Page 82 of The Lies We Conjure
Hector’s nostrils flare and he runs a hand through his pomaded hair. Sanguine places a hand on his elbow. “This is so childish. He was with me.” She gestures at her children. Still matching, the four of them. A unit. “He was with all of us. Looking for the masters at the Field of Stars and Shadrack’s Lookout. We were together all day. There. Are you happy? My God.”
Hector tosses out a hand, likethere you go. The twins remain silent.
“They’re lying.”
Lavinia’s voice is soft but clear, determined. We all turn to her, and she looks Hector dead in the eye. “They weren’t together all day. Kaysa and I saw them—”
Hector’s head is shaking, jaw unhinged before she can even finish.
“Lies. Lies. Tossing out lies to divert from whather nonadid.” Hector whirls on his family. “Enough of this. Let’s go.”
Sanguine jumps to join him, though there’s a note of hesitation in her expression. “But, darling, the picture—”
“I don’t need a picture,” Hector snaps. “This is our master, our clue. It lives in my blood.”
So much for fighting for Infinity’s vial. The patriarch bodily spins his wife toward their suite. Still, Hex and Ada hesitate—and Hector smacks the wall so hard the plaster splits and sags beneath the wallpaper.“Come on.”
This time, it’s not a direction, it’s an order.
This time, the twins follow.
“When push comes to shove it turns outsomeoneis an asshole,” Kaysa mutters when they’re out of sight.
“Honestly, seeing this side of him makes me feel sorry for Hex, and that’s saying something,” Winter admits before literally seeming to shake the thought away. Whether or not it works, she rounds on Lavinia. “Is that true? Did you see them separate?”
“Yes,” both sisters confirm at once.
“Why didn’t you mention this earlier?” I ask. “After the knife attack?”
“Yeah, I need to hear way more about this knife attack,” Winter cuts in.
“I—” Lavinia begins.
Evander quickly hushes her. “We’re not talking here in the open. Not about this, not about Luna. We need a closed door. And a lock.”
“Where do you propose we go? The solarium is a crypt, the library and the tearoom don’t have locking doors, and Ursula’s study doesn’t have enough seating if we’re going to hunker down.” Winter ticks off every ill-fitting space on her fingers.
“I have an idea,” Evander says. “Follow me.”
We head for the wide, open safety of the grand staircase, following him upstairs at a healthy clip. Suddenly I know where we’re going. We turn left, past the alcove to the reading room, and then right, into a long hallway with a single door on the courtyard side.
Evander pauses, the key around his neck clinking with Ursula’s ring as he removes it. The Blackgate girls stand behind him, shoulders smashed together and hands still twined. They’re so consistent about it that I try to recall the Blackgates doing the same as kids butI come up blank. More proof, I suppose, that my memory is biased toward keeping myanimusrelationship intact.
“Do you truly trust them?” Winter leans into my ear.
In her voice is years’ worth of knowing. Six is not too young to remember the before as well as you recognize the after. I only have a few months on her; our memories are siblings, not cousins.
Lavinia’s dark eyes find mine as she steps over the threshold.
The past lives with me and though this present is both new and nearly unimaginable on all sides, after last night, after this morning and afternoon, I can be certain of one thing in this moment.
“Yes. I trust them.”
CHAPTER25
RUBY
“Do you think one of them killed her?” Wren whispers in the plush confines of the en suite bathroom that once belonged to the great Ursula Hegemony.
