We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The Lies We Conjure, a young adult supernatural thriller by Sarah Henning—out from Tor Teen on September 17.
Ruby and her sister, Wren, are normal, middle-class Colorado high school students working a summer job at the local Renaissance Fest to supplement their meager college savings.
So when an eccentric old lady asks them to impersonate her long-absent grandchildren at a fancy dinner party at the jaw-dropping rate of two grand—each—for a single night… Wren insists it’s a no-brainer. Make some cash, have some fun, do a good deed.
But less than an hour into the evening at the mysterious Hegemony Manor, Ruby is sure she must have lost her mind to have agreed to this.
The hostess is dead, the gates are locked, and a magical curse ensures no one can leave until they solve both her murder and the riddles she left behind—in just three days. Because everyone else at this party is a powerful witch. And if the witches realize Ruby and Wren are imposters? The sisters won’t make it out of Hegemony Manor alive.
Chapter 1
Ruby
Six Days Before
The old woman arrives at the Ye Olde Falafel Shoppe not with an order, but with a question.
“Are you sisters?”
As usual, Wren is manning the register and flirting her way to much bigger tips than I can get, while I fulfill the orders as they slide through the kitchen window of Grand County Renaissance Festival’s most popular (and only) falafel stand.
“Yes, my lady.” Wren smiles at the woman, her festival-mandated British accent sweet in air equally scented with all things fried, excessive sunscreen, and the stink of more than one horse decked out as a knight’s noble steed.
“How old?” the lady presses, lifting huge sunglasses into her cloud of silver hair. Deep set and large, her dark eyes sweep between us, and it’s like she’s checking our features off on a list—tall, pale, brunette, check, check, check. The lunch rush is over, and the moment I slide an extra vat of hummus to a man dressed as fox Robin Hood—tail and all—and he disappears with a tip of his cap, we’re alone. No customers stack up behind her as she continues to peer at us instead of choosing off the menu printed on a medieval “parchment” hanging behind Wren. “Sixteen? Seventeen? Irish twins?”
“Yes, my lady,” Wren answers again, jabbing a thumb in my direction. She announces in her perfectly posh accent, “Ruby’s older, but don’t let the age gap fool you, I’m the brains of this operation.”
The woman chuckles, her attention lingering on our faces with building excitement. I can’t explain why but my gut tightens.
“Their accents are just like yours. Tepidly British and put on for an occasion,” she says mostly to herself before turning to me and ordering, “Let me hear yours.”
For some reason it feels impossible to tell how old our nosy customer actually is—she could be sixty or pushing a hundred. Either way, I realize I’ve seen her before. I’ve served her before. At least two weeks in a row.
I gesture at the menu, and prod in my fake accent, which is way less impressive than Wren’s, “Is there anything I can get you? You ordered the number two with jalapeños last week, didn’t you?”
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The Lies We Conjure
Wren mutters “Pushy” under her breath. Yet rather than answer my question or agree with my sister’s assessment, the old woman’s obvious elation only grows—her heart-shaped face expanding and elongating in such a way that it resembles an exclamation point.
“Good.”
She then precedes to plant her elbows on the counter and gesture for us to lean in close.
Wren, happily coasting on her four semesters in high school improv class, does so without hesitation, but I must admit to being a little less enthusiastic. The only reason I’m slinging falafel in a wench outfit is because I need more money for my pitiful college fund, and this is far outside the parameters of what we’re paid to do. Not to mention this is the last weekend of the Ren Fest and we literally have five hours left on the job. Our customer ignores my frown, and greets our combined attention with an eager smile outlined in matte maroon lipstick.
“Girls, my name is Marsyas Blackgate. I’d like to hire each of you to pretend to be my granddaughters at a dinner party at Hegemony Manor—do you know it? It’s just outside of Wood Rose.”
Wren’s eyes nearly pop out of her head. “The Hegemony Manor? Of course we know it! Gothic perfection on the hill, with the turrets and the windows and the Wednesday Addams moodiness. Our mom just loved it.”
My breath hitches at the mention of Mom. She did love that place. There’s no way this woman—Marsyas?—could know that, but something unsettling plops in my gut.
Beyond the old woman’s rounded shoulders is a steady stream of humanity wandering by, gnawing on massive turkey legs, crinkling maps, and brandishing kiddie-sized wooden swords. Not a single Ren Fest guest is looking our way. I drop both my hideous accent and my voice. “You want us to impersonate your granddaughters? May I ask why?”
