Page 104 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

I dive in the water.

The last time I swam down this lake for her, I was interested in her mother and not her well-being. Now, I am far more concerned about the latter.

So, why did I let her do something I knew was dangerous?

Why did I let Azaire?

Are answers and revenge worth their lives? Because that is precisely what I’m risking.

She wasn’t strong enough yet.

I begin to worry, to spiral.

When I cannot find her body, a nagging tears through me, telling me to swim deeper, more like an instinct than anything.

I have to find her. I promised her she wouldn’t die.

It’s not the fear of failing to reach the void that panics me in this moment. It is the fear of losing her.

And yet, I went into this knowing I would.

Keep swimming, I demand myself. Faster.

I do, further and faster down until I have my arm wrapped around her waist and am swimming back to the surface. I pull Desdemona out, lay her on the grass, and check for her vital signs. She’s not breathing. No pulse either.

Losing my wit in this moment will do her no good.

As gently as I can manage, I tip her chin back and bring my mouth to hers. Then I blow air into her lungs before pumping her stomach.

Desdemona coughs and spits out the water, which then turns to foam as it suds up at the sides of her mouth.

Her eyes do not open.

“Marquees?” I say, trying to call her back to her body. But that’s probably not her name, is it? Dalin was never her father.

“Desdemona?” I try to say rationally but I end up screaming.

I close my eyes and reach for her subconscious. I do not find it. Have I killed her? Lost her in between time and space the way people get lost between portals?

Have I not only killed her, but sent her into oblivion?

Have I forsaken her to certain doom?

I thought I could handle this, yet I find my heart beating faster, my arms shaking, my body growing cold and rigid. My magic is withering between the mental and emotional strain. I am panicking. She is dying, and I am panicking.

What little use that will do for her.

I grab her wrist and feel for her pulse. Her body is still hot enough to set kindling on fire. I close my eyes again and visualize her as best I can. The wide angles of her face and the thirty-three freckles that dot her cheeks. It’s oddly frightening how easy it is for me to create a mental image of the girl. Even in my mind, she is beautiful in a way that is perplexing.

Beautiful in a way that is haunting.

There she is, still next to her mom, her body phasing in and out of something between a solid and semi-solid. As though she is turning to water.

I don’t know how to step through the way she has, how to tether myself to my projection as she’s done. I attempt to call her name, and she does not do so much as glance away from her mother.

She wasn’t strong enough yet.

If I were to even manage to step through—which I have no idea how she’s done and how I’d replicate it—then our fates would be the same. She had an advantage, being able to ground her physical body to our realm through me. I don’t have that luxury, though neither does she at the moment.

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