Page 97 of The Lies We Conjure
Meanwhile, Evander strides straight over to the sideboard, pourshimself some scotch, and downs it in a single gulp. He squeezes his eyes shut, the back of his hand pressed to his lips, and leans heavily into the sideboard, glass clinking as his weight throws the whole thing off-balance. “We need to talk about me—I need to talk about me. Just. Sit please, now.”
My heart kicks in my chest at his broken, near-breathless request.
He’s spooked.
This isn’t about what just happened at the killing grounds. It isn’t about the Cerises, or the relic found, or the final clue. This is something else entirely. My cousin looks like he might jump out a window if he can’t release whatever he needs to say.
I immediately take my seat.
“We’re here. We’re listening,” I assure him. “What is it?”
“It’s just—” Evander rakes a hand through his hair, eyes snapped shut. “I’m not ready. I’m not prepared to be the patriarch or the High Sorcerer and…”
“And that’s not true,” Winter insists. “Evander, stop. You—”
“No—it is true. It’s true.” His eyes open and pin on me. “Ursula never planned for me to be the Hegemony heir. She wanted you, Auden.”
There’s a collective sharp intake of breath but I’m already waving off this nonsense.
“No, she didn’t,” I scoff, ignoring the spike of hot surprise in my gut. “You’ve taken the oath, visited her every weekend from school—”
“And had a gap year planned for next year before excelling in the major of her choice.” His green eyes flash, his teeth flash, everything about him is like a tripped fire alarm. “Yeah, I know. But I was also there two years ago when she told me thatshe wanted you.”
My mouth is suddenly desert dry.
Two years ago was when Evander started his training. At sixteen.
“She never mentioned it to me,” I push back. “Not two years ago, not in January when she named me executor, never.”
Evander’s gaze drops.
“That’s because I blackmailed her.”
All the air leaves my lungs.
I gape at him, inert, as if swaddled in Ursula’s spelled punishment.
“Youwhat?” Winter asks in a rasp.
Our cousin pointedly digs his key out from beneath the collar of his tank top. It clinks against the High Sorcerer’s ring as he yanks the chain forward, bringing it into the illumination provided by the pendant above our heads.
“I stole this ring from you, Auden. You’re the person Ursula chose as her heir.”
I won’t have him do this. Not now. None of the words he’s saying are making sense. “You didn’t steal—”
“Yes, Idid.” Evander drops the necklace and the twin pendants thud against his chest. “Shut up, Auden, and listen to me for once in your goddamn life.”
The building excuses shrivel on my tongue. I press my lips into a line, cross my arms over my chest, and shut up.
“Thank you,” Evander says, jaw muscle flickering as he carefully folds his meaty hands before him, and proceeds to close his eyes and tell the story.
I listen.
“When I turned sixteen, Ursula summoned me to her study. I nearly skipped in and sat down, ready to hear that I had been named oathed heir just as my father had.”
Here he pauses, eyes flashing open. He nods at Winter, who has both elbows planted on the tabletop, hands cupped around the sides of her neck as she watches him with unreadable eyes; Infinity in the shadows; the Blackgate girls, who wear dinner-plate eyes and parted lips; and, finally, to me. When he speaks again, he doesn’t drop his gaze from mine.
“She knew I expected to be named because I was the oldest, and that’s how these things work. Which was exactly why she made it a point to call me in as expected and tell me that I was ill-suited to be her heir because I was too loyal to the Hegemony name.”