She blinks as if it’s obvious. “You look just like them.”
“But we aren’t them.”
Marsyas straightens and, with a dignified sniff, draws a photograph from somewhere beneath the voluminous fabric of her black caftan. In it, she beams at the camera, bracketed by two tall, pale brunettes. Their heads are smooshed together, the iconic pyramid of the Louvre in the background.
I have to admit, we do look like them.
“My girls live abroad with their mother. I miss them dearly and though they miss me, they haven’t been back stateside in a decade. I’m invited every year to a special dinner party at Hegemony Manor, and every year the other families expect to see Lavinia and Kaysa. Every year they’re disappointed, and I’m disappointed too.”
Marsyas’s chin wobbles, her dark eyes shine, and suddenly she looks like she might be a thousand years old. If it’s an act, her improv lessons have been far more extensive than Wren’s. “This year, I want to show off my girls.”
Wren immediately claws at my hand, her expression pleading. I know my sister just wants to help, even if it’s some next-level psychological bullshit that this woman is propositioning us to pretend to be her living, breathing granddaughters for a night so that her friends will think that they love her enough to cross the Atlantic.
“I—” I start. That tremor of unease in my gut is now a 5.0 on the Richter scale.
But before I can put that into words enough to pull Wren aside to discuss it, Marsyas lays out twenty one-hundred-dollar bills on the counter.
“I’ll give you each a thousand up front and another thousand after dinner.” Her gaze sweeps between the pair of us, that spark returning. “I’m sure you will find that reasonable.”
My jaw drops.
That is more money than we’ve earned—combined—in our six-weekend run at the Ren Fest.
More than I alone earn in a month at my part-time job as a bookseller at Agatha’s Apothecary & Paperback Emporium.
More than enough to pad my college fund so that it isn’t completely laughable.
It’s enough that it’s too good to be true.
So, of course, Wren immediately accepts the offer for both of us.
“Why, that’s more than reasonable, Miss Marsyas. When’s the party?”
In answer, the old woman says, “Call me Nona,” and lays a handwritten card atop the cash advance.
Saturday night. Formal. Wear solid black. I’ ll be in touch.
“Wait, what—” I glance up, a new line of questions forming and then immediately dying on my lips.
Marsyas Blackgate isn’t there.
I lean on the counter, craning to see farther left, then right, ready to chase her down for more information, a contact number, more specifics about the deal.
But she’s vanished.
Wren eagerly gathers the bills and stuffs them into the inside pocket of her wench’s apron. She’s neglected the card, and I snatch it up and flip it over, hoping for at least one answer to the flood of questions in my churning mind.
Instead, I find one final order. Or maybe a threat.
Tell no one.
Chapter 2
RUBY
The lie isn’t ours.
But we wear it as overtly as our new party dresses and shoes. As our drugstore lipstick and mother’s pearls. As the accents that sit, awkward, upon our tongues, waiting and ready for polite conversation over the course of one gilded evening.
“Fuck, it’s haunted.”
That’s the first thing Wren whispers to me after slamming the chauffeured SUV’s door shut with a decisive echo. She doesn’t use her accent.
Before us, the western sun is hanging over the Continental Divide like a blowtorch, a line of fire trailing along every nook and crick of the Rocky Mountain peaks. It’s beautiful—magical, even—the perfect backdrop for literally any story the night wants to tell. It also lies in stunning juxtaposition to the gothic mansion staring back at us.
Painted a flat black across a solid three-story construction, its windows are stacked like the eyes of a spider, while turrets akin to spindle wheels reach up, eager to prick the sky and send it to a deep sleep.
Hegemony Manor.
We’ve never been so close to it. It’s been perched on the edge of Mom’s tiny mountain hometown for a century and counting, vast enough to house every resident within its walls, its grounds larger than the city limits, all roped off by barbed wire strung for acres until they become miles.
For a few years after the divorce, we lived in Wood Rose with Mom, and drove past the manor on our way to visit Dad and our stepmom, Karen, in Grand Lake. Mom almost always pulled onto the shoulder for a moment’s appreciation of the moody lines of the manor, wishing the Hegemonys would open it to visitors or turn it into a bed-and-breakfast operation. Anything for a peek inside. Then three years ago a drunk driver took Mom away from us. We moved in with Dad and Karen, and the drives past Hegemony Manor became a relic of the past.
