Page 99 of The Lies We Conjure
“I met with Ursula.”
My head snaps up to the new voice—Infinity.
“What?” Winter asks, hoarsely.
“I’m the one who wanted the Celestial Line to leave the Four Lines. It was my idea. Grandmama went along with it because she knew she didn’t have much time left, and wanted to leave me in a happy place. So she set up a meeting for us with Ursula. We went… and it did not go well.”
Their eyes drop and my stomach does too. “When was this?”
“December. When I was home from school.”
I catch my cousins’ eyes. Lavinia was right. The threat Ursula meant to address was to how things had always been. Yet another generation straying from tradition.
“I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but… I’m sure Grandmama is dead because of that choice.” Infinity covers their face. “I know it.”
Winter crosses to them, tugging their hands away from their face and holding them tightly. “It’s not your fault. I know you think it is, but it isn’t.”
“Did you know Luna met with Hector and Marsyas before the meeting?” I ask as gently as possible, feeling like an asshole. “The twins had proof that Hector had a private lunch with two people, and based on his text messages we think it was the two matriarchs.”
Infinity allows Winter to wrap a comforting arm around their shoulders now. “We typically travel together, but she came here early. I didn’t ask why.” Infinity’s eyes flash up, wide and sorrowful. “Do you think they were up to something? Together? Wanting to leave the lines or… or… to assassinate Ursula?”
“We don’t know,” I answer, honestly. “And given Hector’s behavior, we won’t be getting any answers from him.”
The Blackgates are downcast, their shoulders slumped. No answers from Marsyas, no answers from Luna, no answers from either woman’s grandchildren, kept in the dark. And so we are too.
Infinity’s head shakes and Winter rubs their forearm. They turn to her, new tears forming. “I’m sorry, I don’t know more. If I’d only asked, maybe…”
“There’s so much all of us should’ve asked. Don’t put this secret on yourself. It was theirs to keep and… we have to navigate it together.”
There’s a long pause, and then Kaysa clears her throat. “Does anyone else have any more secrets to share? If so, I can’t take much more so just yell it out, chips on the table.” She taps the center of the marble, astride our half-finished plates and utensils, as if gesturing to where our secrets could go, plopped into the open, trying to lighten the mood.
I stare at my hands. My gut can’t take much more.
Lavinia bites her lip. Winter and Infinity lean into the wall, silent save for ragged, teary breaths.
Evander holds up a hand.
“There’s one more thing. And then we can rest. We’re going to need it. But, please, you need to hear this too.”
His voice is rough, drained, pleading. I lift my gaze, watching as his head hangs in the blunt hammock of his hands, his brow scrunching violently, and he pulls in yet another deep breath. When Evander speaks, the words come easier now, it seems, the weight of the rest of it out in the open.
“Auden, I lied to you when you asked where I went after we searched the study the night of Ursula’s murder.”
My lips drop open as I try to read his face for the answer, even as it comes.
I realize in that moment that I can’t read him. I don’t have any idea what he’ll say. This man is like a brother to me, but the past few minutes have put so much distance between the Evander I know and the one who lived the things he’s telling me… that he’s now a stranger, fuzzy and unknown, a blip, a mile away from where I sit.
“I didn’t come here to search her rooms first. That came second,” he admits.
No one else here knows that this conversation happened between us, but that doesn’t matter. It’s easy enough to follow. The lie ripped away and the truth exposed with each passing admission.
“The first thing I did when I was alone,” Evander says heavily, “was go to the place where I saw my father die. I knew there was a master relic there. He hadn’t been successful in completely extracting it before the security wards triggered. I went to the niche where I knew it was, opened it—and found it empty.”
My gut roils.
Of course—if Evander saw his father die, he saw him attempt to remove a master.
And we only have one master left.
