Page 138 of The Lies We Conjure
“What?”
Evander answers with a long pull from his glass. Unhurried, calm, all his coiled strength at ease and peace in the aftermath of cleanup, goodbyes, promises, plans.
“Auden,” he finally says in the same tone he must have used to get my attention. “How did you know the ring wouldn’t burn when you set fire to it? In all my training with Ursula, she didn’t tell me that.”
“I really thought you were destroying it,” Winter adds from her spot, curled like a cat in the settee across from me.
We all had our conversations with Ursula, learning our roles—our places. I may not have been the oathed heir, despite her preferences, but I was the one that she apparently entrusted with what I’m about to say.
My secret. My lie. Every other one spilled out between the cracks and into the light during Ursula’s final task.
Every single one except mine.
I sit up, lean forward, my heir’s key catching against the collar of yet another Walton-Bridge lacrosse shirt.
“Because,” I begin, “when Ursula gave me my title, she also gave me a set of instructions for what to do when she died.”
“Instructions?” Evander asks, lowering his glass. “As her executor?”
“Not exactly,” I amend. “I was to destroy the master relics, then the ring.”
It’s as if all the air is sucked out of the room. Even the fire seems to smother and wane.
I nod. “That was her directive. Ursula had come to believe that by breaking the bonds that tie us, the Four Lines would know what it was to be unmoored and consequently recognize the benefits of being united, reconvening stronger than ever.”
Cupped into fists, my hands fly apart and then back together, knuckles meeting in a knocking crunch, illustrative.
“She told me the masters needed to be destroyed first because the ring is unbreakable while tied to the relics. No amount of magical or physical manipulation can destroy the ring as long as the masters aretethered to it. She wanted to make sure that I destroyed them properly and was very detailed in exactly how I must do it to succeed.”
Winter’s brows furrow delicately, while Evander’s slam together like a pair of prizefighters.
They can picture it, I know. That same pose of Ursula’s, at her desk, the instructions aimed as true and deadly as a sheath of arrows. She always hit her mark, buried her point deep, made it impossible to get away.
It’s Evander who asks, “But you didn’t?”
“I didn’t.”
The expressions that follow say it all.We deserve to know.
“I planned to do it. That was my job. That was my secret. My lie. Another of Ursula’s directives, another test. Not to mention with what Evander saw and knew—it’s what our parents seemed to have wanted. To cleave apart ourunusual, unbreakablefamily. Shattering it in hopes that it would be better for the following generations, our lines, the witches tethered to us and our choices.” I smile at my oldest cousin. “And then, you did it anyway. The outcome was the same as Ursula wanted, but the path was unexpected.”
“But you didn’t know I would do that. You offered me the ring, the title, and the power. What was that? Some sort of reverse-psychology bullshit, then?”
I nearly laugh, though he’s dead serious, because of course he is.
“No,” I say, exhaling, “it wasn’t reverse psychology. I offered you the ring, the title, and the power in good faith, because in the end, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t destroy the relics. Not because I didn’t want to acknowledge her wisdom. She thought breaking them was the only way to rebuild the lines, to make us strong enough that what happened to her would never happen again. But when I had the chance, when I could’ve attacked Marsyas myself and retrieved them just as Evander did, I knew it would be unnecessary. The way we fought together, for our lives, for our legacy, for our family… I couldn’t.”
My cousins’ attention rises from their thoughts to my face.
“But you could.” Evander rubs his still unshaven jaw. “We broke apart anyway and untethered ourselves from the ring. We did the deed—I think that says something, even if I don’t know if the Four Lines will reform. We’re not the same as those who came before us. We won’t make the same choices. We won’t navigate our challenges in the same way. We’ll find our own way to thrive.”
In that pause, it’s a smile that touches my lips.
“Ursula was right, I suppose, when she said I was most loyal to who we are. Maybe she knew that in the end I would defy her if it was the best for us. Maybe she knew Evander would question his right to the title if he had to work for it. Maybe she knew Winter would make sure we considered if it was actually worth it. I don’t know. All I know is we ended up here, just as she’d planned.”
Winter ties off her braid. Her fingers sweep to the key on her choker, no longer obscured, and she glances into the fire as if our grandmother’s face will appear, haughty, hawkish, and full of opinions. “She didn’t miss a thing.”
Evander gulps down the rest of his scotch in a single swallow. He presses the back of his hand to his mouth until the burn passes. “Well, she did miss one thing—two, actually.”
