Page 46 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

“Training. Are you alright?”

“You’re not doing anything stupid, are you?” Lilac looks down while her eyes stay trained on me. The same eyes as Lusia, only warmer. “I saw… something. I worry that what you’re doing won’t end well.”

Lilac gets visions as I do, though they’re not as strong and not as vivid. When my visions are more than that of a small future insight, I have to paint them. Lusia brought me the best painter in the kingdom as a gift when I was a child. She forced me to learn to paint as the painter would. Then she killed her.

That is not the point. The point is that whatever Lilac saw is not likely as vivid as one of my own prophetic visions. Which is good, because it would be too dangerous for her to know what I’m going to do today.

“I’ll be careful, Li. Promise.”

“It was a really bad feeling.” She grabs my hand, something she only does when it’s urgent. “The same as the way you described what Mother did when you were younger.”

I do not know what this could mean. She and Azaire are the only two who know of what I had to watch. Only Azaire knows of what I had to endure, as he tends to when it comes to details regarding Lusia. Yet, I do not know how my ploy could bring about such a feeling.

“It was a vision?” I ask, and Lilac nods. “Were you alright in the vision?”

“I didn’t see myself, but yes, I was fine,” she says hesitantly.

“And Azaire? Was he alright?”

“Yes, yes, no one was hurt from what I saw.” She frowns. “It’s not that though, Lucy. It was… I don’t know how to explain what it was.”

I say again, “I’ll be careful.”

So long as Lilac and Azaire are safe, there’s not much I wouldn’t do for answers.

“It’s important?” she asks.

“Greatly.”

Lilac pulls her dark hair back behind her ears. “If you need anything, any help, come to me. Promise?”

“I promise,” I tell her.

“And tell me what it is when you’ve finished?”

“Promise.”

* * *

Desdemona is waiting by the time I make it to the lake. This is our second time working together, and since the last, I have racked my mind more than I’d like to admit trying to find the answer as to why her magic feels so potent. Specifically when I touched her.

It was electrifying.

This, plus Lusia’s intrigue in her and her intriguing ability to step through projections, has made her my life’s most profound enigma. However, I have not deluded myself into believing that I won’t have to turn her into Lusia when she asks again. I only have to solve the puzzle before Lusia gets her.

“Would you like to open a portal to the shore?” I ask.

Her eyes grow wide and her body goes rigid for a moment. If I had blinked, I would’ve missed it, because her straining disappears as quickly as it came.

Desdemona says, “What about the wards? Won’t the headmistress find out?”

“Don’t worry about Cynthia,” I say as I extend my hand to the lake.

She leans over the water, holding out her hand in a gesture I have never seen before. Her fingers curl into her palm while her thumb sticks out. The determination on her face, coupled with the odd placement of her fingers, has me not wanting to look away.

I see this image, for a moment, as a painting. As if I’m glimpsing the future instead of standing in it.

Then the water swirls into itself before it shows the coast and I can no longer watch her.

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