Page 219 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

I don’t recall doing anything. I only feel the absence of my little silver wolf and something else I can’t identify.

That evening, Wendy comes to my suite and asks if I’m busy. I tell her no, and she sits.

“I feel I’m morally obligated to tell you that I remember.”

I stare at the wall and rest my elbows on my knees. Remember what? I’m fairly sure there is something I’ve forgotten. Then I realize she is speaking of the conversation I had with Icarthus when he was in her body.

“I’m starting to forget why I ever cared to keep Lusia and Labyrinth’s secret hidden.”

“I’ll help you find the truth if you help me,” Wendy sighs. “I used to be pretty good at it.”

“What truth are you seeking?” My head inches in her direction.

“Two things,” she gulps, “number one being, I don’t feel anything, even when I try. Your emotions are as much a mystery to me as anyone else. Number two, when the Arcane,” she presses a fist to her thigh, mimicking a sword, “I didn’t feel anything then either.”

Her eyes meet mine, and there’s no hiding the myriad of emotions in there. Nor is there a way to hide that they’ve lost their vibrance. Instead of green, they’re closer to gray.

Closer to Azaire’s.

“Do you remember what happened after the Arcane… left me?”

“You died,” I whisper. I had hardly even processed it when it happened. And here she is sitting in front of me, alive and breathing with eyes that are less green and seemingly no magic.

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Nothing about this morning makes sense.” One moment I was dying, and the next they were gone.

After a long pause of silence, Wendy takes a shaking breath and says, “The only person who I want to talk to is gone.”

“I know,” I whisper.

“You do,” she says. There is an odd comfort in that. We carry the same ghost. We keep him alive by maintaining the pieces of him that he’s left in us.

This does not make the loss feel any more real, however.

The aftermath happens fast. With the corenths gone, classes begin again. Occasionally I go to Azaire’s room and knock on his door. Yuki always opens it with a frown.

“My inadequacy,” I’ll mumble.

I get cheers and applause as I walk through the hall. I’ve been granted the title of a savior. Only against the corenths. No one but our small group knows of the Arcanes, but they too think we won because of me. I only know the truth of what happened in one of those battles, and I was far from a savior.

On another evening, I find myself going to Wendy and Calista’s suite and knocking on Aralia’s door—Lilac’s old room.

I’m not sure why I am here, only that it feels like I should be.

The first thing I notice are the sheets on what should be an empty bed. “Why is that bed made?”

Aralia looks over her shoulder. “I didn’t even notice.” She looks back at me and says, “I don’t even like green.”

“That’s rather odd,” I observe.

“Yeah,” Aralia says thoughtfully. “Yeah it is. You know, there was something else kind of odd.” I look at her with an expression equivalent to saying go on. “I found a notebook with a name in it I’ve never heard, under the bed.”

Epilogue

The moonlight glitters upon the snowy region of Soma on the night that a man called Mial has given an important piece of information to the lands queen and king.

The child has been retrieved.

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