Lies in Blood (36 page)

“
The lighthouse?”

“
Yes.”

“
Did you jump?” he asked, and silence befell the room.

“
I—” My mouth opened, but I was so shocked by the question I struggled to form an answer. “No way. I’d never do something like that.”

“
Are you sure? Maybe you were so depressed about David being away that you—”

“
No! Falcon, that’s ludicrous.” I jumped up and walked over to the sink. “It would take a lot more than
that
to make me want to die.”

“
Bingo.” He appeared beside me. “Then, what did you do before you ended up on the lighthouse that night?”

My immediate reaction was to protest. But I stopped. What if something really bad
had
happened, and I did actually jump? I mean, David was there that night. What if he and I had an argument—what if he told me the truth about going to his death, and that’s why I jumped, knowing I didn’t want to live without him? It would make sense. It would explain why he was so hell-bent on keeping the truth from me. Or maybe it wasn’t that at all. Maybe, just like my gut had been trying to tell me, it had something to do with Jason. “I can’t think of anything that would be bad enough to make me want to die, can you?”

“
Damned if I know, Ara.” He shrugged, stepping away. “Unfortunately, there are no books I can study that get inside
your
head.”

“
But someone can.” A suggestive grin teased my lips. “Someone can get in my head and go back to that night—see what happened.”

He settled back on his heels. “Jason.”

“
Yes. Maybe I could ask him to, I dunno, hypnotise me and take me back on a past-month regression?”

“
Bad idea, Ara.”

“
Why?”

“
Because, A: he’s not allowed near you, especially when the king is absent. And, B: until we know exactly what happened and whether or not you did, in fact, jump, every person in this manor is guilty until proven innocent. Including David,” he added.

“
Why David? He’d never hurt me.”

“
I don’t know that. And neither do you, really. He’s pretty vial, Ara, especially when it comes to the law. For all we know, he pushed you off the lighthouse.”

“
Why would he push me?”

“
Who knows? All I know is that he was out there that night, and it’s a pretty convenient story that he just
happened
to return here to “talk” with you.”

“
Yeah, but—”

“
But nothing. It’s my job to protect you, Your Majesty, even if that means from the king.”

“
That’s exactly why I should go to Jason, and—”

“
And how do you know it wasn’t him?” He let that hang for a second. “He was the last one to see you that night, Ara. Not to mention, your memory is gone. How do we know he didn’t erase it?”

I rubbed my head. “So we tell no one?”

“
Look, let me take a good look at the book of Marks, and another good look at your body—in private.” He looked around as if someone might have heard him say that. “And if we can’t come up with an answer, then we’ll discuss further investigation, okay?”

“
Okay.”

“
Right. And just until we’ve figured this out, I want guards on you at night.”

I took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay. If that eases your mind.”

“
It will.” He nodded once.

“
And, thank you, Falcon—for helping me out with this.” I motioned to my Mark.

“
It’s always my pleasure, Majesty, and I know I don’t need to say it, but . . . you can trust this information will go no further than me.”

“
Not to Mike?”

He held back a small laugh. “Especially not to Mike.”

Chapter Eight

“
You wanted to see me?” I said, popping my head around Jason’s door.

“
Yeah, come in.” His arm rose in a wave from his huddle over the spread of papers in front of him.

I stopped a second to look back at Falcon. “Coming, Fal?”

“
It’s okay.” He gave a small nod of approval. “I can hear everything from out here.”

I flashed him a grin and closed Jason’s door behind me, shutting us into his room, alone. “What’s up, Jase?”

“
I know why the stone melted. But that wasn’t why I asked you here.” He leaned his butt against the table and folded his arms. “You were thinking about something at breakfast.”

“
I’m always thinking about something.”

“
Yes, but this thought involved me.”

“
Okay.” I wondered over and sat on the blanket box at the foot of his bed. “What thought was it?”

“
You have something you want me to translate into English.”

My fingertips slowly moved to my hip pocket. “Yes.”

He held his hand out. “Show me.”

“
I have no idea what kind of spell it is—or if it even
is
a spell,” I said, passing him the page I found last night.

He considered it for a second. “It’s a junction fabricator.”

“
What’s that?”

“
It creates pathways over the dead.” He turned around and laid it on the desk, grabbing another sheet of paper and a pen.

“
The dead? Do you mean, like—”

“
Like brings dead things back to life, if the body isn’t damaged. But it’s not black magic,” he added quickly. “It’s simply a kind of highway, you might say, that guides a soul from one realm to another and puts it where you want it.”

