Page 39 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

I walk fast until I am stepping in unison for her. “Oh yes,” I say, “you’ve caught me and my undying concern for you.”

“What do you want?” she asks, picking up her pace as if she could outwalk me.

My eyes remain trained directly in front of me. “I believe I have a way to get us out of the marriage.”

Calista’s head shoots toward mine, her eyes wide, the corners of her lips may even be upturned. “How?” she says with excitement creeping into her voice.

“It will not be easy,” I say in a hushed tone. “We will need privacy to discuss this.”

“Let’s,” Calista says, turning fast and walking to the steps that no one else touches and to a room that is covered in dust. “Tell me your plan.”

“It’s come to my attention that there is a secret operation happening on Lorucille,” I tell her. “I believe if we reveal this, we can break the Littaline Compact.”

“What would that mean for Lorucille?” she asks, but she is standing taller now, more alert for wandering ears and eyes.

“If we can do this right, freedom.”

“Tell me what to do.”

“Go to Lorucille, do your quiet snooping, and look underground for anything that’s out of the ordinary on the northern end of your mountain region,” I say quietly.

“Yes, sir,” she says, and not particularly convincingly, either.

Chapter 9

Duck Duck Goose

DESDEMONA

Because of the grand loss of Elysia’s knowledge in the burning of the Irisan Archives, the dates were reset. 1AA refers to the first year post-Arcanian War.

— AFTER ARCANES (UNPUBLISHED)

Not like that,” Leiholan says. He tells me, again, to “Walk straighter,” as if I know what that means, then he goes back to throwing random questions at me. “What do you think of flám perfeit?”

“I have no idea.” The book falls from my head, and I’m sure this entire lesson is pointless. When I look at him, he smiles and takes a sip of his vesi. “Can you not drink for one second?”

“Would you refrain from your beverage for but a moment,” he says, his voice mockingly poised when we both know that he is far from it.

Then he takes another swig.

I want to scream at him, but I only repeat his words back to him.

“Tell me about your mom.”

With a few words, he’s torn down my defenses. But I have enough wits about me to rebuild them. I doubt his droozen Nepenthe brain even registered my moment of internal collapse.

“Strong.” I’m finding it hard to put a word to the woman. “A survivor.”

“Hm.”

“You had to be to make it in the septic.” I don’t take on the defensive tone that I’d like to.

He just takes another swig. “Trust me, sweetheart, I know all about survival.”

“Was it survival you were worried about while your kind was ambushing us by the second?” I ask defensively, which I didn’t want to do.

“You don’t think we were being killed?” he says, also defensively, angrily, looking down at me again like I’m a small child. I feel like one too, with how much I want to push back against his words. To tell him about the kind of things I saw in those two years.

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