Page 132 of The Lies We Conjure
Slowly, as not to draw attention, I fish the chain out from beneath my collar. I watch Marsyas challenge Evander wordlessly. I’vegot it fully in my grasp as her expression wavers, frustration seeping into the set of her shoulders. “Lavinia, kill the girl.”
“No!” I shout.
All three Blackgates turn my way.
I brandish the ring, unmistakable. Silver band, slim cut, the four gems flashing in the daylight.
“He can’t give you the ring because I’m holding it.” I pin my gaze on Lavinia. “Let Ruby go and it’s yours.”
Marsyas tilts herself toward me, a bull finding its target. “A trade?”
“An exchange. You let Ruby go. Let her live. And I will give you this ring.”
“At the same time.”
Magic flickers beneath my skin, but I tamp it down and focus solely on Marsyas Blackgate. “No—you first. I need to see that Ruby’s safe and out of Lavinia’s hands. She’s innocent.”
Marsyas’s lips part and her teeth flash.
“I wouldn’t call her that, she’s lied to you for two days. But that’s beside the point. The point is I refuse to trust a Hegemony.”
Her eyes narrow, color rising in her throat, magic sparking in her palm around the Death master pinched between her fingers.
“How could I after what Ursula did to my Marcos?” she sneers. “Trust is a seed that will never grow between us again. And, frankly, it’s not one I need. Shall I remind you that you’re surrounded, you’re outnumbered, and, though I think it’s top of mind to you, my dear, sweet Lavinia, a girl youbulliedfor years, has hold of your little girlfriend. So, no—”
The magic beneath my skin flares into a fireball, engulfing my hand.
Devouring the ring.
Marsyas screeches at the sight of the metal at the heart of the flame, takes a step, hand outreached, a pitch-black twist of magic gathering—
And trips over Wren’s leg, kicked out across her path.
The old woman stumbles forward, hands flying open to catchherself before she face-plants on the ground. The bone shard in her hand skitters away. Lavinia shoves Ruby aside, depositing her roughly into the table, as she tracks the relic, pinging across the tiles and into the grass.
“Nona!” Kaysa shrieks, rushing forward as her sister falls away.
Her army of the dead advance too.
I spin, and, with everything I have left, shoot out a shield as wide and thin as I can make it. It won’t keep out the ghosts, but it can slow Kaysa and her skeletons.
“I’ve got this side, Evander,” Infinity yells. I look over my shoulder and they’ve thrown up a shield covering the rest of the gaps as Kaysa rushes forth. The dead rattle the shields so hard, I think they might shatter.
“And I’ve got the ghosts,” Winter announces—and, with a defense I missed, she harnesses enough wind to blow the ghosts up and away. It’s a shield of a different kind. Genius.
Between us, Evander and Wren incapacitate Marsyas. The girl sits on her back, while Evander grabs hold of her wrists and his power. The earth opens right beneath her hands, the tile cracking, two gaping holes sucking her arms in up to her armpits and clamping her in place. Marsyas is left face down, dangerous hands and rabbits’ feet relics trapped.
Evander wastes no time working with Wren to fish out all four master relics from the matriarch’s pockets as a hurricane of bones batters the magic Winter, Infinity, and I hold tight. I breathe a quick sigh of relief that Ursula’s spell isn’t triggered by their forcible taking of the Death relic. The magic didn’t trap Marsyas when she stole the others because she wasn’t under that spell, and now that loophole works in reverse for us.
A scream breaks from the direction of Kaysa.
I turn just quick enough to see the bodies of Hector and Sanguine Cerise bowl into the skeletons like wolverines, ripping apart the bones and flinging the skeletons aside as the younger Blackgate holds up her hands, trying to direct soldiers who are shattering one after one.
“What—”
“Blood will have blood, you asshole Death witches!” Hex screams, Ada slumped to his side—no shroud, so hopefully not dead—the picture of vengeance in his expression and posture, his anger standing on end.
With a flick of Hex’s wrist, his mother’s corpse hurtles straight at Kaysa.
