Page 24

24

Lies

EMILIA

I parted my hair down the middle and separated it into two chunks over each shoulder. Long black waves cascaded down my body, teasing just above my hips. When I was sure both sides were even, I collected the hair on my left side into my hand. I held it as if I were going to braid it. But instead, I snatched the blade off the altar and severed the locks clean off.

Destiny screamed like a banshee.

I ignored her. Held the freshly cut locks in my hand. Stared at what I’d done, breathing hard. I couldn’t let myself buffer for long. This was a go go go type of operation.

So I snatched up the long black tail on the other side and did the same thing. Didn’t stop until my hair hung as straight and sharp as the blade, resting with blunt edges right above my shoulders.

The girl in the mirror’s eyes flashed at me. Brilliant, cunning blue.

When I dropped the hair to the floor, I could have sworn it weighed a thousand pounds. A heady sense of relief I hadn’t anticipated roiled through me. I’d thought I was being impulsive by doing this. But the cement block lifted off me now proved this was a long time coming.

For a beat, there was only silence.

Destiny had been walking on eggshells around me for the last couple of days. I couldn’t blame her. I was sure this, along with my shutting her out earlier, was adding to her wariness of me.

“Holy shit. Okay. Okay, I see you.” She appeared at my side, locking eyes with me in the glass. The curve of her smile was slightly off, a nervous etch in her brow. She thought I was bonkers.

But she rolled with it. “Here, let me clean up the edges.” She fished through a drawer and pulled out a dainty pair of silver scissors. I didn’t move, allowing her full access as she orbited me, snipping away. When she finished, the edges were razor-sharp and perfectly straight. She grinned and stepped back. “I’m fucking obsessed.”

The sight of the heaps of hair on the ground was enough to make me dizzy.

“I have a dress that will slay with your new hair!” Destiny spoke quickly, as if trying to keep me from dwelling on what I’d done. She rushed into the closet and came out bearing a dark blue velvet dress. “My aunt on my mom’s side bought it for me on my birthday which was literally so sweet, but it’s obviously not my style. I brought it here with you in mind, honestly. Do you like it?”

Did I like it? I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever seen a more beautiful garment.

The sparkle on the velvet looked like the starry night sky. Or a midnight snowfall. I moved closer, brushing my fingers along the softness. It was a tight-fitted mermaid dress, with silver chain straps and an open back.

“I love it,” I whispered. “But I’m not going to dinner, Destiny. I can’t.”

Her face fell. “Emilia… You have to. Listen, I know everything is super fucked up right now but you cannot hide from this. You need to face them. What would Nyx do?”

The question left a stab wound in my chest. I sulked, glaring at the dress.

Nyx would never hide. Nyx would never stay silent as the entire Celestial Society painted me wrongfully as a villain. If the roles were reversed, she—

I squeezed my eyes shut. ‘We all know you’re nothing like Nyx…’

“It’s just one dinner. If you hate it, I won’t bug you about coming back.”

I nodded.

Faye joined us in our room right before we left. She was ethereal as ever, clad in a soft green gown that hugged her slim figure and tied together with an embroidered clip over one shoulder. Golden hair framed her face in an erratic halo adorned with black irises and gray feathers.

Destiny, of course, rocked all black. An edgy little dress with a loose skirt and tight bodice, a Steve Nicks shall drape over her shoulders. She bedazzled her scalp with glittering gemstones. She hadn’t had living tattoos before, but she bore them now, all silver swirls with the odd fox and snake.

When we walked down the halls, which were bustling with girls heading to dinner as well, everyone stared.

“She’s back…”

“Do you think her and Nyx…”

“Bold of her to step foot…”

“She’s not like Nyx…”

I kept my eyes forward, following Destiny and Faye, and ignoring the whispers, the sensation of eyes raking over my flesh like jagged nails.

I expected us to head down to the regular dining room until we veered outside and I remembered that the Luminary had told me about the change in dinner arrangements. My belly heated with intrigue when I noticed girls were flooding through the courtyard into the Stone Gardens to a door. A door that hadn’t been there before, built right into a rock wall draped with weeping vines and bright flowers. Tall with a pointed top, dark wood carved with serpents and owls. It was open but I couldn’t see anything on the other side. All I could see was a rippling surface, like water.

“Crossing through can make you a little woozy,” Destiny warned. “Here, take my hand. We’re stronger in pairs.”

I swallowed. “Crossing through?”

She and Faye shared a look, both of them growing sly grins.

Before I could react, Destiny grabbed my hand and jarred me forward, tugging me beyond the threshold.

Pins and needles slapped me in the face and aggressively stole my vision. I yelped as every inch of me ignited with electric chills but it was over within one heartbeat.

