Page 8 of The Lies We Conjure
“Are those the long-lost Blackgate girls I see?”
We all turn, and there, approaching, is not so much a person as a living, breathing candle flame.
Winter Hegemony.
Like the perfect grass, the floating chandeliers, the soft air too still for the mountains, her outward appearance feels aggressively manufactured—a mirage with a pit crew.
Honestly, it’s absolutely unnerving.
“Best get your eyes checked, Winter Hegemony, because we’reallhere,” Luna shouts in her direction, with a cackle that shakes her frail frame as she hangs on to Infinity’s strong arm for dear life. I immediately like her—Mom’s favorite patients were exactly like Luna, ornery broads whose love language was subtle verbal decimation.
“There’s no missing you, Luna—how are you?” Winter makes a point of enveloping the ancient woman in a gentle embrace the moment she reaches our circle.
“Not dead yet, which is pretty great when you’re ninety-seven, I’d say.”
“Pretty great, indeed,” Winter agrees, smoothing the old woman’s ivory caftan as she disentangles herself, careful to make sure Luna is still well balanced against Infinity. Winter greets the younger Starwood with a gentle embrace that doesn’t upset the balance of their grandmother, and an enthusiastic compliment about the cut of their ethereal jumpsuit.
Then, with the practiced precision of someone painstakingly trained in the social arts, Winter precedes to welcome each guest warmly, proxy to the hostess, promising her grandmother’s imminent arrival. She gives everyone their due, their time, working with both class and efficiency before concluding, most likely purposefully, with the three of us.
“Can you believe it?” Marsyas asks, pointedly squeezing us close in a remake of the Louvre photo she showed us at the Ren Fest. “My Lavinia and Kaysa, in the flesh!”
Winter agrees that it’s so wonderful shecanbelieve it, and then pulls us each into a warm, rose-scented embrace. “So lovely you’ve decided to join us this year,” she muses to the pair of us. “It’s been so long—whatever changed your mind about attending?”
“Yes, Marsyas, what spell did you put upon them to do your bidding?” Hector asks, hopping in with a grand laugh. “Mine are starting to weasel out of my instructions.” Both twins flinch as he claps them heartily on the shoulders. He squeezes, his large gemstone ring outshining the plain gold wedding band in the floating light with the movement. “It’s quite infuriating as a patriarch, honestly.”
I don’t think I’ve heard a person outside a Regency novel describethemselvesas a patriarch. Maybe he does belong in another time.
“Nonsense,” Luna insists with a wave of an elegant ebony hand, “these charming young ladies needed no convincing to attend a party.” She winks at me. “It’s your mother who needs convincing. We know, girls, no need to pretend.”
Wren’s mouth pops open to give the stock answer we’d agreed upon about “our” attendance, but Marsyas lets out a practiced chuckle, insisting, “It was high time, nothing more, nothing less.”
“Speaking of time, I want to hear where you’ve been, what you’ve been up to, all of it.” Then, before either of us can object, Winter claims our wrists, dislodges us from Marsyas, and aims us toward a fountain gurgling merrily among the expertly shaped topiaries.
I look back at Marsyas for some clue as to whether a directive—and a physical assertion, no less—from Winter Hegemony counts as doing what her grandmother says, per her final set of instructions. In answer, Marsyas pointedly tugs Sanguine down to sit on a nearby bench, and waves over a waiter bearing a tray of gleaming crystal flutes bubbling with champagne.
Wren uses that as her cue to happily launch into the story she’s concocted over the past six days.
A manor house just outside London, a penthouse in Barcelona, a walkup along the river in Prague, a little cottage in Bavaria to retreat to when we please. Boarding school, complete social media ban, everything directed by our mother, Athena, and Nona Marsyas.
Reveling in their undivided attention against the hum of string instruments being piped in from somewhere discreet, Wren clearly finds this part of tonight exhilarating, while I find it completely and utterly exhausting. So good at putting on a show, my sister, while I can barely hold up the curtain.
Sometimes, I’m not sure how we’re related at all.
Wren is in the middle of a very spirited tale about the time “she” chucked a scone slathered with clotted cream at a boy’s head in the Baxter refectory, resulting in an explosion on contact if her hand gestures are any indication, when a voice appears in my ear.
“This story isn’t about her.”
There’s a wryness to his delivery, as if he’s in on a joke, and a weight to his presence that hangs between us in the thin mountain air over my shoulder.
I turn toward this boy—bracing because he could mean that sentence and humor in any number of ways, including seeing right through our sister act—and my breath catches. I immediately recognize the lacrosse-star build and clean lines of his classically handsome face from Marsyas’s files.
Auden Hegemony.
I know who he is. And yet, I’m so startled—by him, by his droll accusation, by the stupid way my breath hitched—that Ilaugh.
“Um, what?” I grasp for my accent, which slid away in my surprise, and clarify with a questionable British lilt, “How do you mean, Auden?”
A wry smile lifts now to go with his delivery, and there’s just something a tad bit dangerous about it. Like black ice—hardly visible and deadly all the same. Still, his eyes, blue rimmed in brown, twinkle in a way that signals he seems pleased not to have needed an introduction. “You’re the kind to bean an adversary with a perfectly good pastry. That’s all.”
