Page 9 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

That weary look translates to a weary tone when she says, “You’re sure about that?”

My voice is unwavering when I say, “Positive.”

She doesn’t push, just nods and pulls a piece of paper from her pocket. Something I didn’t know she could afford. “Read this as soon as you can, not now. Burn it when you’re done. No one can see it.” She pushes me further into the dwelling.

“Burn it? Mom?—”

“You can,” she says calmly. “I know you can.” She pulls me to the back of the house, to the one mirror we own, and I know what she’s doing—opening a portal. We don’t normally travel by portal. Too traceable, she’s always told me.

Her hand rests on the mirror’s surface and it turns pitch black, growing until it is as tall as she is. I’ll have to duck to get through. Before I have that chance, the door to our dwelling has opened and two people walk in. I look from them to my mom, who shakes her head and tells me to go. The closer they get, I can see that their eyes are red, like in our ghost stories.

Before I can assess the situation, I’m falling into the empty mirror.

Chapter 2

Before There Was Honesty, There Was a Lie

LUCIAN

Every orphia has a mental power, but with all things, some are stronger than others. Take the Lucents, for example. For what could be more tremendous than subconscious manipulation?

— INTRO TO MENTALISM BY PRESCOTT STERVESELL

As I button up the white undershirt of my academy uniform, I contemplate, not for the first time and surely the last.

I’ve already made up my mind.

I walk across the suite to Azaire and Yuki’s room—my best friend and personal advisor turned comrade.

“I’m thinking we throw that party in the mastick.”

Azaire shakes his head. “You’re gonna piss him off.”

“But it will be fun,” Yuki says.

“Precisely,” I say with a smile. “How else are we to celebrate the engagement?”

“That’s the point, isn’t it?” Azaire’s words are more akin to a sigh.

Pissing Kai off is precisely the point. A week ago, he and I were told that we had been engaged since before we were seven years old, and to one another’s sisters nonetheless. It was another arrow in the long worn-out target that is the decisions of my life.

I’ve accepted that I will never have full autonomy. But I wanted Lilac to have more than I’ve gotten. I wanted her to have a stab at love like she’s always wanted.

With that chance gone, I’ve decided the best way to avenge her is to have a little fun.

Apart from parties, I find angering my jailers to be quite entertaining. Pissing off Kai is one piece of my puzzle. When he explodes, which he inevitably will, he will explode to Melody and Easton, and that will come full circle to Lusia and Labyrinth.

Petty payback, but something nonetheless, for Lilac.

“This guy is going to be your brother, Luc,” Azaire says with more sympathy in his voice than I deserve.

“You’re my brother.”

It is ironic. Our parents forcing our hands in a marriage to preserve the relations between Soma—my world—and Lorucille—Kai’s—yet only making enemies of the future kings.

“Not to upset the bromance or anything, but on the contrary, I think a party is exactly what we need,” Yuki adds while he spins in his chair, black hair whirling with every turn. Azaire shakes his head and Yuki says, “What? The middle of the year is the worst.”

Azaire looks at him instead of me when he says, “And if he wages war in seven years?”

---