Page 63 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

Desdemona steps away from me and looks around the room as if she is expecting to find something new. A stark difference to the playful smile that once stole her face.

“What is it?” I ask, stepping forward.

“Nothing.” She starts shaking out her hands and blowing on them. “It’s just hot.”

We need to amp up her precision. I accepted her pleas of dancing because I have to earn her trust. She has not excelled on the magic front, but if she doesn’t trust me the entire mission is futile. When the time comes, I have to be able to persuade her to do as I wish.

I think I’d like to be able to do so without annihilating her.

It is her overwhelmingly fast breathing that has me stepping into her and picking up one of her hands, surprised to see a long scar on the palm. A deep cut that she undoubtedly acquired before she arrived, telling by the state of its healing. Not at all the kind of wound you would stumble upon in Utul, and further proof that she is lying.

I don’t trust her, not by a long shot. There is something more than her home that she is hiding. I would put my energy into discovering it if it mattered to my cause, but all I need is her power.

I brush past the wound as I outline the lines on her palms—which truly are burning—and she shudders as I fill her hand with cooling energy. Cooling her down as she heats me up.

I move my finger up her arms, passing past her wrist and over her hammering pulse. I smile a little when her breath catches until I realize my heart is beating as quickly, if not more, than hers.

Desdemona tugs her hands from mine and presses them against her ears for a moment before she removes them. “I’m okay,” she says. “I’m okay.”

“What happened?”

Desdemona looks at her hands, tracing the lines on her palms as I had done before. “Just these migraines I’ve been getting.”

“A migraine?” I ask. “When did they start?”

She looks up, locking her gaze with mine.

Her eyes.

How have I never noticed her eyes?

They're the color of the warm rays of the sun, of leaves right before they fall from their trees, of the gold that we’ve deemed too precious to mine.

Her eyes are the color of free falling. Into the world, beneath its surface, through its core.

And the shape—not rounded and bulbous like they usually appear. No, they’re wide and sharp, half of her eyelashes sticking down into her eyes while the others jut out at odd degrees. I’m not sure why it’s taken me so long to realize she’d been using glamour to appear more Folk-like, though I must say I prefer her as this. Sharp, steady.

Stunning.

Her entire face an indiscernible map of her feelings. I should have spent more time committing her smile to memory, because suddenly the most treacherous thought I’ve ever known is that I will never see it again.

The track ends with a scratch, and Desdemona walks to the music player. “Let’s try again.”

* * *

“Hey,” I whisper the next morning when I enter Azaire and Yuki’s room, where Azaire’s been sleeping for the better half of three days.

Yuki stops spinning in his chair. “Hey.”

Azaire slowly opens his eyes with a groan, staring both of us down.

Yuki’s arms shoot up and he says enthusiastically, “Hey, I told him he was being too loud, bro.”

Azaire smiles, and it looks like it pains him. “Can you give us a moment?” I say.

“Yeah, sure, because I love being kicked out of my own room,” Yuki answers, but he leaves nonetheless.

“Azaire, I am so sorry,” I begin.

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