Page 47 of The Lies We Conjure
The doorknob twists, the latch releases…
And Wren startles at the sight of me.
“Ru—Lavinia!” she recovers, hand flying to clutch the literal pearls at her throat—Mom’s, recovered from her purse, apparently. Wren’s eyes dart over my shoulder, to the open door behind me. “You’re awake. Winter brought usthe most awesomestuff.”
Barefoot, she twirls in place, showing off a strapless sundress with an A-line skirt and blue pattern embroidered on the white poplin to look like waves. It must be said that while the dress is very cute, it’s far more appropriate for grabbing a cappuccino and hitting the farmers’ market than spending a day untangling motive in the assassination of a woman who sure sounds like she was recently the most important witch on the whole continent.
I frown. Lower the book. My heart kicks in my chest.
“Don’t look so mad,” my sister coos with a dismissive wave. “It’s not like I’m going to wear this while looking for relics. I justhadto try it on. There’s plenty of sporty gear for us, but when else am I going to wear a Dolce & Gabbana dress? Never. If you want to try it on too, go for it, but we both know your boobs would look for an escape hatch in this bodice. It’s just—”
I fumble the book into the crook of one elbow and snatch her wrist.
“I’m not mad about the dress, I’m mad because you left me! How could you?” I let go of her only long enough to kick the door closed, then I’m right back to whisper-yelling. “Wepromisedto stay together! And if we have to separate, wecheck inwith each other. I need to know where you are at all times. And you need to know where I am. We’re all we have, and this place is dangerous. You know that! And you just left me alone, in a room with no door, in a house where at least half the people here think we’re murderers or accessories to murder.”
“I knew where you were. And where else would I be?”
“Dead in one of the sixteen bathrooms? Magicked into a sinkhole? Hidden in two square feet of the ten thousand acres outside this house?”
At this, Wren rolls her eyes likeI’mthe one overreacting. Then, she raises both wrists out in front of her. “I didn’t take these off. Safe as safe could be with my dead animal shields.” She gestures to my wrists. “And you have yours. You’re good.”
“I… am not. That’s not… We can’tactuallyuse them.” I punch out a frustrated breath. “A suggestion of power isn’t a replacement for power.”
Her mouth drops open in the most perfect, excited littleO.
“Oh, that’s a good line! I know books are your jam but when we get out of here, definitely think about screenwriting because you’re a natural with dialogue.” She bops me on the nose. I drop both sets of shoes.
“Our first line of defense is one another. Our second line of defense is our reputation. Including those.” I wave over our entangled bunny bracelet collection. “Can you just promise that from now on you won’t disappear? I need to know where you’re going and who you’ll be with and when you’ll be back and—”
“Yes to all of that and whatever else you were going to blather about.”
I frown at her. “I’m serious.”
“So am I. I didn’t know it was a rule. Now I know. Got it. Go take a shower. You’ll feel much better.” Wren flicks one of the bracelets. “These things are even waterproof.”
I squeeze the thick girth of my book until the leather binding pushes back. It’s all I can do to modulate my tone over the acceleratingthump-thump-thumpin my chest.
“We don’t know if these people can walk through walls or appear in fireplaces, or God knows what else. Just—assume they can.” It suddenly occurs to me to lock the door to the suite and deadbolt it. I do with a slamming flourish and then round on my sister.“Please.”
Wren doesn’t bat an eye.
“They’re witches, they’re not gods. If they could do shit like that, they’d be ruling this country, not hiding in the mountains, hosting dinner parties.”
“How do we know they’re not running things? Ursula mentioned threats in her speech. You don’t have threats if no one knows you exist.”
“And then Ursula was murdered. And the call was definitely coming from inside the house.” Wren gestures to the book still in my hands. “Speaking of, did you learn anything else after I left? Perhaps by osmosis via”—she bends herself sideways—“The Migration of the Four Lines.”She squints at me and then her thumb is rubbing furiously at my cheek. “You’ve got some ink.”
I crinkle my nose and jerk back. “I’ll shower in a second, but first.” I sigh and plop onto the couch positioned in front of the fire. “I actually did learn some things. But not from this book.”
I discard the tome on the coffee table. “I literally ran into Infinity outside the reading room. They told me they thought that perhaps Ursula changed her will after her kids died.”
“Well, yeah. Forget magic, anyone with the kind of moola to own an estate like this has to keep the legal stuff up-to-date.”
“Yes, but the insinuation wasn’t just because her children had died and she had new heirs, buthowher children died. Wren,” I whisper, girding myself for what I have to relay, “Infinity called what happened to them a ‘mass casualty.’”
She gasps. “No—did they say how?”
I shake my head. “No, and I obviously couldn’t ask. But they think that when Ursula rewrote her will that she was trying to protect her remaining grandkids. Basically, that if she died by foul play, then if she removed her grandkids from direct succession of the High Sorcerer title, that it would protect them from being murdered too.”
