Page 61 of The Lies We Conjure
Panic catches me by the throat. This is not how we should repay the kindness of his healing magic, no matter what prompted it. I can’t let Auden go down for this. I drop my sister’s hand and step a step forward. “No—”
“I’ll submit to a truth spell!”
I stifle a gasp and turn to Wren, who’s pleading with the group at large, desperate and reckless. “We didn’t know this was going to happen and we have no idea what Nona had planned or even where she went. Ask me. Ask me right now!”
I’ve gone as pale as one of Wren’s ghosts, I can nearly feel the blood draining and there’s no use in hiding it.
My sister has just offered us up like lambs to slaughter.
We’re not who we say we are and the second they find out, we’re goners. It doesn’t matter that we’re innocent, we’re also knowledgeable now about something we were never supposed to know.
And that might be worse.
Still, Wren goes on, her cheeks flushed and eyes bright as she makes her case like she’s under a spotlight in front of a packed house.
“I don’t care which of you does it. I will prove to you that we are innocent in three questions or less,” she announces, guessingthe format based on what we learned last night. “Then we can stop with these games and questions and insinuations. You’ll know what we know, and we can get on with finding the relics and sorting out the murderer because though we can all agree this man is Nona’s handiwork, I’m not convinced she killed Ursula. And I can affirm to you that if she did, we had no idea it was going to happen nor had anything to do with it.”
Wren’s planting questions in their heads. Giving them topics. She’s leading them like a lawyer in cross-examination. Wren is an excellent improv partner, but this won’t be enough.
It’s a good idea, but it’s notmagic.
And I don’t know how I can reasonably help.
Though it’s seventy degrees and the air is as dry as a bone, I start to sweat.
“I’ll do it,” Ada offers, already advancing with a twist of the ring on her index finger. Like Hex’s, the hidden point within it springs out like a rose thorn of a switch blade, ready to take Wren’s blood and make it dance.
“No,” Winter snaps. She’s still as a statue, the buttery fabric and light colors of her high-end yoga clothes at odds with the sharpness of her voice, her brow, her words. Decisive and without the ragged marks of hesitation. “Evander should do it. He found this body. He’s the one who wanted to interrogate the Blackgates last night. It should be him.”
“It should be Evander,” Hex agrees. When his entire family turns on him, he shrugs. “What? Don’t you want to see how the Elementals do it? I, for one, want to know if he’s going to light her skin on fire until the truth blows out.”
Winter curses. “Jesus Christ. I was being facetious when you brought that up last night.”
Hex smirks. “I know.”
And that’s it.
As Ada frowns and stows her ring, Wren whirls on Evander. “Three questions. That’s all.”
I expect the eldest Hegemony to shake his head and informher that’s not how it works. Or perhaps to haggle—going for five knowing they’ll compromise at four and he’ll buy himself a question for the trouble.
Instead, Evander takes my sister’s slender hands in his meaty ones, mindful of her bunny bracelets, and flips both of them over, palms up. “Look at me.”
Wren does as she’s told, shoulders back, and chin up, expression remaining cut clean with defiance. She is the picture of calm and collected. She doesn’t fidget, she doesn’t even smile in that automatic way she can’t seem to help when making eye contact. The air around both of them appears to still, matching Wren’s demeanor.
I want to will myself to draw on it, copy it, glom on to it. But I can feel my blanched cheeks going clammy under a fresh layer of perspiration. My heart rabbits in my chest against my immobile lungs. I try to force myself to take a steadying breath, but my body only does that little under protest, preferring to be as stagnant as possible beyond my heart. Like I’m watching a careening car and waiting for the crash.
Everyone around me has gone fuzzy in my periphery, and it’s just Wren and Evander in focus. Dark hair and hazel eyes and a sliver of blue sky between them. Their eye contact is as tangible as Evander’s grip on the backs of Wren’s hands.
Slowly, deliberately, Evander places Wren’s right-hand knuckles to the palm of her left, forming a gentle basket. He cradles it from below, and continues to look Wren straight in the eye.
“The Elemental truth spell works like this. I’ll create a flare of energy between us. I’ll ask you three questions. If the flare turns green, it detects truth. If it turns black, it detects an equal amount of truth and lie and the question is recast. If it turns red, it detects a lie.”
My stomach knots. I can’t believe our lives hang in the balance of what sounds exactly like the magical equivalent of a mood ring.
“Kaysa, do you understand?” She nods. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.” The sound is still confident but small and controlled.
