Page 103 of Fallacies

She’s thrown her hair up into a bun, her weapons vest hanging on the back of the chair, and I can tell by the look in her eyes that she’s over it.

Rolling her shoulders back anyway, a twinge of magic pricks the air, and I watch transfixed as her illusion forms, her features shifting and her face transforming entirely.

Her nose gets longer, her chin more proud, and her cheeks hollow out. I watch her pupils snap into slits, the hazel in her eyes turning gold.

Lucina curves her lips into a similar bored smile, drawing her voice out just as Nix had done, “Alesi.”

The cutlery slides off the plate I’m holding and clatters to the ground.

Lucina flinches, her illusion disappearing as quickly as it had come on. She whirls around to face me.

“Sorry.” I cough, clearing my throat, as I set the plate down on a nearby ledge and bend down to pick up the utensils I’d dropped. When I straighten, Lucina is staring at me, brows pinched, an expression I can’t decipher on her face.

“That was good,” I tell her. “Really good.”

“No,” Nix groans, crossing the space to take the plate for himself. “No,” he shakes his head, “it’s not the same.”

Lucina snorts, standing from her chair and gesturing a frustrated hand to Alesi’s corpse. “Of course it’s not the same. I’m memorizing a dead girl’s expression off of your face! Besides, you said she was a loner. Her expressions don’t have to be perfect if no one will notice anyw⁠—”

“I noticed!” Phoenix shouts back.

I watch the anger flash across his face. Watch it boil, then simmer, then boil again. He forces down a deep breath, jaw clenched as he reaches for the fork.

“Can’t believe you’d even say that,” he mumbles under his breath.

Lucina sighs, taking the jacket from my outstretched hand and marching up the steps to the cellar. I snatch her plate from Phoenix and take off after her.

“Cin.”

She keeps walking, grabbing a bottle of cider straight from Pax’s hand as she passes the fire our coven is sitting around.

“Lucina,” I try again.

She doesn’t stop. She’s nearing the edge of our camp—where Devon’s illusion ends.

“Lucina, you did great. Who cares what Nix thinks?”

She stops walking. Freezes in the dirt with her back to me. Her shoulders rise and fall with the deep breath she takes, then she spins around to face me.

“I don’t care what Nix thinks,” Lucina vents. “I care what you think.”

My confusion with her statement must be evident because she lets out a frustrated sigh and plops down on the rock beside her. Her gaze stays fixed on the clearing, where a break in the trees offers a full view of the barren plains of Griseo.

As I approach, she keeps her stare fixed there, her expression unreadable.

“Hey.” I set the plate down and crouch before her. She still doesn’t look at me. “What’s going on?”

Her stare drops to the bottle in her hand.

“Lucina—”

Whatever I planned to say is cut short when she looks up at me with yellow eyes.

It startles me, my balance wavering, and I choke on the breath I was trying to inhale, instantly regretting the reaction.

“See?” she whispers, her voice so small it doesn’t even sound like hers. Not the Lucina I know. “You can’t stand it.”

My heart starts pounding, fear tightening its fist around the organ as I shake my head. “That’s not true.”