Then we stumbled together into a roar of color and sound and extravagantly dressed people buzzing between rows of long Gothic tables. Magic thrummed in the air, thick and heady. Floating candles gifted a warm ambiance despite the raging cold outside. An endless expanse of winter sky stormed with fierce, whirling snow that stayed outside of an invisible wall as if we were inside a glass cube the Goddess placed deep in the mountains. It took me a moment of gawking to realize we must have been in the remains of an old temple. The stone pillars were still standing, though the ceiling and walls had long met their end.

“Where…where are we?” I peeped.

“None of us really know,” Destiny said, linking her arm with mine and drawing me forward. “Deep in the mountains somewhere magical and forgotten.”

Everyone. Stared.

Worse now than before.

That was when I noticed the floor was raw stone. I knew because it was all I looked at as we made our way through the magical room that had gone dead freaking silent. Even the violinist had stopped playing music.

But beyond the whispers and the stares and the tension, something more pressing gnawed at me.

My sister’s absence. Like a gaping chest wound. Detrimental, demanding attention. Cleaved raw and bloody, leaving you breathless, bracing for the worst. Yet the world went on without missing a beat.

She should be here.

I was the reminder of that.

Seeing her face in my mind as I kept my head down sparked something nameless inside of me.

What would Nyx think of me now? Walking through the crowd with my eyes glued to the ground like a coward?

The thought had my neck snapping back up. I swore everyone in the room winced as I did. My new hair slashed below my chin, black as night, sharp as a blade. I sucked in a breath through my nose, straightened my spine, and held my head high.

The world itself seemed to tremble. The way they all looked at me, I didn’t have a name for it. It wasn’t exactly marvel or fear or judgment. But maybe a mashup of all three.

The rows of long tables were set to the nines and occupied by sharp-eyed starseeds from both Luna Academy and Veneficus. Everyone dressed in their best attire, glittering through the room like clusters of rubies and obsidian and amethyst. The chaos of snow and darkness outside the magic glass howled, mimicking the storm in my heart. When I looked through the glass, I saw only snow. Whatever existed out there was swallowed by the blizzard.

The music started back up, but no one took their attention off of me just yet.

They were waiting…to see what I was going to do.

Nyx Morningstar’s little sister. Was I another one of her victims? Or was I another her?

They wouldn’t get a show from me. Maybe they were used to that from my sister, but me, I—

My eyes collided with Michael’s and my brain fell silent.

He sat at one of the long tables, in between the same two guys he’d shown up to the lecture with. He was as devastating and beautiful as ever, eyeing me with something that made me want to burst into tears.

Heat invaded my cheeks and I forced my eyes away.

We sat. We ate.

Despite everything, it was an intense, magical affair. Plates of food and glasses of fine wine appeared out of nowhere and vanished when we were finished. Every single bite was a delicacy. So good, that it was nearly enough to distract me from the fact that everyone continued staring and whispering. Nearly enough. What really plucked my brain out of my skull and allowed me to sit on autopilot was the wine. I found myself drinking more and more of it, until my belly was warm and my thoughts were dulled.

I stayed focused on Faye and Destiny, doing everything in my power to tune the rest out. The novelty would pass. I would be nothing to them next week.

“Emilia Morningstar.” The new voice from behind me made me jump. I turned to find a pretty girl with short brown hair and dark square glasses beaming at me. The same girl who had stopped me on the stairs after the lecture. The whirling symbols for Gemini moon and sun with a Leo rising glimmered on her collarbone.

“Um. Hi.”

She came closer, and that was when I noticed she had her blackmirror out and recording.

Recording me .

“My name is Felicity May. I have a vlog called Stars and Secrets and I also write for Celestial Tea. I thought maybe you could tell us about your sister Nyx. Perhaps share your side of the story? People are dying to know what you have to say. When you guys were growing up, did she show signs of being—”

Felicity May’s blackmirror froze over with crackling ice before it shattered into a thousand pieces.

People at the table went quiet.

I turned back to my wine. Sipped it.

“Um, what the fuck?” Felicity cried. “You owe me a new one!”

“Get the hell out of here,” Destiny warned, flames igniting over her knuckles.

“No! She could have just said she didn’t have anything to say! No need to go and—”

“Actually, I do have something to say,” I deadpanned, loud enough to cut her off. I finally acknowledged the people gawking at me by sweeping my eyes up and down the table. “But not to some ridiculous vlog. I’ll speak directly to all of you now, since you can’t seem to stop fucking staring at me, practically frothing at your mouths, dying for me to give you something. Well, here it is, friends! Shit you should already know. My sister is being framed. We are being lied to and you are all eating it up like starving, pathetic peasants. She was a fucking hero at the Clash of Spirits. It’s really that simple.”

I lifted my wine glass, a toast to nothing as I stood up. “And you should all think twice about being so quick to believe such egregious lies. I’m sure she won’t take too kindly to that once she returns.”

With that, I stood and left, leaving a wake of open mouths, the ground I’d stalked across a trail of glimmering ice.

So much for not putting on a show.