Page 130 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

I have to play it down. If I just give my body time to rest, it will cauterize itself. I think. “It’s not my blood,” I say.

“I think it’s still bleeding.”

Thank you, Yuki.

“It’s nothing. Where’s Lucian?” I ask Azaire. My voice is strained, cracking. I’m not doing a very good job at my only job.

Lying.

But Azaire’s answer is, “I’m sorry for what Lucian did.”

“What did Lucian do?” I keep my face still, not moving a muscle.

“Told everyone you were from the septic.”

I don’t wince. “What are you, his babysitter?”

“Sometimes, yeah.” Azaire shoves his hands in his pockets. “They try to teach us here to hate anyone from a septic, forgetting our worlds are the same kind of thing.”

“Right,” I say slowly.

Did I just step into some sort of alternate dimension? He’s the first person to try to console me, not that I need it. But him, a Nepenthe. I guess it’s only been the Folk who are treating me much differently.

Trying to kill me.

I’m still not sure I trust whatever this is.

“It’s why we’re not allowed to contact our homeworlds for the first year or two. They don’t wanna foster any sympathy here,” Yuki says with a smile, leaning back and resting his hands behind his head. I’ve watched him almost every day in Combat Training, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard him speak until tonight.

“Thanks,” I say, looking between the two of them and trying not to hold onto my side. I had no idea they weren’t allowed to contact their families. “But do you happen to know where Lucian is?”

“I don’t,” Azaire says, and Yuki shrugs.

“Okay.” I nod. “Thanks.” I’m turning around and walking out the door before I even have a chance to think.

I walk out of the boys’ wing and toward my suite, but I don’t want to go back there. I want to do something. Besides, I’m pretty sure Breck is still burning on that side of school. In a turn of events that must be sheer luck, Lucian walks toward me.

“Aibek!” I shout. The closer he gets, the more I can make out.

He’s covered in blood.

Well, so am I. But I don’t think it’s his.

He gives me a look that can only be described as wicked and I don’t let myself miss the days when he looked at me like I was… more.

I walk toward him and whisper, “You need to tell everyone, right now, that you were lying about me being from the septic.”

“That won’t change anything.” He shrugs. His entire jaw is badly burnt and his nose still looks broken. I’m glad I broke it. I want to break him.

Still, in his burn I see all the dying Fire Folk from the welders’ village.

I look up into his eyes. “Why not?”

“No one will believe it.”

“Say it was a social experiment. Or something.”

“No.”

---