Page 116 of The Lies We Conjure
Then she sends them off with a phrase that I know in my gut is the way the Blackgates truly see themselves and their reputation. It’s not about the “Blackgate smile”—it’s about what’s underneath. “Be ready, be careful, be ruthless.”
There’s more movement, and I’m trying so hard to watch that my skin goes clammy with concentration.
What are they doing? Where are they going? Whatisthe plan?
In answer, all I get are near-silent footsteps and then Marsyas solidifies from the edges of my vision.
The Blackgate matriarch is both the same as ever and not at all.
Midnight fabric from head to toe, but rather than whimsical, every inch is tactical—she came for a fight. Marsyas’s silver hair is coiled into a tight bun now instead of a stately chignon. But that’s where she begins to veer into the version who abandoned us—her vanity clawing its way in.
She’s wearing the plum lipstick she wore to dinner Saturday night, her face made up in another round of heavy foundation and powders so fragrant I can nearly taste them, though my senses are obscured by my golden cage. Her jewelry has been replaced with relics matching the energy of the rabbits’ feet bracelets she still wears. Taxidermic white cat paws (with claws extended) hug her earlobes, and a choker fashioned from a string of tiny skulls—birds, maybe?—wraps the crepe-like skin of her throat. The knife slash of anXmarking her as an oathed heir peeks over the neckline of her shirt, the scar silvered, puckered, unmistakable if you know where to look.
Seemingly satisfied with the state of things, she veers in my direction and rounds upon me. Her Blackgate smile is in place, wide and terrible, the mischievousness in her dark eyes teetering away from ornery and toward vicious.
“I suppose though I am a witch, I am not a clairvoyant, I see.” Birdlike, Marsyas tilts her head at me, examining. “I was sure you’d both be dead by now.”
A pointer finger prods at the sunlight encasement over my body. I can feel the pressure as well as I can hear her—it’s really a barrier more than a blanket. Stiff as a cast against my skin, but slim as a coat of shortening greasing a cake pan. Marsyas smiles when she sees the flinch in my eyes as her fingertips make contact—she must know I can feel it as much as she knows I can hear it.
The old witch seems pleased about both.
“Sunlight for you, pressurized air for her,” she muses. “Why would that be?”
Marsyas inspects Wren’s face, prods at her prison. She doesn’t miss the item in her hands, her turning body, the expression of panic, and fear frozen in her eyes. She catalogs all of it and tucks it away in an expression that conveys both annoyance and respect.
And that’s when I realize… while this is Marsyas’s first time seeing Wren like this up close, it’s not her first encounter.
No, shetriggeredit.
Marsyas is being more than facetious, she’s being cruel—because she knows exactly what happened and I don’t.
“Yes, I know you can hear me. Infinity is a talented witch, but a young one, and while this is a solid effort, it’s not quite as secure as what Luna could’ve cooked up. Too bad, that one.”
Marsyas rounds Wren and approaches me like a piece of art in a museum. Then, as if she knows it’s off-limits and doesn’t care, she reaches out and brushes two plump fingertips down the side of my face.
“It’s truly extraordinary. You’re immobile, yes, but I can see every thought in that pretty head of yours scrolling across your eyes like goddamn closed-captioning. You hold nothing back, Ruby.”Something sharper than pure delight brightens her expression. “I don’t know how they didn’t see it before you flat-out told them what you’d done.”
Whatever she sees now—my disgust at her touch, my surprise at what she’s suggested as far as her front-row seat to my truth spell, and my terror at what she did to the witches who’ve died in the last day—induces that smile of hers she wielded when convincing us of her plight more than a week ago. The deep, cavernous expression that feels like falling to my death. Pitching over the edge and into the black beyond.
Marsyas’s obvious pleasure only grows.
She pats me on the cheek now, like I’m a small child.
The veil of sunlight does absolutely nothing to keep my skin from crawling.
“Yes, Ruby, I killed Hector and Sanguine. And I would’ve killed Wren here too if she hadn’t snatched the Elemental master straight out of Sanguine’s hands and triggered what I gather is a spell of Ursula’s design.”
This woman was going to kill my sister.
She certainly would have without Ursula’s spell. Without the opportunity to break it so clearly and quickly by holding a master without permission.
I don’t know how the Elemental master came into the equation of what happened here—if Hector or Sanguine had stolen it, they would be alive in imprisoning air instead of dead in shrouds.
All the unknowns and ifs and buts add up to my sister, my impulsive, bullheaded, big-hearted sister being alive.
This should be a relief. Wren is safe from the designs of this woman, who would discard both of us. Instead, pure, icy panic hardens around every organ in my body. My head throbs, my lungs shudder, my heart slows to frozen, my gut is a stone.
That smile flickers—it remains, but for the barest of moments, a frown flashed across her thin, plum-painted lips.
