Page 108 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

I leave her office without another word.

* * *

My head falls, and I try another time to see the vision. It’s right there—it’s been right there—and yet I’ve been in this room all night standing in front of the empty canvas and unable to conjure the image. My eyes hang heavy, and when I allow myself the sweet relief of closing them, I see her. The fire in place of her hair, the red where her eyes should be brown.

This is a pointless endeavor, because she’s all I can see. With that, I leave behind the art room and whatever the future may hold. Today, it can wait. The first and most important thing is the consumption of the vesi that sits under my bed. I rip off its cap and take my first, sweet drink for my last day of phony freedom.

Azaire comes to my door, saying, “Your face looks better.”

By better, he means entirely healed.

“You should see the other guy.”

“You looked worse.”

“Thanks.”

I take another sip of alcohol.

“Are you sure you want to drink beforehand?” Azaire probes.

Lowering the bottle from my lips, I take a deep breath and say, “The subtle poisoning of the vicma is the only silver lining today.”

“And are you ready? For today?”

Before I can answer, I am taken out of the room and into the future. All there is to see is red. It’s the same vision, I can feel that. Then it’s a girl, whose face I can’t make out. She’s laying in the mastick under the sun.

“Ready as I can ever be,” I say and pull the white, shining shirt and Royal blue vest from my closet.

I stain the shirts red with my soaked hands. I look in the mirror, and the shirt I haven’t put on yet is stained with blood.

This is pressing. Perhaps personal. Sometimes, the more emotionally demanding a vision is, the harder it can be to channel it. I button my bloody shirt until the blood is no longer there.

“Luc?” Azaire says. “What was it?” He is always understanding. Too understanding. When I don’t answer, he asks, “Do you want me to come with you?”

Yes, I do want Azaire to come, though I would never put him through that. The threats and stares from the Folk. Forcing him to feel like he doesn’t belong—even more than he already does.

“No,” I say, “I can handle it.”

I wrap and tie the dark-blue cloak around my neck. The inside has the figure of Sulva embroidered with no less than natural silvers. Even I can admire the delicacy it took to produce this cloak by hand—though, when I do, the blood is back. That’s when I see her again, the girl laying in the mastick. I can’t make out her face, though I can make out the slash across her stomach that runs deep enough to expose her ribcage.

Immediately, I run. My cloak constricts around my neck, but I can’t imagine what Lusia and Labyrinth would do if I were to show up without it, so I ignore the subtle feeling of choking and pick up my pace.

I don’t know where to go from here. I’m at the river and I’m squeezing my eyes shut, begging Sulva for another glimpse of this vision. I get nothing.

Could it be Desdemona? Is that why I kept seeing her while trying to see the vision?

Then I hear a scream.

I fear I know who it belongs to.

I take off running in the direction of it. It isn’t long before I see the back of a girl’s head, her black hair braided and wrapped up. She is holding a girl in her lap. I don’t want to recognize the dark hair, the ripped skin around her nails.

Lilac.

I drop down to her and gently take her body from Aralia’s lap. She’s sobbing, and my sister is out cold. I do not hesitate before I am running back to the school.

Never did I think that Lilac would meet her death at the hands of a corenth. No, all my anxieties, all my fears always pictured Lusia to be the culprit.

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