Page 93 of The Lies We Conjure
Beside me, Auden retrieves the clue, and I realize now he must use some sort of magic to store the paper away but keep it on his person. He reads, voice quiet and reverent, his grip on my hand never wavering.
“Out damn spot, blood will never go
It paces, hot and urgent, then goes cold
The heart moves it, Princess
Until it succumbs to the elements, shriveled, hard, alone
But never gone, stained with what was.”
“It’s either in the base of the post or buried under it,” Hex suggests, his voice, like his posture and stride, sturdier than it had been.
Auden and his mind for poetry has a more dramatic line of thinking. “The blood drains through the slats to the earth, where it stays, staining the layers all the way down.”
Evander agrees with a stout, “Let’s remove the platform.”
There’s a flurry of movement, and I want this over with almost as bad as I want to keep holding Auden’s hand. I nudge us both forward, to help in the destruction of the platform. Wren notices and joins in, and no one questions that we’re standing where our father died. I suppose it could be cast off as catharsis—physically destroying a space that took so much from us.
When the platform is removed and the lantern light reaches what’s underneath, my breath catches in my throat.
It’s not soft, absorbent silt, but a broad, flat tablet of amethyst. The sides are rimmed black, and after everything it’s hard not to believe it’s some sort of years-old, magical blood. Marcos Blackgate’s blood.
And in the very center is a wooden box.
It’s stained red with time, placement, tragedy.
Evander and Hex bend together to it, Wren cuffing the eldest Hegemony’s shoulder as he sinks to the earth. Winter and Ada lean in, holding their breath. Again, my fingers snake into Auden’s. He squeezes me back.
“You do the honors,” Evander tells Hex.
Hex rubs a forefinger over the same precise lettering we’d seen marking the other two. The lamplight flares with the weight of it and he reads.
“The Heart of Cleopatra.”
Wren gasps and I know her little Elizabeth Taylor–worshiping brain just short-circuited. “TheCleopatra?!”
“Elemental witch, princess come queen,” Winter replies. “Iconic in our line.”
“Iconic outside the line too,” Wren agrees.
Yet another master relic that mixes lines. An Elemental witch, but the item preserved is that heart of hers, so famous for loving Mark Antony.
Auden grapples to apply the logic we’ve used on the other two. “Iconic, yes. But it’s the motor of the circulatory system… so it’s the Blood Line relic.”
I open my mouth to agree—
“That’s right. Therefore, it’smine.”
We all know that voice, even without the unhinged joy smothering the final word.
Stepping out of the shadows beyond the reach of the lanterns is Hector Cerise.
One sleeve is rolled up, glistening, fat lines of crimson weeping from his vertical tattoos, the single horizontal stripe denoting him as an oathed heir and patriarch, a pearlescent black. The cut means he’s primed to call his magic. Against us—or at least to threaten us. Maybe Ursula’s prison punishment spell didn’t make a mistake in Luna’s death. Maybe it never worked at all. Maybe he knows this. Maybe he murdered Luna and lied to his twins.
As my mind puzzles that, I realize Sanguine is not with Hector. We haven’t seen them apart this weekend—curious as it only adds to the unpleasantness of his sudden appearance.
“How interesting,” Hector says dryly, “as I was informed multiple times how very unsafe the grounds were after dark, and yet here you all are, holdingmymaster.”
