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Clarimonde retreated several steps from the harp. Still, she did not look at Tertia as she offered out the bottle.
The Leanansidhe did not know the meaning of moderation. She scraped paste from the bottle over and over, rubbing it generously across her wrists and neck and décolletage—until the herbal honey scent was heavy upon the air. She reached lovingly for the harp, stroking it with a gentle sigh of pleasure.
“Oh!” said Tertia softly. “Oh, how beautiful you are, my brother. I misjudged you terribly before, with your ugly, tatty strings—but now, look how you shine!” Tears threatened within her voice. “You must have been a sight to behold when you were living. Did those mortals worship you, before you died?”
Clarimonde took another careful step backwards, positioning herself just between Tertia and the boudoir’s golden mirror.
The Leanansidhe sat down in a chair next to the harp, drawing it closer. Clarimonde’s eyes were firmly on the floor… but she felt the moment that Tertia tried to pluck one of the harp’s strings.
The resulting silence was thick, and heavy with rejection. Clarimonde felt it, with the oil of datura on her skin—the harp’s refusal was a living thing, full of absolute contempt.
Tertia sucked in a sharp and sudden breath.
She tried again—most likely out of simple desperation. The harp ignored her, once again.
“Your perfume… has failed, Clarimonde,” Tertia said slowly. Her brief delight had suddenly fled; in its place was a cold, implacable threat.
Tertia rose back to her feet. Clarimonde took another step back from her—but the Leanansidhe followed, closing the distance between them. Clarimonde turned her head quickly, desperate not to look at the putrid, rotting creature before her… but the pungent scent of cruelty was stronger than ever, and her stomach was already rebelling.
“My perfume was never going to work,” Clarimonde told her thickly. “I suspected so before—but now I know it certainly. That harp makes its own decisions, just like Foxglove’s hearse. It has judged you unworthy… and no amount of magic will ever change that. The only thing my perfume does is show the truth.”
Tertia’s fingers closed on either side of Clarimonde’s face, forcing her eyes upwards.
The sight that met her was beyond endurance. Human body parts, all torn apart and badly stitched together, stared her down. Blood and pus stained every inch of Tertia’s form. Only her eyes—red eyes, cruel eyes—remained the same.
“I see the truth of you,” Tertia sneered. “You are no different than before. There is no secret power inside of you, no overwhelming beauty. You are simply… you. How laughable! How could I ever have believed that Hollowvale might prefer you to me?”
“I see you clearly, too,” said Clarimonde. Her voice was flat and steely—but only because she did not dare to show emotion, lest her stomach finally rebel. “There is nothing real inside of you except your hunger. All that you have, you have stolen from someone else—and all of it, you butchered in the process. Mr Bligh’s fingers will not serve you as they once served him; you have destroyed a hundred artists, but you did not make a better one from their remains.“
With every word, Tertia’s fingers tightened ever more painfully upon Clarimonde’s face. Spoiled blood trickled down the Leanansidhe’s temple, in a caricature of the pomegranate juice that Clarimonde had once seen in its place.
“I told you what it was that I would do to you if you failed me,” Tertia said, with a soft and deadly tone. “I think, perhaps, that you did not believe me… but you will, darling. Very soon, you will.”
“You were wrong about a great many things,” said Clarimonde tightly. “For instance: I do not believe that I will beg for you to kiss me. Please do wait until I am already dead.”
She lurched aside, in an attempt to pry herself from Tertia’s hands. The Leanansidhe’s grip remained intact—for she was horribly, unnaturally strong—but the movement did bring Tertia face to face with the boudoir’s golden mirror, just behind Clarimonde.
Tertia’s hands fell away then, of their own accord.
The Leanansidhe stared into the mirror. What she saw there, Clarimonde did not know—she had never had the opportunity to find out whether oil of datura showed the same truth to everyone who touched it. But surely, there were enough different hideous facets to Tertia that none of them would paint her in a flattering light.
Briefly, Clarimonde caught sight of herself in the mirror, standing next to Tertia. Nothing there, she realised, was surprising. Her reflection did look very nearly identical to the one that she saw every day.
Except… there were scars, she saw, upon her skin. Once, a briar’s thorns had pierced her deeply. None of the injuries had yet fully healed. Perhaps, she thought, they never would.
The image did not trouble her. Every day, Clarimonde had done her best to see herself truly, for better or for worse. Her flaws were part of her, and she was satisfied that she had fought them when she could.
The death of lies was kind to her, she thought, because she loved the truth so dearly.
“This is… an illusion,” Tertia said. Her voice quavered with anguish. “You have ensorcelled me. There is no truth in this—you are a disgusting, filthy mortal liar.”
Frost crawled up the length of the mirror, safely veiling the image there with frost. Tertia turned on Clarimonde, weeping black blood from her eyes.
The temperature had dropped; ice clawed at Clarimonde’s feet and tore at her limbs. She clenched her jaw against the cold. “You know the truth in your heart,” she said. “You may lie to yourself for another hundred years, another thousand—but I have shown it to you now, and you will never fully forget it. The only way that you will ever change the truth is to change it, through great effort and great sacrifice. And you have always been too lazy and too cowardly to try.”
Clarimonde’s voice grew stronger with every word, despite the numbness in her limbs. It had been so long now since she’d spoken without lies; the truth was such a terrible relief by comparison. She spoke though with an extra and intentional cruelty, knowing that her survival might well hinge upon the wholesale destruction of Tertia’s towering ego.
Hollowvale was listening. She felt it in the air. It had not yet abandoned Tertia—but it was present, and it was curious again.