In this moment, I can’t believe we’re just feet from the front door.
I wish we could tell her.
Inside the barbed-wire perimeter and massive gates, there’s a beautiful brick drive that loops in a teardrop up to the manor and back out to the private road that leads to the property from the highway. I stand on that drive now, wedging my brand-new stiletto heels between the bricks as I stare back at Hegemony Manor, trying to find solid ground. Suddenly feeling nervous about this plan.
About what we’re about to do to the people who live here.
People who’ve been more rumor than reality in my life up until this very moment.
The rumors at school went like this: Three kids lived behind these great gothic walls and towering, treacherous gates. Two boys and a girl, orphans all. Cousins, adopted by their grandmother. Kept by nannies and tutors before calling boarding school home.
With a collection of rumors like that, as big and bold as the mansion that bears their name, it’s strange that we’re about to make rumor a reality and then lie.
I wouldn’t have said yes to tonight if Wren hadn’t already done it—my sister and her habit of hoovering up experiences to fuel her dreams of stage and screen.
“Do you think they name their ghosts?” Wren’s amber eyes pop wide, false eyelashes like fireworks as she leans in. “Like, ‘That’s just Old Imelda, crying in the foyer again’? Or maybe they just ignore them—too numerous to bother?”
“Please make sure to corner an honest-to-God Hegemony and ask.”
The sarcasm in my voice practically drips onto her dress but she ignores it.
“I just might. They’d probably find that kind of innocent interest endearing after spending all semester with walking icicles in sweater sets and pearls.” Wren adds a self-indulgent hair toss while disparaging the entire female population of the Hegemonys’ boarding school of choice, Walton-Bridge Prep, before a shade of anxiety flashes across her face and she clutches my wrist. “Wait, what do we wear at the Baxter Academy for the Arts?” That’s where the real Lavinia and Kaysa go to school. “If they have some sort of awful green plaid as a uniform, I need to know about it for character development reasons.”
Wren is living for this.
I am not.
She whips out her phone. I pull out mine too, and my palms immediately slip with sweat around my phone case. I resist the urge to wipe my hands on the silk of my dress and try again, swiping away a “Made it to Boulder” text from Dad that I missed on the group thread twenty minutes ago. When my lock screen disappears, it reveals the document I have about the dinner party guests. It’s something Marsyas sent us after we’d accepted her opportunity—details on the families in attendance. Names, pictures, and surface information—employment, schooling, hobbies. Totally creepy, actually.
Evidently, no one besides Marsyas is related to “us,” which was much to Wren’s relief as she’d tagged literally everyone under the age of twenty attending as “so hot.”
Hot or not, these are people who need to believe we’re Lavinia and Kaysa Blackgate, at least for tonight. According to Marsyas, none of them have seen the sisters since the pair of them learned how to read and write. The girls aren’t allowed on social media, and, like everyone at this party, the internet has never heard of them.
“Do you have reception? This won’t load.” Wren stabs at her phone screen as if that will make it do anything. Looks like I don’t have a signal either. “I know, I know, if I’m quizzed on the specs of the Baxter Academy uniform, it’s my cue to recast the small talk to something far more interesting.” She waggles her eyebrows into her thick fringe of bangs. “Perhaps the ghosts.”
She’s about to laugh—until she sees my face.
I’m fairly certain I’ve begun to go green underneath my makeup. My heart is rabbiting against my breastbone, and when Wren ditches her phone to snatch my hands, they’re clammy against her dry grip. “Look, just because you’re allergic to fun doesn’t mean you need to be nervous. You’re going to do fine.”
I shake my head and try to put words to the unease uncoiling in my belly at the thought that this is actually happening. “I just don’t like this.”
Wren rolls her eyes. “It’s not actually haunted.”
It’s not that Hegemony Manor seems scary, per se, it’s just… too right. Too stately, the grass too green and lush for the summer drought, the air too still. It’s like the whole thing is a mirage, and a little dose of reality will slough off the perfection like dead skin.
“I know, it’s just—” I tug on Wren’s hand. Pinky to pinky. “Promise you’ll leave with me if I need to bolt.”
Wren’s lips purse into a lopsided smirk. “Only if you promise not to panic and at least make an effort to have a good time. It’s a party, not a funeral.”
