Page 140 of The Lies We Conjure
“What ifwe’rea set of loose ends?”
“You mean what if it’s a trap?” Wren rolls her eyes. “Rubes, we’ve been there and done that. This isn’t a trap, and it isn’t a game. It’s aninvitation. They want us back.”
I picture Auden’s face the last time I saw it. Exhaustion flooding his blue-brown eyes, a smudge of blood on his jaw, throat bruising purple. His hands dotted in thick black ash—proof I’d held them after everything went to shit.
“If they wanted us back, they apparently knew where we were this whole time.” I wave my invitation in front of the phone camera for emphasis. “Why do it this way?”
Wren is quickly losing patience with my hesitancy.
“Because it’s special. And clever. These people trade those things like currency.” She rattles this off like it’s a common—and true—fact. “When you’re rich, it’s more fun to be creative than not.”
I blink Auden away from the backs of my eyelids. He was my ally,my protector—coming to my aid even after I had lied to him. And before that, when he thought I was someone terrible he’d known in a past life. But we don’t truly know each other. And if anything, I am—we are—a threat to him, his family, his fellow witches. His way of life.
I can’t forget that. I won’t forget that.
I’m the practical one. The big sister. And this time, even with Auden’s form still outlined in the deep purple of every incoming blink, I have to reinforce what going back to Hegemony Manor would mean for us.
“Wren,” I say, adjusting the phone so that she can see the entirety of my face in the terrible storeroom light. I can’t let her write off the seriousness of my expression. “I would not associate ‘fun’ with what happened the last time we accepted an invitation like this.”
“Well, yeah,” she concedes, which seems like a momentary win until she brushes her too-long bangs back into the rest of her dark hair and a daydreamer grin spreads across her face. “But don’t you want to know what they want? What happened to the Four You-Know-Whats?” Wren leans in close, so I can only see that upturn of her mouth. “What a certain pair of cousins have been up to since we left? You know they haven’t been able to stop thinking about us. We’re the ones who got away.”
That’s precisely what I’m afraid of.
“Well, at least now I can say without a shadow of a doubt that it’sfucking haunted.”
That’s the first thing Wren whispers to me as we step out of the Uber and walk up the drive to Hegemony Manor. We could’ve driven ourselves, of course, just rolled up in our beater sedan like it’s nothing. A breadcrumb in lieu of breaking the invitation’s final instruction.
Tell no one.
I didn’t, but I do have the receipts. Literally. An email from Uber with proof of our ride sits in my personal inbox in an open tab onmy unlocked computer. In addition to this single step on a digital trail, I may have also left my invitation card in the top drawer of my desk, very prominently available to Dad or Karen if they come snooping should we, say, not be at home when they return from Colorado Springs on Sunday.
And though I consciously did these things in advance of a worst-case scenario, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that a large part of me hopes my preparation means literally only the best things will happen here tonight. The very exciting and romantic things Wren pictures while chasing adventure, not the potential crises that I can’t seem to shake.
I wind my arm through my sister’s as we aim ourselves toward Hegemony Manor.
It’s the final weekend before the school year begins, and August looms heaving and angry over the Continental Divide above the home’s gothic roofline. A controlled burn races across the turrets and eaves, the color of which is nearly the same as the tangerine dress Wren picked—a summer day in silk she truly couldn’t afford even though this time she ripped off the tags anyway. Meanwhile, I’ve recycled my prom dress, light blue and extremely basic, because I’m still working to add to a college fund that never got its boost from Marsyas’s promises.
The last time we arrived at Hegemony Manor, I’d wished to walk up those tombstone steps and through the double doors, thinking of Mom’s love of the place from afar, the new view up close, and the rumors we’d heard about the kids who lived inside.
This time, as we navigate the bricks, the massive doors unlatch before we’ve even diverted to the path leading around the side of the house to the garden. Evander appears first, slipping into the dusky night, clean-shaven in a crisp white button-up—no suit jacket—and sharp pants.
“You came—welcome.”
He seems genuinely delighted, and Wren—the traitor—drops my arm, and runs right up the steps and flings herself at him. No hesitation, no fear, just straight into his arms.
Her mouth connects with his, and Evander stumbles back into the doorframe, surprised but quick enough to catch his balance and both of them before they careen onto the marble behind him. They pull apart long enough for him to say something to her, and Wren laughs out an answer but I don’t hear the words as they disappear into the foyer.
Which leaves me face-to-face with the person holding the door—Auden.
Unlike his cousin, he is wearing a suit. This one is expensive and gray like the one he wore so many weeks ago and fits his lean athleticism in a way that has heat rising in my cheeks before I even truly gauge his expression. His skin has the healthy flush of the end of a summer spent outside, and the hue only serves to make his eyes more stunning as they meet mine.
My breath hitches, just like the very first time I saw him. It’s possibly even more mortifying this time around.
“Hi, Ruby.”
My knees soften, my eyes unseeing anything but him as that initial meeting pages through my mind. The one where he truly thought I was Lavinia Blackgate. Where his very first words accused my sister of lying while telling a story he thought was actually something I’d done, but in actuality was a lie all the way around. Then I burned his hand with a magical relic I’d just thought was an ugly bracelet, and nearly face-planted in my nerves about the whole damn thing.
Here and now, Auden’s brow furrows, confusion breaking across the handsome planes of his face—I’ve been quiet too long. He takes a step forward, down the first step, but then holds himself back, hesitant. “What are you thinking?”
