Page 85 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

Lucian clears his throat and stutters when he says, “Desdemona needs your help.” I’ve never once heard him stutter.

Wendy’s eyes shoot to me and her face drops. “What happened to her?” she asks Lucian with her eyes on me.

“Dislocated shoulder,” he answers, and she winces.

Lucian tilts his head toward the door, beckoning her, and without even looking at him Wendy says, “Okay.”

She exits back into her room and comes out with a tray, then the three of us silently leave the suite and walk through the school, all the way to the Royal floor, with Lucian half carrying me the whole way there. We’re in the same room where Lucian taught me to dance for days straight, and when our eyes collide, I can’t stop the electricity from moving through my body.

I look away, fast, and Wendy’s at my side when I do.

“Can you?” she says. Lucian waves a hand and I feel heat fill the stab wound while warm blood begins to trickle out of it. Suddenly I realize just how much pain the shadow actually was holding back, because a wave of it washes over me, putting me back in a state of agony. Wendy wastes no time before rubbing some kind of salve in the wound.

She puts her gloved index finger under my nose and tells me to inhale. It’s not long before I feel a bit more subdued, a little more drowsy, maybe even numb again. My eyelids drop, and I can barely hold them open until I decide there’s no reason to anyway.

I’m greeted by the darkness.

That is until something tugs on my shoulder, and I wake up with a jolt. Wendy has her hand over my mouth before I can scream and keeps it there when she turns back to Lucian.

“Calista’s working on it.” Then she turns to me, tells me it’s okay, and that I can close my eyes.

I close my eyes again, but I don’t fall into nothingness like I had before.

It’s quiet for a minute, and in that minute the room travels far from me. I’m losing my grip on the moment entirely, slowly slipping into the cracks of the silence.

Then I hear Wendy, but it’s more like she’s off in the sky somewhere. I see her there, see her flying. “What’s that about?”

“What’s what about?” Lucian’s flying too. In the sky with light wrapping around his body.

“That feeling,” she whispers. She’s going higher up with every exhale.

“Is she out?” He’s moving away from me. I can still see those midnight eyes of his and the little bits of light blue and the divot in his lip.

“Yes,” Wendy says. “Now, are you going to tell me what happened to you?” Silence stretches while they dance around one another in the clouds. “You don’t feel the same.”

“I’m not the same,” Lucian finally says. He’s floating further and further away, but his words still echo through my mind. “It’s not important right now. Desdemona is, then the book.”

“She’ll be fine,” Wendy says while she floats over me, caressing my face.

“Yeah, she will,” Lucian says while he leaves my view entirely.

Chapter 17

Innocence Don’t Make You Feel That Way

LUCIAN

The Eunoia govern one of the most dangerous powers of all—human emotions. With one touch, the most powerful of them can dictate how you feel, and with it what you do. Refrain from skin-to-skin contact with all Eunoia to keep your best health.

– A GUIDE TO SURVIVING IN VIRIDIS

Wendy’s left for the night, and I sit at the table across from the couch Desdemona sleeps on. Her dreams continue to stray into nightmares.

Each time they do, I reach out and try to guide her into something peaceful.

They always go back to the bad.

Lusia’s fast. Within days of determining Desdemona was the orphia she was looking for, she enacted the taking of a life and the losing of one.

---