Page 88 of The Lies We Conjure
Hex bares his teeth. “Look, we’re not gloating. And we don’t have much time.”
I give an exasperated laugh. “None of us have much time. We’re coming up on twenty-five hours, to be exact—”
“Not that,” Ada snaps. “We don’t have much time because you don’t know howheis. You don’t understand…”
“Stop speaking in riddles, and wewillunderstand,” Winter hisses. Her eyes shoot to Hex. “What the hell are you talking about? Tell usclearly,tell us now, or leave.”
The Blood witch draws in a deep, shaggy breath, and pushes his hair out of his eyes, his carefully gelled coif now ragged. He makes eye contact with his sister and they both drop their shields.
It’s an olive branch—unguarded physically, to lend credibility to an unguarded truth.
“Blood Line families have a secret—one that even Ursula did not know,” Hex says. “We can control others with a single drop of blood, yes, for a short time. What isn’t something that’s documented or discussed is that in Blood Line families, parents can control their childrenindefinitely.”
The Blackgates pop up from beneath the table, eyes wide and watching as silence descends upon us, his admission sinking in.
If this is true, the twins have never truly had bodily autonomy. Their parents may coerce them into doing things without their consent. At any time.
Again, I lower the bookend.
“They can force us to do anything becauseourblood istheirblood. As long as it’s in their veins and ours, they can control us until that connection is permanently severed.” Ada is still staring at her familial ring, head bowed, as her brother finishes. “And today they forced us to hurl knives at people we call friends.”
There’s a beat of silence.
“That’s what you told Hector you wouldn’t do at the Field of Stars,” Lavinia surmises quietly from where she rises to her full height. She looks from Hex to his sister, eyes narrowing. “And he told Ada to keep you on task.”
“They canmakeus, but being absolute controlling assholes in every sense of the word, they’d rather we just do what they say. Less painful for all involved.” Hex swallows. “If I resist, it affects Ada too. And I don’t want to see her get hurt.”
“We both try to resist but…” Ada adds, sullen, “in the end it’s too difficult and too painful to outlast their coercion.”
Hex’s coal-dark eyes lift to Evander’s face. “I’m sorry, man.” Evander is a brick wall, per usual, but there’s not a trace of anger on Lavinia’s face. Something about the juxtaposition makes Hex’s throat bob. “I’m sorry, Lavinia.”
“Because they’re competition?” Winter asks.
This time, it’s Ada who answers, her face grim. “Originally, itwas supposed to be just something to scare whomever we came upon. A way to turn the players against Evander as the best candidate for High Sorcerer. But when our parents found Luna murdered in the house, they changed tactics. Papa decided we should go after all of the heirs, and make it look coordinated with what happened to Luna. He was going to ‘survive’ a knife attack too—we just didn’t get time to properly stage it before you found Luna.”
Hex’s gaze shifts around the room. “He didn’t want to hear our concerns about how two different methods would make no sense, or that his survival would make him look guilty, not powerful and innocent like he hoped.”
“How do we know you’re not under their control right now?” I ask.
“They’re asleep.”
I nearly do a double take. “Wait—after that big show about how he needed the clue and someone had to get us out of here or we’re all dead, your parents are asleep?”
Hex shrugs and for the first time, a little smile crosses his face. “They travel with sleeping pills.”
Kaysadoesdo a double take. “You drugged them so you could come here and tell us you tried to knife Evander and Lavinia today while under the influence of your parents?”
“Yes. But also that they didn’t murder Luna. And if they didn’t, who did?” Hex tosses his arms wide. “A person in this room? Infinity? Or is there someone else on the grounds that we don’t know about? Someone not bound by the rules we are?”
“We’ve been down this road,” Evander argues. “It’s a dead end.”
“You know what’s not? The information we brought you.” Hex swipes at his phone and again turns it toward Evander, who still stands several feet away, a coffee table dotted with Ursula’s knitting magazines between them. “Papa changed his plans and arrived two days before the rest of us. And I’ll give you one guess as to the two individuals I found in his incoming calls the day he altered his schedule.”
“Marsyas and Luna,” Evander answers, resolute, eyes pinned on the small screen several feet away.
The twins nod in unison. “We don’t know that Papa murdered Ursula, but we think he knew she wasgoing to bemurdered. Maybe Marsyas, Luna, and our father had a plan. Maybe everything changed when control of the Four Lines came up as a possibility. We don’t know. But what we do know is they didn’t just call each other, they met up.”
He swipes at his screen again and shoves the device bravely in Evander’s air space. Winter carefully accepts it.
