1
It was the moment a low voice murmured in my ear, “You’re dead, Farrow,” as I lay in a pool of blood that was not my own, waiting for the cold steel of a dagger to slice across my throat, that I began to question everything. If I hadn’t gone to the library that night, everything might’ve been different. The man I love wouldn’t be bound and unconscious on the floor of the Grotto, his lips slowly turning blue as the poison worked its way through his bloodstream. No one would’ve died to keep my father’s secrets, and I never would’ve met Casimir Wrayburn.
But I suppose I should start from the beginning.
I’d lied to Gwen, my roommate and best friend, about where I was going that night. I’d told her I was meeting a study group when I was actually sneaking off to meet August in the stacks of the Labyrinth, Ouverham College’s largest library.
Always quiet, but brimming with life, the Labyrinth was my favorite place in the world. Each day, this architectural marvel hosted hundreds of students wandering between towering shelves, burying their noses in dust-covered books, and sinking into cushioned leather chairs to discuss the latest gossip inwhispered tones. It was also the place most frequently visited by Augustus Sinclair.
I hadn’t minded when August suggested we keep our relationship a secret. Stealing kisses in darkened corridors felt like savoring some rare, forbidden fruit. When his friends on the fencing team began to wonder who he was spending his days with, he introduced me to them—as a friend, not as his girlfriend.
Everything changed that evening in the Labyrinth. August found me in our usual alcove on the third floor, clutching a dense volume ofThe History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empireand wearing a guarded expression on his freckled face, his dark eyes wary as they found mine. August’s fiery red hair was the first thing people noticed about him. He usually wore it slicked back, but I’d witnessed his waves in their natural, unruly state on a handful of occasions. I think I preferred him that way—untamed and undisciplined, and so at odds with his disciplined demeanor. Everyone called him “August,” but I felt that his real name, “Augustus,” was more befitting of his erudite, bespectacled charm, despite the name being almost absurdly regal. With his enviable academic rank and reputation for fencing, August was popular at Ouverham, though his popularity wasn’t what drew me in. No, what first attracted me to August was his eyes, which were as black as a starless night. The secret of those obsidian eyes was that you could find embers of warmth if you knew where to look.
We’d crossed paths at the Labyrinth last summer, the only two sophomores who’d decided to take an additional May term to avoid being with our families. He understood my fascination with history and myth and my need to escape into stories. And, unlike the majority of our classmates, August hadn’t immediately dismissed me as the “scholarship kid.” With August, I could let my guard down in a way I couldn’t with anyone else.But what began as a summer fling became a secret between us that, at any moment, might explode and shatter us both.
Perhaps this was why I couldn’t conceal my shock as I took in his changed appearance. He wore his usual crisp white Oxford shirt and gray cardigan, but his red hair hung in limp, bedraggled strands; his normally round cheeks were sunken in and lacking their usual rosy glow. In the fortnight since our last meeting, August’s proud physique—earned by countless hours spent training on the fencing piste— had withered away, and he now stood before me, distressingly thin.
“Listen, Arden,” he began. “I won’t be able to study with you tonight. Or any night from now on.”
My blood ran cold. Studying was the euphemism we used to refer to our trysts in the company of Ouverham’s eavesdropping student body. We reasoned that studying was mundane enough to avert the attention of even the most lascivious gossips on campus. Anxiously, I glanced around but found no one in the vicinity.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“We can’t keep doing this,” he said, speaking through clenched teeth. “I’m sorry it has to be this way, but we’re over.”
A strange sense of unease slithered down my spine. I stared at August. Outwardly, I kept my expression carefully blank, wanting to conceal the way his words gutted me.He was breaking up with me.Like a stray thunderbolt, thrown from the most unexpected shadow of the clouds, August’s abandonment rattled me to my core. But there it was. A sudden, icy dismissal. An irrevocable severance. I reached to grip the nearby table to steady myself.
“Will you at least do me the courtesy of telling me why?” I rasped.
August stiffened. “You know why.”
