Page 86 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

I close my eyes and I see the unnamed prisoner.

Desdemona closes hers and she sees her own version of that man.

A gift for both of us.

Desdemona cries out in her sleep again, and I put her dreaming self with her mother on a sunny day, in the grass. Then I detach from her subconscious.

Dreamcatching for Desdemona isn’t a bad job. I’d rather be awake than in a dream of my own. Lately, they’ve all been about the dead man’s life.

I’m worried about what will happen on account of the poison that Wendy couldn’t identify. The skin around and inside Desdemona’s wound was badly burnt, even her hand was. I gave Wendy the knife Desdemona stabbed the man with—the one she said was used against her—but it didn’t burn his skin, and Wendy said there were no traces of poison.

It’s only a few minutes later that she whimpers again. I’ve never had so many difficulties with dictating dreams before.

I sit next to the couch and I try again, this time she shouts.

She’s… killing someone. She’s crying out.

“Marquees?” I shake her gently. She cries again. “Marquees.” I feel like we’re by the lunar lake again and I’m begging her to stay with me.

She screams.

“Desdemona, wake up!”

Her eyes flash open and on me, the brown glowing orange, and I choke while my insides burn red.

“Hey,” I choke and put a hand to my burning throat. “It’s me.” I fall to the ground, choking on every intake of breath. “Des?—”

Not only might she be my undoing, but now the death of me as well.

“Aibek?” she whispers. My organs stop burning. Actively, that is. I am still very much overheating.

I’ve never heard of a Fire Folk burning someone internally.

She crawls from the couch, holding onto her shoulder when she stumbles toward me. “Did I hurt you?” Her eyebrows crinkle together while her eyes dart across my face. There’s a vulnerability within them I’ve never seen.

I think of her dreams, the way the murder is haunting her. “No, darling. I’m perfectly alright.”

My heart is still beating vigorously from the burning.

Desdemona nods and pulls the blanket Wendy brought her from the couch, wrapping it around her shoulders. She sits next to me, jaw chattering, though she’s certainly not cold, and weakly says, “How did you know I’d be out there?”

“I had a vision,” I answer, trying not to sound out of breath. “Though I didn’t know you’d be wounded.”

“So you’re one of those kinds of Lucents?” she asks without looking at me.

“I suppose, assuming I know what you mean by those kinds.”

Desdemona is quiet for a while, still shivering, strangely. I put an arm around her, and she rests her head on my shoulder as though we’ve done this a million times before. As if we’ve perfected this dance.

As if she can be anything more to me than what she’s become.

“How powerful are your visions?”

Few people know of my visions. Every Lucent has the propensity for them, and most Lucents fall short with our magic; shadows, subconscious manipulation, all of it. It’s said to be the most difficult magic of all five of the orphic species.

Which also means that it’s the most powerful, some say.

“They’re never wrong. Occasionally a detail is omitted, such as your injury.”

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