“Girls,” calls a voice with a whisky-warm rasp—Marsyas, or tonight, Nona. Appearing from around the rear bumper of our SUV, Marsyas is a bowling ball of a woman punctuated by a tight chignon. She drops the keys into what truly looks to be a handbag fashioned from a decapitated raven. Like, with feathers and a wing and everything. Satisfied, she flashes that eccentric grin of hers, a mile wide and as treacherous as a canyon. “Let me have a look at you.”
Marsyas addresses my sister first—“Kaysa”—and Wren frowns. She isn’t a fan of the name she’s been given. The old woman’s fingers tug at Wren’s neckline, straightening the drape of silk across her collarbones and the flash of skin at her shoulders. At first I think she’s going for the price tag we left tucked under her collar, but then she removes the string of white pearls at Wren’s throat and deposits them into my sister’s open palm, the meaning clear—put these away. “There.”
As Wren drops Mom’s pearls into her wristlet without a word, Marsyas hits me with the full force of her critical eye. My dress is less complicated, an ankle-length A-line and belted, and it must pass the test because rather than a single adjustment she hums out a “mmhmm” and smiles again, teeth tea-stained and surprisingly wolflike for a grandma. I suppose I’m allowed to keep Mom’s pearl studs. “Perfect, girls. Now, take my hands.”
“Yes, Nona,” we answer in our accents now, as she’s instructed us to do, and sweep our hands into hers, stepping to either side. The black rabbits’ feet she’s clasped on delicate gold chains about our wrists tap gently into her own matching ones.
I’d declined my bracelets when she’d foisted them upon me, but I was informed wearing them was nonnegotiable. A Blackgate necessity.
My bracelets might go missing the moment Nona starts drinking.
This close, Marsyas smells of layers of expensive makeup and roses, and like us is dressed head-to-toe in black. Along with her own dead bunny bracelets, she accessorizes with an elaborate cascade of natural black pearls cloaking her considerable décolletage like a mass of tiny beetles. Her earrings have the unsettling swing of a spider weaving webs through the too-still air, stark against her pale powdered skin.
Marsyas doesn’t lead us toward the gravestone steps rising to the ornately carved doors of Hegemony Manor. Instead, we walk entwined down a strand of star-shaped stone tiles leading around the side to a massive manicured garden that hugs the rear of the house like a cape, its hem disappearing into the Rocky Mountain wilds.
Voices hum under the melodic whisper of stringed instruments, though the way the hedges bracket the space, no guests can be seen from where Marsyas’s steps have halted.
The old woman seems to be gathering herself, straightening her thoughts like she did Wren’s dress with a deep breath and an upturned tip of her heart-shaped face.
“Girls,” Marsyas whispers as her grip on my hand tightens impossibly, “two final rules, and it is imperative that you follow them.”
Her dark eyes are no longer mischievous as she finds each of us before continuing. They’re sharp with seriousness. My heart churns back up to racing speed as if a gun has gone off. I swallow and stare at her, focusing on every word.
“First, we need to stay together. Second, we must do whatever Ursula Hegemony says. Do you understand?”
My speeding heart skips and my stomach drops. Yet I match Wren as she answers, so that we’re in near unison. “Yes, Nona.”
Marsyas tosses back her shoulders, points her chin toward the garden, spiderweb earrings swinging, the pins in her hair glintin like the clustered eyes of a housefly. Her grimace curves upward with a heave and a new proclamation. “Smile, girls. Blackgates always smile.”
Grins in place, we enter under the bough of baby pink roses arcing above the privacy hedges. Though it’s still bright enough, small lights bound the garden like so many fireflies strung into position.
A clever trick.
In fact, floating, enchanted light seems to be a theme, as at the center of the garden is a line of seemingly hovering chandeliers, gold with taper candles illuminating a long table. Apparently, gravity doesn’t exist if you’re rich enough.
It’s so perfect it’s disconcerting. There’s not a single flaw.
The party is small—fewer than ten guests. And, as they all turn to assess our arrival, I catch Wren’s attention over the top of Marsyas’s intricate chignon, and soundlessly mouth, Promise me.
Wren’s response is yet another eye roll and a flash of pale lipstick and white teeth as she mouths back, Live a little.
Chapter 3
AUDEN
All rumors are assumed to be lies until proven true.
They’re created on assumptions, fed by a lack of knowledge, spiked with jealousy, boredom, and unease. Or, made for a purpose.
The Hegemony family lives by this understanding. We’ve used it to our advantage for nearly five hundred years. For our protection. As a weapon.
