Page 78 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

Does she not know that I cannot even fathom speaking?

I can’t suppress the scream that tears from my lips. Can’t stop myself from crying out, from begging to be spared. Exactly as the prisoner is doing.

Until I’m no longer in my body at all.

Then every feeling stops. I’m a husk on the floor. A shell of myself. The memories of the dead prisoner are gone, but the feeling of death is not.

I can’t move.

“Your safety only goes as far as your usefulness, as does those who rely on you.” My head splits over and over again. My cheek lies against the cold, smelly floor.

I open my mouth, but only a groan comes out. Then I watch her legs walk from the dungeon.

* * *

The first thing I do when I’m able to stand is look for Lilac. I slam into wall after wall, I even fall to my knees at some points, but I’ll be damned if I don’t make sure she is alright.

I kept Desdemona’s name to myself. I’m not sure what good that will do her; Lusia can be persuasive, and she is surely persistent.

Perhaps Desdemona should leave. Maybe we both could.

I stop the delusions before they grow.

“Lilac!” I start screaming as I struggle to walk down the hall. “Lilac!” At least my voice is strong enough to make an echo.

It’s Margaret who meets me, putting an arm around me and lifting me straight. “She went back to Visnatus,” she whispers to me.

“She’s alright?” I feel the relief wash over me. It would subdue my entire body if I could allow it. If there wasn’t another girl I had to get to.

“She’s okay,” Margaret says.

“Would you open a portal for me?” I ask, and she looks at me with a silent question. What did she do? I don’t have to tell her that I can’t tell her. Margaret knows I’d never put that target on her back.

She opens the portal, and I stagger through the halls of Visnatus as I did the halls of Soma. I make it to Desdemona’s suite, and Calista is the one who opens the door.

“What do you want?” she asks, eyeing me up and down.

I walk past her, wobbling on my feet and into the suite. “I need to see Marquees.”

“Desdemona?” she says. “Are you serious?”

“Marquees?” I call her last name. I don’t know which room is hers and I don’t stop calling for her until she walks out. It is truly treacherous how relieved I feel to see her unharmed.

“You’re alright,” I whisper. Lusia didn’t get to her yet.

“Are you?” she says. The look in her eye is in stark contradiction to Calista’s. Desdemona runs to me, sits next to me, and my head is in her hands in more ways than one.

Now that I know that she’s alright, there’s nothing to keep me from reliving what I’ve just lived. Someone’s death, and with it, the death of any hope I once had to be free of Lusia and Labyrinth. Forever their puppet, like it’s written in the stars.

Your safety only goes as far as your usefulness.

Desdemona’s gentle thumb brushes over my face, once, twice, until she pulls away. I look for her eyes, but she doesn’t look for mine. “Can you take me to Lilac?” I manage to get the words out of my mouth.

“Lilac?” Calista asks instantly. “What happened to Lilac?”

“I don’t know where her suite is,” Desdemona says.

“I’ll take you.” Then Calista is standing over us and Desdemona is looking at her instead of me.

---