Page 55 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

“I don’t know,” Lucian sings, sitting back in his chair. I hate him. “It sounds rather routine.”

“Well, if you want to vary routine, you could try actually feeding them,” I find myself saying through my teeth. Too bitterly to not be emotional. “I mean,” my voice almost shakes as I try to save myself, “Hogan—Mr. Bayley—told us to think outside of the box. I think it’d be easier to control a population of happy people who don’t realize they’re missing anything.” I look down fast, but not before I see Lucian smiling.

“As if,” Fleur says just as Eleanora says, “Yeah right.”

But the prince surprises me, saying, “That could work. At the very least, it could get us the top score.” Both the girls scoff, and I’m appalled. This is a grade to them and a reality to me. “Think about it. Who else is going to offer that we treat them better?” His hand extends to me, “And Marquees has a point, if you don’t know there’s anything more to fight for, then you’re not fighting.”

“Yeah,” I say too sullenly, so I look up and smile and hope that it looks like I’m doing more than just baring my teeth. “Exactly.”

* * *

Leiholan calls out the names for the first challenges in Combat Training, then the second round, and the third, and I’ve lost any and all hope that he’ll call me this time. Or ever. The students are going to start to talk soon.

Luckily, I manage to make it through without watching Lucian and Yuki too much.

Then I go to Leiholan.

“What’s the Gerner?” I can feel the scowl painted on my face, my lips being perpetually pushed further down anytime I’m in his presence.

“Fundraiser for the school,” he says. “All the money made from the clothes and decorations goes back to ‘em.”

“You mean they steal the money back?” I ask.

He smiles at me. I can tell by now that this is one of those highly unamused smiles. “Look at you, perceptive. Who would’ve thought.” He claps for me like I’m a child. “And make sure when you’re stealing from the already poor seamstresses that you get a silver or blue dress.”

“Why?”

“Soma’s colors,” he says with a wave of his droozen hand. Like I didn’t already know that. “Founders of the school. Blah, blah, blah.”

“You never thought that this was important for me to know before? You know, in all our hours of training?” I ask, but it’s rhetorical and he knows it, I’m sure. He’s annoying, but he’s not dense.

“Must’ve slipped my mind,” Leiholan says, equally annoyed.

I clench my jaw. “Well, my roommate almost found out I’m a filthy septic liar because of you.”

He matches my nasty tone. “Or the school thinks you’re a perfect Utul princess because of me.”

“I don’t like you,” I say like a child. I have no better words.

“The feeling is mutual, sweetheart.”

I say nothing, worried I’ll sound furious or—even worse—wounded. Walking backward, I give him two thumbs up, then a middle finger, and storm out of the room.

I’m about ready to throw a dagger at someone’s throat, which has become much too common of a longing as of late. Back in the room—Aralia’s room? Our room? I don’t know anymore—Aralia lays with her head off her bed.

Her eyes meet mine. “Finally.” She’s on her feet and upright in a second.

It takes me too much effort to not say something other than, “Ready?”

“Yep.” She extends her arm toward me, bending it at the elbow. I think she’s expecting me to clasp mine to hers, and I don’t know how to tell her that I’d prefer not to touch her, so I bite my tongue and just do it. But Aralia frowns and says, “I don’t want you to get lost in the portal.”

That’s somewhat sweet—she doesn’t want me to die. I have to say, if I were on her end of this conversation I would let her take her chances.

I hunch through the portal she makes in the dresser mirror and end up on a street that’s bustling with life. Merchants line the streets, shouting and haggling and selling their goods. It’s almost comparable to the saul, one of the few stone buildings in the septic. Like the septic, there are dilapidated buildings, homeless on the ground—made of rocky cobblestone—and unlike home, trash.

Trash was a luxury.

I quickly notice that the streets are filled with all kinds of orphia. We must still be in Visnatus: it’s the only planet where Nepenthe, Eunoia, and Folk all live side by side like some sort of rendezvous.

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