edges of my vision to lay eyes on them. I need to see these girls in the flesh, to see them for what they are—monsters like their grandmother. I don’t know how they’re here, but I know why they are.
Revenge.
Pure and plain, and always the motivation from the start.
“You think they look like us? Really? These were the ones you picked? Seriously, Nona?”
They come into view, and it’s the taller of the pair asking these questions. They’re delivered in an accented scoff, a nimble quirk to her lips as she ribs Marsyas.
Lavinia Blackgate—the real one, in the flesh.
Like Marsyas, she’s dressed in body-skimming black and a variety of Death magic relics. Like me, she has sable hair that cascades, dark eyes with long, heavy lashes that probably made her look like adoll as a child. Still, she’s paler in that English rose sort of way, taller by at least an inch that’sallleg, and apparently kind of a jackass.
“My nose looks nothing like that.”
It’s true—her features are refined and delicate where mine are, well, not.
“And that one’s fringe is criminally excessive—is her forehead atrocious under all that hair?” Lavinia clucks her tongue and bites her lip, flummoxed. “I can’t believe they didn’t call them out as imposters on the spot.”
“Memory is a wild beast,” Marsyas answers with a dismissive wave, bracelets swinging. “Hard to chase, hard to tame, and never what you’re expecting when you pin it down. As long as there’s some distance to it, a memory is exactly what a good suggestion says it is.”
At this, Lavinia sheds her feigned outrage and replaces it with a little smirk of endearment. “Honestly, Nona, convincing them these girls were us is a masterful achievement in itself. Don’t you agree, Kay?”
“Oh yeah,” the younger one insists.
That’s all she says, end of story. Wren certainly did not nail this girl’s personality. Furthermore, the true “Kay” has long layers that are more auburn in person than in the picture Marsyas showed us. To be fair, her eyesarea similar shade of hazel to Wren’s, but rounder in a way that makes her look younger than sixteen. And though they’re the same height, she’s built more like Marsyas, soft around the edges of her hairpin curves.
In that moment, with all three Blackgates ogling at me, lips curved in matching expressions equally joyous and terrible, I realize it’s true what Marsyas said.
Blackgates always smile.
And it’s terrifying in this context.
They’re here to finish what they started with Ursula’s death.
Marsyas is finished with this subject. “How much time?” she asks without further direction or address.
“Hex and Ada are two hundred meters from the main house and working slowly. Evander and Auden are too busy arguing to workquickly,” Lavinia answers, then she pointedly looks to her sister, handing off the verbal baton of this report.
“Winter and Infinity are installed at the cemetery. It’s half a kilometer from this location.”
Marsyas accepts this information with a small frown. “Not a lot of buffer room, but enough.” She waves at the girls, shooing them. “Go. We must move quickly and silently. Stick to the plan.”
