Page 52 of The Lies We Conjure
An ornate silver ball and chain.
The bauble is reminiscent of a tea diffuser, though it doesn’t appear to have any holes, just lacelike silver scrolling in looping and interlocking patterns.
“A locket…” Winter muses. “That was not what I was expecting, I’ll be honest.”
“Not all relics are finger bones and locks of hair,” I tease.
“Ew, no. I was thinking, like, Excalibur or something.”
I shrug and gently sweep the delicate chain to the flat of my palm and present it to my older cousin. “For the patriarch.”
Evander accepts it with a curt nod, blinking away the dampness, though he can’t hide the crimson rimming his lashes. He sniffs, staring down at the master.
All that power, all that pain, packed into something so small, delicate, unobtrusive.
“Wait,sayssomething…” Winter ducks until her nose is an inch away from Evander’s palm. Her fingers lift to probe the relic. Evander rips it away.
“Don’t touch.”
“Don’t be a baby,” Winter snaps back. “It’s as much mine as it is yours or Auden’s. Let me see it. I’ll give it right back,patriarch.”
Evander sighs but doesn’t react as Winter tips the underside of the orb-shaped pendant into view. I watch her blue eyes, so much like Ursula’s, read something I can’t see… and I watch as the spark of excitement within them dims to confusion.
“No…” she says, almost to herself, pale brow crinkling. “No, that can’t be right.”
CHAPTER17
RUBY
Once I’m showered and dressed in high-end athleisure courtesy of Winter Hegemony—and have made sure Wren trades the cocktail dress for the same—I tie on a pair of designer tennis shoes so pristinely white it feels like a crime to wear them, and go in search of food.
As Infinity promised, there’s an entire spread set up in the entrance to the solarium. Laid out is a tray of delicate pastries, whipped butter to match, several bottles of Evian, three carafes of coffee and one of hot water for tea, and actual cream served with sugar cubes and wafer-thin bone china. There aren’t any scones in the pastry selection—a fact I would’ve attributed to a joke by Auden at my expense if last night hadn’t gone so terribly, horribly wrong.
Breakfast in hand, I cast about the gorgeous space—which I didn’t really admire in the fevered minutes after the murder. The room’s west side is completely made of glass, configured in a trio of grand double doors and windows with sashes so slim they seem but a whisper in the glass. This allows for an unfettered view of the stone veranda with the gardens, fountain, lawn, and mountains beyond.
Mercifully, the room is empty. I’d like to engage in as little small talk as possible with people who think we’re cogs in a murder plot.
Wren trails her fingertips along an ancient settee more expensive than Dad’s house, arranged like the others with side tables and coffee tables, and their own bevy of candle pairings in such a way that somehow makes them perfect for both small, quaint conversations, or purposeful seclusion. Take your pick.
Though we’re alone, Wren has her accent pulled on, straight and tidy, when she turns to me with coffee so pale it could be straightcream and two absolutely heavenly looking croissants piled together like throw pillows atop a parchment-thin plate, and announces, “It’s a lovely morning to sit on the terrace, don’t you think?” She gestures dramatically with her priceless porcelain like the stage rat she is. “We can’t sit in this giant room, alone, stuffing our faces with croissants. We should be outside, alone, stuffing our faces with croissants.”
“Did you not just tell me half an hour ago that you wanted to throw up?”
“Andyoutoldmeit’s only going to get worse, so I better get serious about sustenance and hope my gut can keep it together.”
Wren takes off, absolutely expecting me to follow. And I do—but not before snatching two butter knives from the arrangement, slipping them into the long pocket sewn into the hip of my tights.
Silly? Maybe.
But without actual magic, and with the multiple x factors making up the rest of the Hegemony family, a butter knife—two—seems like a reasonable weapon to keep on hand. With my flowy tank top settled over the waistband, the knives are completely camouflaged. And… there if I need them.
The terrace is affixed to the western part of Hegemony Manor and therefore the wrong direction to enjoy the morning sun, but I trail Wren as she drags me to a bistro table just far enough from the roofline to be positioned squarely in the rising light as it crests the turrets.
As we sit, I try not to stare at the still, shrouded form of Ursula over the lip of the terrace. The proximity tugs at my heart, especially with the abandoned hull of the dinner table, with its shattered porcelain and beached chandeliers, a still-life reminder only a few more feet to the west.
I nibble at my croissant and force myself to look at the view and work on a plan of how we’re going to address today. Everything is a painter’s palette shot through with the unfiltered crispness of Colorado summer. Gone is the abject perfection that came with Ursula’s magic when we first arrived, and what’s left in its wake is the abjectperfection of nature’s own hand, told in wheaten golds, soft greens, warm browns, and sapphire, cloudless sky.
And there, on a trail in the distance, is a blur of motion.