“
Realm?”

“
Yes. Think of it as if we live in layers.” He laid one hand over the other in the air. “Up top, we have the spirit realm, and below, we have the mortal realm.”

“
And this spell makes a path for a person to cross sides?”

“
To cross back, yeah. Unless its body had no head, or something like that.” He leaned over the page again and started taking notes. I watched the symbols on one page turn to English on the other under his pen tip, picturing the actions of the spell in my head. “There’s something else,” Jason said without looking up, and I stared at him, waiting, but he didn’t elaborate.

“
What’s something else?”

He stopped writing with a rather expressive full stop and dumped his pen down. “This rash.”

“
What about it?”

“
Show it to me.” He looked at my waist.

“
Why?”

“
Because it’s not what you think it is, and I want to see how much it’s changed.”

I reluctantly inched my shirt up my ribs and drew my tummy in a bit as his warm hands cupped my waist. He knelt down in front of me, his tepid breath calling the tiny hairs above my jeans to attention, and spun me this way and that, frowning, tracing lines over the black rash.

“
I know you’ve already decided it’s a Mark of Betrayal, but it’s not because you’ve done anything
wrong
, Ara.”

“
Then what’s it from?” I pulled my top down as Jason stood up again.

He propped his shoulder on the tall bedpost, his legs leaned out long, arms folded, making me feel small under his penetrating gaze. “It’s betrayal of the heart.”

“
Of the heart?” I touched my chest absently. “In what way?”

He just shrugged, lowering his face to hide that sheepish grin.

“
Oh, right. You think I love
you
, huh?” I said jokingly.

But he just shrugged again. “Maybe.”

“
Jase—”

“
Look. Just don’t, okay.” He raised both palms. “I didn’t bring you here to argue about your feelings, Ara. I just wanted you to stop trying to figure out what you did wrong.” His arms fell to his sides. “
You’ve
done
nothing
wrong.”

I walked a little closer, my eyes narrowing with curiosity, and stopped right in front of him. “I think I know what it is.”

“
What?” he asked, his eyes a little wider than normal.

“
I. . .” I had to tell him. I had to tell someone what happened between Arthur and I in the training room that night—the night I fell of the lighthouse. Or jumped.

“
I already know, Ara. And that has nothing to do with the Mark.”

“
You already know what?”

“
I know about my uncle and the training hall, and the . . . turkey baster plan you came up with after.”

Invisible lava coated my cheeks. “How?”

He glanced back at his bed and reversed a few steps to sit on it. “I found you that night. You were . . . Mike was there, too. He was towering over you, yelling at you, and I—”

“
You what?”

“
I punched him in the face and took you up to bed.”

“
What! Why?”

“
He went down there to drop some cuffs off, and he found you half naked on the floor, wearing only Arthur’s shirt.”

“
Oh my God.” I covered my mouth. “So he’s known? This entire time, he knew what I planned to do with—”

“
No.” He looked up from the floor. “I erased everything about Arthur from his mind the next day. And then I erased yours, took everything from the moment he walked into the training hall that night.”

“
Why?”

“
Two reasons.”

“
One?” I prompted.

“
One: you were distressed about it all—about Mike knowing. And, two: he would have told David about this plan you and Arthur had.”

“
So you stopped him?”

“
Yes, but not
just
because David would freak out.”

“
Then, why?”

“
Because Mike. . .”

“
Mike?”

“
He was irate, Ara. He got scared. He thought you’d actually slept with Arthur—that David would hate you now. And all he could think about was the pieces of you he had to pick up last time David left. He just didn’t want to see you like that again. And. . .” His lips folded into a thin line. “He overreacted. He slapped you.”

“
Slapped
me?” My neck jutted outward like a jumper on a skyscraper.

“
Yeah. It was just a shitty situation, Ara. I was mad with him at first but . . . I understand what he was going through then.”

“
Delusions of grandeur?”

Jase laughed. “Probably. All that aside, though, he was packing his bag the next morning, about to quit and go back to Australia.”

“
Oh my God.”

“
I knew you still needed him, so. . .” he continued. “I erased it from his mind.”

“
And then I jumped off the lighthouse?”

He looked up at me curiously. “What makes you think you jumped?”

I shrugged. “Just a hunch.”

“
Hunch, huh?” He sighed, both hands going to his head as he flopped back on his bed.

“
You know why I jumped, don’t you?”