Page 21 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

I guess we’re poorer, dirtier, more rebellious. This is what the look at the beginning of class was about. Don’t stick out.

But one thing catches my attention above all else. Propaganda. This book basically says the septic is easier to manipulate through pictures and a few words because our brains don’t work as quickly due to all the work they’re forcing us to do.

I think of the school and all the new pretty colored pictures and words calling those nasty keepers the face of justice.

When I’ve had enough, I look around the room, until my eyes stop on the boy I met by the lake. His eyes, a deeper blue than any Lucent I’ve seen so far, coupled with his wavy dark hair, make him the personified picture of the midnight sky.

He’s just as perfect here as before. Guess the moonlight didn’t do him any favors.

I turn away.

I have more important things to focus on. Number one being getting home and number two being Hogan calling me over at the end of class.

“How’s the glamour working?” he asks. “I spent a long time perfecting it so it’d last you longer than a day at a time.”

Yeah, spent all that time while I was unwillingly unconscious.

“It’s a marvel, thank you.” He’s one of the most important people to convince, so I smile.

“I wanted to give you a heads up about the Armanthine.” Of course I’ve heard of the Armanthine. But only briefly—they have purple eyes and they can read minds and that’s where my knowledge of them ends. “Most of them are untrained and thus can only read what you are thinking at the moment. Take extra caution to your mind when they’re around.”

“Understood.”

The second I enter Combat Training Leiholan’s eyes burn into me.

I’ve been summoned.

“Get a suit before you stick out,” he says. “In the back.”

I go to the back and open the double doors. Some of the girls have on shorts and skirts, but the only thing available in the closet is a tight, black jumpsuit. So that’s what I wear.

“Jermoine and Breck, Eleanora and Erica, and Lucian and Yuki,” Leiholan calls out. “On the mat.”

He steps onto the mat. I can’t escape him. And when he fights, I hate that I can’t take my eyes off of him. Every swing and strike is like a work of art. Every step makes it a masterpiece. Deliberate and precise, strong and cunning, artful and deadly.

I want to fight like that.

When class is over, I head out for the mastick, but Leiholan calls me to him. I don’t look into his gray eyes and I don’t think about the keepers back home.

The class scurries out and he pulls out a bottle of vesi from a locked closet in the back of the room. He takes three sips before he even looks at me, but still, he doesn’t speak.

“What do you want from me?” I say when I’ve had enough.

He points at me with the bottle in his hand. The bottles we make at home. The labor we don’t get to delight in. “I’ll teach you to hide,” he tells me, looking down at me, and I feel almost as little as I do when my mom looks at me like that.

“Hide from what?” I’m sure I know his answer.

“Our world.” He raises his arms and looks around, mocking marvel. “You don’t know it. I didn’t either, and I hate to say sweetheart, but you stick out like a Nepenthe after the war.”

“Yeah?” I say, somewhat tauntingly. I can already smell the vesi on his breath. The more intoxicated he is, the less I have to worry about what I say. “And why would you do that?”

“Common courtesy,” he says, like it’s a joke I should be laughing at. Then he laughs. I smile mockingly.

“Bullshit.”

He takes another swig from his bottle. “Cynthia told me to help you.” He waves his hands in the air like a kid. The only reminder that he’s not is the sword strapped to his waist and the bottle in his hand. “The headmistress.”

I think about his offer, I really do. Blending in would help my cause, but I don’t see it ending well. “I’ll pass.”

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