Page 215 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

I turn into the ballroom and find the ground has stains of blood, but I find a clean enough corner and tuck my knees into my chest and my head to my knees. I try not to hyperventilate, but that’s exactly what I do.

You can’t go home again and you can’t go to school either, I guess. There is no place for me, and maybe there never has been. And what, I’m an Arcane now? I think of Lucian calling them harbingers of chaos, and I think that’s all I am too.

But what does that mean? I go and live in the void with these creatures and my mom who hates me? No thanks! I have so few options, and I hate them all.

Actually, I think I have no options.

The scariest question of them all arises: would I be better off if I’d just been honest? If I didn’t hide who I was like a disease—if I’d told Damien about the dreams and the cut, would he have been scared of me then, or would he have understood me now?

If I’d told my mom, could she have protected me? Clearly, she’d already known everything. Could she have stopped this?

Could she have stopped me?

And Lucian… he’s probably learned that I killed more than just one person. That I killed eight in the time we knew each other and now he sees me as a monster, because that’s what I might be. Telling him that I had a sad childhood doesn’t make up for that. Obviously. I was stupid for thinking it could. He’s probably sure he’s doing the right thing by taking me out, and all the others telling me to run and trying to stop him just don’t know what he knows.

Footsteps echo from the entrance, and I curl into myself a little more, as if I could disappear.

“You can’t hide from me, darling,” Lucian’s voice echoes. It doesn’t sound menacing, even though I think it’s a threat. “I feel you everywhere I go.”

I stand, clutching onto one of the daggers Aralia gave me and I aim for his heart.

I try to let go of the blade. It’s perfectly aimed for the most important organ. He’d be on the floor in seconds, dead in minutes.

But I can’t. Not with him. And those words I thought not long ago ring through my mind like an incessant bell.

When did I become so weak?

“They want me to bring you to them,” his voice croaks. “I’m trying to fight it.”

The Arcanes.

I have no other option, do I?

“You’re trying to fight it?” I whisper like I don’t believe it. Why would he try to fight it? I’m probably no better than them. I don’t even know how much blood coats my soul.

I’m scared to see the hideous thing.

“Okay.” I step closer and closer until I am in his arm’s reach. “It’s okay.”

If I can’t kill him, then I have no other option.

“No,” he steps back, and it looks like it pains him.

“I mean, it was always going to end this way, wasn’t it?” I try to smile. “Septic scum and future king. Lucent and Arcane.” His head shoots up. “Like Amun and Eira,” I croak when the words fall from my burning throat.

“I won’t do it,” he pushes the words out, but the shadows that spread from him to me say otherwise. His jaw clenches so tightly that I want to ease the tension. “But you need to run.” He tries to catch his breath. “You need to fight me! Because I will strike, and I won’t miss.”

I stand, staring, trying to collect my thoughts in a meaningful way. Trying to think of something to say other than, you’re doing the right thing, stopping me. You’re doing what everyone else should have done.

In the silence between the words I think and the words I want to say he breathes one that helps me collect my own.

“Run.”

I step closer to him, the darkness swirling beside me with every step. “I’m done running.” I pick up his cheek and force his gaze to mine. “I’ve been running my entire life,” I whisper. “It was never worth it.” His face falls deeper into my palm and his hand holds my wrist. At first, it’s tender, but I can feel his fight to keep his grip from tightening. “I’ll go,” I say, “just let me go.”

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

---