And yet, tonight it slips my cousin’s mind.
“I’d heard they weren’t coming.”
Evander tracks his prey from the solarium windows high above the garden. His shark’s smirk distorts behind the icy remains of a finger of scotch on the rocks. I don’t need to guess what “they” to which he’s referring. I also don’t need to move closer to catch the procession of two girls, tall and raven-headed, locking arms with a shorter, silver-haired matriarch.
“Don’t believe everything you hear.” Undoing a button at the throat of my dress shirt, I return to my reread of Leaves of Grass—the deathbed edition of 1892. Like almost everything else I own, this rare Whitman and the rest of my poetry collection were my father’s.
I’d known the Blackgates would come. I’d seen our grandmother’s request before she’d sent it—not an invitation this time, an order. And no one, not even the Blackgates, refuses an order from Ursula Hegemony.
“They’ve never come before.”
“No,” I correct, “they haven’t come since.”
Winter enters the room and our conversation with a frown and a waft of perfume as perfectly floral as the briar rose pattern abstractly beaded into the rich fabric of her low-cut kelly-green dress. We’ve been waiting for her—getting ready always takes her twice as long when we’re home as when we’re away at Walton-Bridge.
This, exactly this, is what we do on nights when we must be Hegemonys.
We gather, assess the situation, prepare in our own ways. Evander drinking; Winter preening; me reading until the very last moment; and, when our armor is firmly in place, we act as Ursula Hegemony’s generals.
Winter arches an eyebrow, first at our guests, then across the room to me, where I’m propped against one of two Italian marble fireplaces, embers snapping merrily and throwing fire lines across the sheen of my polished dress shoes. She studies me with an expression as tight as the ribboned choker bear-hugging her throat. “Why are the girls here? Now?”
“More like, what do the Blackgates know about tonight’s itinerary that we don’t?” Evander answers, thumb aimlessly rubbing the rim of his glass as the ice clinks. “They wouldn’t just fly in from London after ten years. The Blackgate sisters are kept offshore like illegal funds, everyone knows it.”
Uncharacteristically droll but correct.
The moment their father, Marcos, died, Lavinia and Kaysa Blackgate were shipped to Europe under the cover of night. That left old Marsyas playing matriarch stateside and mastering redirection whenever their mother, Athena, or the girls themselves became the topic of discussion. I’m not even sure if they’ve officially oathed Lavinia as heir. At seventeen, she’s older than Kaysa by a year, but age doesn’t always determine a would-be matriarch or patriarch among the Four Lines. Character matters too, though considering the predilections of the Blackgate family, perhaps having the personality of a snobbish feral cat is more desirable than detestable.
Honestly, despite the fact that the Blackgates and I have never seen eye to eye, I don’t blame them for putting an ocean between themselves and Hegemony Manor for the past decade.
“Illegal is that eye makeup,” Winter mutters—disdain typically manifests when she’s jealous. This is exactly how Winter always sizes people up—by tearing them down before extending her hand with a firm smile. She doesn’t bother to be anything other than direct with me. “But seriously, Auden. Spill.”
They expect me to know for good reason.
I’m the one who has been home with Ursula the longest since boarding school let out in June. The one who didn’t spend the first weeks of our summer gallivanting about. The one who is objectively her favorite. I’m also the one who spent my childhood inventing sly and increasingly devilish ways to tempt the claws out of dour Lavinia Blackgate.
“Perhaps they wanted to see what they’ve been missing all these years,” I suggest as dryly as possible, audibly turning a page in my book, though I haven’t been able to comprehend a single written word since catching visible proof that the Blackgate girls are indeed back on the manor grounds.
Evander wheels around, frustration deepening at the fact that I at least appear to still be reading. Nonchalance annoys my older cousin to no end. “What does she have planned?”
I don’t answer.
Evander steps away from the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows. I set the book atop the mantel—I can’t have it ruined in the crossfire of his rising anger, fueled by both his annoyance and insistence—and lift my eyes to his. They’re green, stormy, and all his mother’s, just like his warm brown skin. He’s taller by an inch, and heavier by a good twenty pounds of hard-earned muscle. Like his status as oathed heir to every title our grandmother holds, he wields those advantages as overtly and often as possible.