“No, I don’t know,” I countered, but then hesitated.Something about August’s demeanor made me ask, “Does this have anything to do with Devereaux Graves?”
He bristled—the confirmation I needed.
As the heir to the Graves fortune, an old landowning family and a prominent member of the Gilded Circle, Devereaux Graves was the closest thing Ouverham College had to a living aristocrat. We’d never been formally introduced, but I’d seen him around campus often. With his chin-length blonde hair and cold gray eyes, surrounded by a coterie of devoted friends and sycophants, he was difficult to ignore. He was usually absent at holidays, as his family was rumored to own a turn-of-the-century chateau in the French countryside, replete with servants and chauffeurs. The gossip on campus was that he was as cruel as he was conceited, but this had not dissuaded August from cozying up to Graves and his Gilded Circlites last term, much to my perturbation.
“Did he tell you to break up with me?” I hated how my voice broke on the last word.
August evaded the question. “I care about you, Arden. I do. It’s just… now isn’t a good time.”
“Oh, I get it,” I said, fighting back tears. “You don’t want Devereaux finding out you’re seeing the scholarship girl, in case it jeopardizes your chances of joining the Gilded Circle.” I released the table to squeeze my fingers into a fist, my nails pressing hard enough to draw blood. The tenuous tether I held on to my emotions was unraveling, and I needed to get a handle on myself.
August sidestepped my argument with all the training of the cool politician he’d no doubt soon become. “Arden, please understand,” he began curtly. “You know how important it is for me to make social connections at Ouverham. And it’s not just the Gilded Circle…” He hesitated. “Devereaux invited me to join an exclusive society—I can’t say more about it, as it’s a secret, but they’re inducting me tomorrow.” His dark eyes were earnest as they found mine. “Joining this Order… it’s important to me, and, well, you know how much the Sinclair name means to my family. My parents are counting on me, Arden. It has nothing to do with you, I swear.”
The corrosive taste of his lie clung to my lips, bitter and sharp. It was almost enough to make me gag.
I’d been four when I discovered my special ability. The first lie I ever tasted rolled across my tongue like an old penny, metallic and nauseatingly tangy. As a child, it had surprised me to learn that for many people, deceit came as naturally as breathing. Before I understood why it was socially frowned upon to do so, I’d embarrassed my mother on more than one occasion by pointing out her friends’ falsehoods and exaggerations. I couldn’t help it. The moment the lies slipped from her friends’ lips, they coated my tongue like a layer of ash. Each person’s lies had a unique signature, and the intensity ranged from mild bitterness to extreme causticity, depending on the person in question and the severity of the deception.
Though my detection skills proved useful at times, I hated both the flavor and the burden of knowing the truth. Who would enjoy being constantly confronted by other people’s duplicity? A psychopath, perhaps, but certainly not me. Once, I’d confessed to my father how much I hated tasting lies, but he’d insisted that my talent was a gift, not a curse, saying, “The gods have blessed you with a gift unlike any other. Be grateful for it, Little Arrow.”
If my gift had taught me anything, it was that even the people you trusted most could betray you. Especially if you loved them. For most people, love tended to impede their ability to suss out the pretenders. My father saw my gift as a highly useful tool. He’d drag me to parties and university meetings—his secret weapon hiding in plain sight. We came up with signals for when someone was being dishonest. With all the stealth of a newborn kitten, I’d creep over and give his sleeve a subtle tug, indicating a lie had been told. He’d smile and ruffle my hair to show mehe’d understood, all while his oblivious colleagues chuckled indulgently at the little girl begging for her father’s attention. It felt like a game, and I loved feeling useful to my father. Needed. After all, exposing liars couldn’t be wrong, could it? At the end of our escapades, my father would grin down at me.
“You did well, Arden. Remember, knowledge is seeing with both eyes open.”
The truth would always reveal itself if I was around to catch it. Unfortunately, tonight my gift was of little use. I didn’t need the bitter flavor lingering on my tongue to know I was being lied to.
When I made no reply and continued to stare at the floor sullenly, August abruptly grabbed my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes.