Page 65 of The Lies We Conjure
“What—no. Of course not.”
Frustration sharpens the edges of my voice. I’m so sick of him questioning me, but this time I deserve it. Looking Evander right in the eye, I swallow down the frustration and speak as plainly, as directly as I can. Nothing to hide behind, all of it in the open.
“I covered up the body. Yes. Honestly, I’m not even sure why I did it.”
That’s the truth of it.
I took one look at the dead man, read the panic on Lavinia’s face, and I just did it. Her fearful eyes and pale cheeks rise in my vision now and I have to shake them away. Doing such a thing for this version of Lavinia that I barely know makes even less sense than doing it for the version of ten years ago I knew well enough to loathe.
I don’t understand it. I can’t defend it.
“But,” I continue, drawing in a deep breath, “I didn’t tell you because I simply recognized that we had enough going on last night and chose not to say anything.”
Even to my own ears the answer is both vague and weak.
Evander bares his teeth. “Last night you told us not to put all of our attention on Marsyas. You literally argued for us to look at everyone else while knowing there was a man dead by Marsyas’s hand onourproperty.” He’s no longer stoic, he’s shouting. “Knowing about the murdered driver could’ve changed things last night—”
“What would it have changed, Evander?” I shout right back.
Even I’m surprised when there’s the heavy bludgeon of anger in my words instead of simply my hot, festering annoyance that they’ve managed to tack this indiscretion onto a fight we had when Ursula was alive. I try to swallow it down, to soften my voice like I’d managed to do mere moments ago, but my next words still come out edged like a razor.
“It would’ve given you more leverage to interrogate the Blackgate girls, yes, but it wouldn’t have changed the outcome. Kaysa would’ve submitted to that truth spell just as she did this morning, she would’ve passed, and she would’ve shoved your sniper’s target off their backs. That’s it.”
“Auden’s right.”
We both turn to stare at Winter. She’s hauled herself onto the counter by the fridge, sagged sideways against it, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“While I’m not pleased hechose to keep this information to himselfwhen he hadample opportunityboth last night and this morning to share news of the dead driver with usandthe group at large,” she continues, adding stress to each word aimed at my indiscretion, “the outcome wouldn’t have changed.”
Evander looks like he might blow a literal gasket.
“Between us?Everythinghas changed. Auden, I believed you yester—”
“Right, which is exactly why you’re bringing it up again. Asking me if I’m in on it. Again. Third time’s the charm, Evander. It’s totally when I’m going to cave and blurt, ‘Yep, you’ve caught me, I murdered Ursula for your title!’” I explode back. “Is that what you’re hoping to hear? That I’m the villain?”
Evander scrubs a hand down his face, worrying the fresh darkstubble lining his jaw. He pins me with his heavy-browed stare, the clear green of his irises the only pinprick of light. His exhaustion is different now, somehow. Older, deeper.
“Before we lost Ursula, I thoughtshewas keeping something fromme,not you. But now? You didn’t tell us about the body. You didn’t tell us about your title—”
“Our titles are not anything to be guilty about,” Winter snaps, slamming the side of the fridge with a thump that rattles the mixing bowls on a nearby shelf. “Let’s not re-litigate this shit, it’s just dick measuring by another name. No thank you, boys.”
Evander throws up his hands. “The point is… I’m going to be wondering what you’re keeping from me.”
I pin him with a glare of my own. “I’m not keeping anything from you.”
Evander stabs a blunt finger into the flat of his palm. His tone hardens into the one he’s been using to try to prove his authority to us, to the other High Families. “No more secrets from here on out. No matter how small.”
His strong-man act is not appreciated.
“What about you?” Winter challenges. “Can you honestly tell us you have no secrets,patriarch?”
“None,” Evander insists—a slammed door.
Winter’s lips draw back, ready to attack him on both his answer and his attitude.
I don’t let her. “Okay, look. What we all know now is that Marsyas killed that man and left. Though, I do agree that Hex could be right about her being set up, I think we need to recognize that if Marsyas murdered Ursula and vanished before the deed was done, then she has asecond partof her plan.”
That gets their attention.