“It’s a reunion with old friends. They’re simply dressing the part for a nice evening.” Evander glares at me and Winter joins him. I hold up my hands. “I know nothing beyond the usual triad for these annual meetings: convey what’s important, reaffirm Hegemony power, scatter to the winds for another three hundred and sixty-five days.”
Winter looks like she might chuck something at me if she had anything reasonable nearby to throw or otherwise fling my way. “Auden, you’re the worst liar.”
“He is not lying, Winter Elvire.”
We’re too practiced to gasp, but all three of us stiffen at the addition to our party pregame.
There, in the wide, arched entry to the solarium, is our grandmother, our guardian, matriarch of the Hegemony Clan, leader of the Elemental Line, High Sorcerer of the Four Lines, and general no-nonsense woman of a certain pristinely obscured age.
Ursula Hegemony.
She was soundless before—one of her many gifts—but now that she wants us to know she’s here, Ursula enters the stately beauty of the room on steps as sharp as the stab of a knife on the parquet. Her posture is perfect, her expression discerning, her eyes, as usual, miss nothing. She notes the book discarded at my side, Winter’s blush at the admonishment, the remaining scotch sweating it out in Evander’s spooked grip.
“The annual meeting is necessary to our continued success as the leaders of the Four Lines. Tonight is no different.” Evander visibly relaxes—if Ursula had heard his side of the conversation, she’d certainly say so. “That being said, I expect all of you to treat this as what it is from our point of view. It’s not a social hour, it’s a campaign.”
Ursula pauses at that, and I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that her forefinger taps the four inset gems of her High Sorcerer’s ring. A wealth of power is tied to that ring, and she’s tied to that power simply by wearing it. The ring and the title have been ours for nearly five hundred years—the control, the influence, the authority—and like anything of worth, it becomes harder to grip the longer you hold it. Something our grandmother is keen on reminding us. The last of a line has a duty to survive—or go out in a blaze so bright it leaves a mark.
“I want you on your best behavior. You are leaders, not simply hosts.” She frowns. On the unnatural planes of her smooth, unlined face, the movement is slight, but holds enough weight that my heart skips a beat. “A fact I see each of you has conveniently forgotten.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, our grandmother turns her laser focus on Winter, her clever cerulean eyes striking on the rich fabric of my cousin’s impeccably tailored gown. It’s an ankle-length column that highlights the lithe strength her upper body has acquired from long hours on the tennis court and in the weight room at Walton-Bridge Prep. Ursula’s tightly held scrutiny sours further. Instantly, the heart shape of Winter’s neckline unfurls, elongates, and crawls up and around the back of her neck, transforming it into something much more modest.
When she’s finished, the emerald hue of her magic evaporating, Ursula announces, “Cleavage is unnecessary and impolite.”
Winter dips her chin in acceptance before fussing to straighten the bow now settled underneath her long, strawberry blond hair and probably at odds with her choice of necklace, now swathed in fabric.
Our grandmother turns her attention to Evander. The barest flicker of a grimace crosses her face.
The final dregs of his scotch burst into flame.
Evander nearly drops the glass but catches himself and it just in time. As the green hint of magic flares, his wits kick in and he smothers the fire with a wide palm atop the rim. With a muttered curse, he rips it away from the tumbler, a ring burned into the skin. He waves it violently in an attempt to sooth the pain, and meets Ursula’s stoic expression with glassy, red-rimmed eyes.
“Sobriety is crucial for the case we are to make for continued Hegemony supremacy. The libations tonight are for our guests’ enjoyment, not yours. You may take a glass as it encourages others to imbibe what is offered, but recreational and excessive liquor consumption is unbecoming and steals from both our family credibility and your own as my oathed heir.”
Evander discards the tumbler without a word.
Ursula turns to me.
I’m dressed in the suit she chose and standing so as not to wrinkle the fine Italian craftsmanship. The open button at my throat could hardly be classified as unnecessary and impolite, and it’s obvious I haven’t had a drink, not to mention Ursula knows me well enough to be sure I don’t intend to.
Still, I’ve violated her expectations, the same as my cousins.
Turns out it’s not what I’ve done, but what she expects me to do.
“The High Families are our peers as much as they are our responsibility.
You are no longer children—I expect you to be polite, courteous, and respectful to all of our guests, but most especially to the Blackgate heirs.” I think that’s it, but only when our grandmother continues and adds the use of my first name does it truly dawn on me how much of a liability she must believe I am. “Auden, I do not have to remind you, I’m sure, that a renewal of your previous little animus with Lavinia Blackgate will not be tolerated this evening.”
