Page 127 of The Lies We Conjure
Marsyas’s arms swim through the air like a conductor’s, small hands flexing and collapsing with each spelled thought, directives aimed at the zombie bodies of the elder Cerises.
The husband and wife lurch into motion in my periphery, going from standing at the ready to a flat-out sprint at their children, all the while reeling them in with the power they still have over their blood.
With every step closer to their marks, the parents’ hold on the twins seems to grow. More compelling, more painful—until the result is just too much.
Ada cries out first, yanked toward her parents like a magnet. She can’t stop it, her speed accelerating with every lost inch.
“Here’s the thing, you insolent children,” Marsyas announces, her voice raising to nearly a shout. “Thehow—how can I control your parents? How have I brought them back and gained control oftheir magical abilities? I am the world’s most powerful Death witch amplifying my powers throughmymaster relic, that’s how. Even better, I have the Blood master in my possession, which means your magic is my magic, their magic is my magic.”
Marsyas lets that settle in, the box tight in her palm and uplifted, unmistakable in the late morning light, even under the cover of clouds.
“Whatwill I have them do?” she bellows, clearly enjoying this. A woman who has waited a decade to say her piece. “Fight at my side, of course. And because you don’t seem interested in surrendering to me as High Sorcerer, well, thewhyis simple. Because they can control you. And because they are no longer your parents, simply my very fancy puppets, they don’t have anyinconvenient attachmentsto either of you anymore.”
“So you’ll have them kill us?” Blood dribbles from one nostril, staining Hex’s lips and teeth.
My heart leaps, willing him to open his eyes.
Hex doesn’t know Ada is nearly captured. I can’t tell him. And Marsyas and Lavinia most certainly won’t warn him.
“If you won’t join my team in life, then you certainly will in death.”
Frozen and horrified, I watch as the moment Marsyas’s declaration drops, Ada’s unbroken path collides with Hector and Sanguine. They converge upon her, and the girl disappears from my view into the roiling movement of their animated corpses with a raw, high-pitched wail.
Hex’s eyes snap open. “Ada!?”
He falters in shock at whatever he can see. Panic flaring in his features, Hex rights himself, resistance renewed, before something hard clamps over his expression—determination. And he purposefully gives in, letting his parents’ magic draw him in as he attacks right back, flying toward them at the speed they want with the fight they aren’t expecting.
They blow apart as he crashes into them like a bowling ball intoa cache of three pins, the screams of the dead now ringing out among Ada’s keening and Hex’s battle cry.
“What are you doing to them? Stop!”
A new voice enters the fray. Bodies flash in my periphery. I can’t see, but I know exactly who it is.
Winter with the demands. Infinity confirms their presence a moment later with a shocked “Grandmama?!”
“Nice of you two to join us. You remember Lavinia? Yes?”
“Hello.” Lavinia smiles from beside Ursula’s body. “And your grandmothers, I’m assuming you haven’t forgotten them?”
Neither of them are tricked by their personal emotions. They see this situation for what it is.
“You—you broke into their shrouds?” Infinity asks, voice shattered with horror.
Winter is more blunt, less horrified than disgusted. “You turned them into fucking zombies?”
Marsyas dismisses her with a flick of her hand. “I tire of questions you know the answers to, and honestly, we’re busy right now.”
Winter only digs in deeper. “I know what you’re doing but I don’t know how you can do it. The manipulation of several corpses at once has been unheard of since Morgana’s time.”
Marsyas absolutely beams. “Oh, ‘unheard of’ isn’t the same as ‘doesn’t happen,’ baby Hegemony.”
“You have the Death master.”
“Wehave the Death master,” Lavinia corrects, presenting a clenched fist.
“But—” Winter’s protest dies as the Blackgate matriarch begins to laugh.
“But nothing, sweetheart,” Marsyas crows, one hand still directed at the Cerises, scrounging with their children on the tiles around the fountain, the other now cuffing the knobby, ashen shoulder of Ursula. “Proximity to the Elemental relic made generations of Hegemonys the most powerful witches on earth, all while they claimed they were just like us, and mere shepherds for the power of the FourLines.” She squeezes Ursula’s shoulder so hard the decaying flesh compresses under the pressure like rotting fruit, the skin splitting, blood and viscera oozing.“Lies!”
