Page 125 of The Lies We Conjure
They’ve raised the dead, but we’ll defend the living if it’s the last thing we do.
He places a hand on the lever, ready to open the door as silently as possible. But before he does, he motions with a fingertip.Left.Again, I blink in recognition.
When he wants to be, Evander is as loud as a freight train, stomping and smashing and acting out everything he doesn’t tend to say with words. But when he needs to be, he’s as silent as a shadow. Two sides of the coin, Evander Hegemony.
One eye on the Blackgates as they turn their attention to Wren, I slip into motion behind him.
Evander pulls the lever, smooth and slow, and the catch releases from the doorjamb. With a second hand bracing the movement of the door, he opens it slowly, pauses, and peeks into the night.
I wait, my heart hammering in my ears as my body presses into the floor.
Evander shuffles into a silent, crouched walk, and I follow, slipping behind him and to the left as planned. We’re completely in the open, with only the shadows from the terrace above as cover, for about two yards until we make it to the destination Evander had planned: the wet bar erected for the dinner party.
He gets behind it safely, but the moment I arrive, I’m in trouble—there’s not enough room. Thereshould beenough space for both of us to safely crouch unseen, but the Saturday night’s bartender is flat on his back beneath the bar, passed out in the same vegetative “quarantine” as every other member of the staff. There’s a pillar behind the bar and we can’t simply nudge him out of the way. Worse, his feet are sticking out beyond the bar, and will most certainly draw notice if we try to roll him.
Good thing we have a magical solution for that.
Reaching for my magic, I layer the bartender in the same spell I used on the dead driver that first night to keep Hex from noticing the body as I approached with the girls I now know as Ruby and Wren. It isn’t perfect, and the daylight will make it more easy to detect if anyone is looking, but it’s what I have. The moment the man is covered, I roll him, giving myself enough room to wiggle under the bar sideways.
Obscured and, it seems, unnoticed, my heart begins to slow, and my ears again rejoin the action happening only feet away.
The dead risen.
Three of the four relics in Marsyas’s hands.
And where the hell is the final Blackgate?
Or is it finalBlackgates? What if the girls’ mother, Athena, is here too? Four women looking for revenge upon, and control of,the very organization that took their shared love. Father, husband, son, heir—Marcos Blackgate.
I can’t make out anything from where I’m at, but I think Evander can, pressed against the opposite corner. I funnel all my attention on what I can pick up with my ears.
The merry tinkle of the fountain.
The rustle of wind in the trees in the rising day, pine, and birdcall deep within.
Then, something I don’t expect.
“Papa! Mama!”
Hex. Ada.
Running feet chase their panicked screams on that wind. Again, they yell.
“Where are you?” Hex’s words are desperate, breathless—spoken with lungs fueling a full-on sprint.
“Are you there?” Ada this time.
Running feet. Steps skidding to a tripping halt. “Papa—”
The word dies on Hex’s lips.
I don’t need to see it to know what’s happening—Blood magic from beyond the grave.
Evander curses so quietly only the ghosts and I can hear it.
Now we don’t just have a fight, we have a rescue mission.
CHAPTER38