“Understood,” I answer with a drop of my chin that I hope appears remorseful.
I wait out Ursula’s appraisal for what seems like several moments too long before she inhales thinly.
“Now that we’re all reacquainted with our expectations, I must finish my preparations.” I raise my gaze just in time to see her spear Evander right through the heart. “Because, yes, Evander, she does have something planned tonight.”
With that, Ursula Hegemony turns on her heel and walks out.
The moment her steps are swallowed by the plush hallway carpeting Evander crumples. “Shit.”
The side of Winter’s mouth lifts ever so slightly at his mortification. “You got roasted and you didn’t even learn anything. That takes some talent, Evander.”
He grumbles at her but makes it a point to glower at me. “Wipe that smug grin off your face, Auden.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Exactly the point and the problem.”
Winter rolls her eyes and sweeps a ribbon of strawberry blond behind her ear using her watered-down reflection in the windowpane. “If she won’t tell us, I’m just going to go ask the Blackgates myself why they’re here—politely, courteously, and respectfully, of course.”
Evander fusses with an impeccably turned cuff at his wrist, clearly already wishing to rip off his jacket. The man cannot stand to feel confined. “Win, you’re wasting your time. Marsyas wouldn’t fly those girls forty-five hundred miles and not prep them.”
“I suppose I’ll find out, won’t I?”
At sixteen, Winter’s the youngest of the three of us, and appropriately stubborn. Especially when Evander tries to play patriarch at eighteen—he’s just graduated high school, after all, and we’re only a year behind him. Winter spins and heads for the doorway that leads from the solarium onto the sprawling elevated stone terrace, down the steps to the gardens and the Rocky Mountain wilds beyond.
“Be nice,” I shout at her back.
“I’m not the one who was given a direct warning,” she tsks before pausing and turning around, one immaculately sculpted brow mischievously arched. “Anyway, I will be—to them. To Hex? I make no guarantees.”
“Nor should you.”
If Hex Cerise is still standing by the night’s end, it’ll only be because Winter is making him suffer instead of putting him out of his misery. The guy’s basically been pulling her hair for attention since they were both in diapers. It’s as pathetic as it is predictable. And it makes her cling harder to the people she likes best—namely Infinity.
As Winter vanishes, Evander stalks away from the windows, heavy footfalls pointing toward the serpentine halls of Hegemony Manor. “I’m going to the source.”
“Ah, yes, because interrogating Ursula during her stated preparation for the most important gathering of her calendar year after she already roasted you for being uncouth is a most excellent plan for both obtaining the truth and going unscathed.”
My older cousin pauses to glower at me yet again, thick brows lowered to match his frown. “I’m not stupid, I’ll start with an apology. But I am the oathed heir and do have the right and obligation to know her plans as part of my training.”
I don’t tolerate his infantilization any more than Winter does. If I’d been born six months earlier, I might be the patriarch-in-waiting. If Ursula preferred me as much as my cousins believe she does, those few months might not have mattered anyway. I smirk at Evander and raise an invisible glass. “Top-notch argument. I’m sure that’ll go over swimmingly.”
“Shut up, Auden.”
With that, Evander straightens his jacket and leaves. His footfalls echo down the hall, and I have no doubt he’ll stomp the whole flight up to the third floor. A fool’s errand and tantrum rolled into one, in my opinion. Not that he’ll get anything out of it.
When I’m alone, I finally step to one of the many floor-to-ceiling solarium windows and peer out onto the grounds. Everyone is accounted for, as commanded by the mighty ink and envelope of Ursula Hegemony.
The Cerises. The Starwoods. The Blackgates.
The Blood Line. The Celestial Line. The Death Line.
And us—the Elemental Line.
Here, now, together again, and with a full two generations of each High Family of the Four Lines—for the first time since Marcos Blackgate was alive.
My cousins are wrong. I don’t know what Ursula has planned.
Ursula does everything by her own rules. No compromises. No mercy.
I don’t know why the Blackgate heirs were ordered to make an appearance after a decade away. I don’t know why they complied.
But I do know both my cousins are wasting their time.
It doesn’t matter what Ursula has planned and it doesn’t matter why the girls have finally appeared. We’ll have answers soon enough. Ursula Hegemony will make sure of that.
Excerpted from The Lies We Conjure, copyright © 2024 by Sarah Henning.
