Page 87 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

“Oh,” she says. “Okay.”

She snuggles up closer to me, telling me to hold her tighter. I listen. I even dare to bring my hand to her hair, stroking my fingers through the short, soft strands.

“Can you tell me a story?” Desdemona whispers, her words breaking with the hoarse tone.

“What kind?”

“One of your own. What was it like to grow up in a castle?”

I look at my hands, still covered in her blood. “Lonely,” I tell her. With my free hand, I spin the little silver wolf in my pocket. “Have you met Azaire?”

“I think so.”

“When he moved in, it was less so.” Desdemona’s hair falls over her closed eyes, and I tuck it behind her ear.

Alright, a story.

“When we were nine, we decided to sneak away for a night. We walked far out into a neighboring village and found this pub. Barley’s. There was some sort of ceremony, a wedding, I believe. Lots of Lucents at the bar drinking and hollering.

“We sat with them, shouted and acted in the ways we never could in the kingdom. The man next to us was a bit droozed. He kept ordering shots and handing them to us. Naturally, we didn’t know what it was, yet, also naturally, we drank them all. Azaire and I got so messed up that at the end of the night, when Barley found us, he gave us the key to an extra room and told us to sleep it off. After that, we went back as often as we could. Barley became more of an uncle to me than my blood relatives.”

That was always Azaire’s and my secret. No one knows of all the nights we’ve spent at Barley’s, from nine to now.

“Hm,” she mumbles.

Desdemona’s eyes are closed, and her mouth is ajar. “Would you like to go to the couch?”

She groans a little and opens her eyes slightly. They have a sleepy look to them that tells me she’s not fully here. “No,” she whispers and pushes her head further up my shoulder.

There’s something about Desdemona when she’s unguarded. Her eyes soften and her lips curve down. Her entire face becomes easier to see. To behold.

It irks and intrigues me that she is… allowing me to regard her in such vulnerable moments as this night has held. I don’t want to do wrong by her.

I will only do wrong by her.

As I’ve thought of before—and swore I would not do—I count her freckles. I brush her cheek with my thumb, her nose.

To touch her, to have her, would be a gift from the universe—but the gods have never been all that generous with me. They prefer my abuse to my award. My torture to my treasure.

I’m not sure what my penance is for, but it’s always been rather obvious that I am paying one.

Not being able to have her, not being able to allow her to have me, will be the greatest punishment yet.

* * *

Wendy comes to the room in the late morning. She walks to us and squats down, pushing apart Desdemona’s ripped, bloody shirt to look at the wound. I can’t tell if it’s wet from healing balms or pus.

“Has she been out the entire night?” Wendy asks.

“No. She was awake for a moment.”

Wendy cleans the wound. The skin is bubbled up and blistered, red and orange and a little black around the gash.

Wendy frowns, taking off her glove. Small wisps of green light move from her finger and into Desdemona. “You should get her to the couch. She needs the rest.” Wendy makes it to the door.

I look at Desdemona’s palm, burnt to a crisp.

“Wait,” I say. “Do you have any new theories on what the poison might be?”

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