✧ ✧ ✧

"How can one use Morox as a drug?" I ask as we return to the hall. The party seems to become only louder closer to midnight, the laughter wilder, the air hotter.

"What, your sorcery books didn't teach you to have fun with magic?" Mir chuckles, stopping on the staircase corner, by the banister overlooking the dancefloor below.

"No," I say plainly. Two lights fall over his face, one purple, another blue, and Mir's profile is sculptured between them, like a canvas you surreptitiously descry through a keyhole at dusk. Painted by deceitful morning haze.

"Most people here don't know it's magic, for them it's just a nice party," he continues, his right hand adjusting the cufflink on the left sleeve of his gray shirt. He still doesn't look at me. "Let's say, Morox prevents your mind from thinking nonstop. If you use it right. Take only enough to dive into a good dreamless sleep while you're still awake enjoying the world with no consequences. Be whoever you want and with whoever you want. No expectations, no judgment. And forget everything--if you wish-once the sun rises." He flinches as his fingers squeeze the cufflink too hard. "Shit."

We both stare at the bead of blood on his fingertip. The only thing that holds our gazes linked.

"Wait here, will you?" he spins around, heading downstairs without waiting for my answer.

Where would I go? I watch as he makes his way down and over to the bar, reaching for a cocktail napkin to wipe the blood. The bartender offers him a drink, Mir refuses but then says something that causes the bearded man's face screw up in confusion.

Languid, I look around the club again. Now, taking a closer look, I think I know what Nilam was talking about people coming here for magic. Everything here is ordinary, but behind the veil of tipsy recklessness, there is something...delicious. A taste you get when you walk at night when nobody listens, nobody watches, nobody cares for your missteps. Of freedom--at least that's how magic always tasted for me.

Most drinks in people's hands are lucent, faintly twinkling from inside. And every face is a little bit too cheerful, too confident. No expectations, no judgment. How much yourself would you dare to be if you know nobody's here to question your choices?

This is not the kind of magic I used, this one is safe, playful. It's candies and flowers and mermaids while mine was blood and murk and death. Yet this is the underworld I was so desperate to find. Where everyone belongs.

And I still don't.

Peeling herself away from the dancing crowd, Laverna appears by the bar, her cheeks flushed, her hair rumpled. She swings her arm over Mir's shoulders and babbles something into his ear.

Mir shakes his head.

Lav loops her hands around his arm then and pulls, drawing him to join her. When he stays rock still, she sighs, gliding onto a stool beside him, and begins all over again.

"--never!--until--now." Lav's voice reaches me in clipped fragments as songs change.

Along with his answer, Mir motions at me. My breath catches as Laverna's eyes dart up to my shadowy corner. She doesn't see me, but I do see the irritation numbing her face.

Her? she levels her finger up while looking down at Mir again. I suddenly feel defenseless, a little girl dodging from a stone thrown at her behind the school.

Mir nods.

Her what? The girl who ruins the night? The girl who will save us all? I want to be none of those. Sour despair sticks to my tongue at the thought of it. I dreamed about getting rid of my powers for fair three years as it'd been poisoning my life, and now I want it back? I fall into my old ways, longing for strengths, for support. I'm weak. Scared.

I'm...just a girl. Why isn't it enough for me though? For Tanya, it was.

Two girls, their arms laced in a hug, stagger on the steps and collide with me. They aren't defenseless. Their bodies brush against my side, nearly knocking me off my feet. I grab the banister to steady myself, my thigh hitting its metal.

"Oops, my bad." One of the girls giggles as her friend sneers at her awkwardness.

With another drunken apology, they vanish between the flickering lights just as quickly, but when I turn to look at the bar, Mir and Lav are gone. Of course, they are. They aren't here for me--I am here for them. Because of them. Thank to them. But they're neither my friends nor my allies, how am I supposed to confide myself in them? Trust that they won't ruin the remains of my soul? Everyone ruins everything, sometimes without intending to.

I did.

"You look like you're having an existential crisis." A glass of wine-red drink, no magical glow, appears before my eyes. I don't need to guess to know it's Mir's long-fingered hand holding it. "Are you? Awful timing."

Perplexed, I scan the surroundings, but Laverna isn't with him. "I said I didn't want a drink."

"Suit yourself." Mir takes a mouthful of his own. "We have an hour or so to kill. It doesn't mean I'm letting you have fun though, it's just pomegranate juice." He sounds so casual, so obliging, I wonder if my face gave out too much of my inner misery or it's just his another attempt to start a conversation. Anyway, I'm too tired of pretending to be unbreakable.

"I don't have any money to pay for it," I admit.

Surprise crosses Mir's face. "So that's what this is about? The club is Nilam's, everything's on the house." He pushes the glass into my hands. I accept it. "Let's go find a less importunate place to wait."

The last thing I see before following Mir back upstairs is Lav in the crowd, her eyes sharp and resentful.

✧ ✧ ✧

Instead of going to Nilam's door, Mir throws a curtain aside, revealing plywood covering the wall where a window was once. He moves the plywood too, and I see the empty roof of the adjacent building. It's peaceful and so much better than my restless broodings, and I slip outside without hesitation.

"For movie nights?" I notice a row of plastic chairs facing the windowless patch of the wall.

"In summer," Mir nods, swinging his leg over the sill, careful not to spill his drink. "You'll get a chance to see."

The building stands by the river, a vague reflection of street light glazing black waters. The embankment is shiny wet marble all the way to where the night swallows it up. This marble is just like in my hometown; the difference is, only a small part of it survived on the outskirts in Blakfait.

"A storm is coming," Mir muses, halting by the parapet lining the edge of the roof, beside but a cautious step away from me. I study him from the corner of my eye. His back is erect, his posture calm, but his gaze is traveling along the bridges as if looking for a distraction. However steady his voice might be, he's not comfortable at all.

Yet he's here. With me. Alone. Why?

Once I came to the conclusion that there was this age, a special year--when something significant, shocking even, happened in everyone's life. When this world shattered the last of your childhood dreams or made you give them up on your own. When you no longer believed in justice. A personal catastrophe, I called it. Mine? When the gossip about me killing my own family began.

If just like me, Mir wanted to be strong one day, went far enough and was willing to bend the laws of nature, to curse his own soul with magic, that was his day. Before he brought me back to life, before some lunatic decided to hunt down magic users.

Gazing upon the river, Mir chews on his lower lip. An old, almost invisible cut scars that lip of his. What shattered you, my rescuer?

"Why didn't you tell me you and Vlad were friends?" I ask.

His gaze shoots up, to the sky, unblinking. "Why would I?"

"He's in the city?"

"Is it a question?"

"A wild guess."

He sets his glass and rests his elbows on the stone parapet. "Let's play a game? A truth for a truth." A touch of warmth in his voice, though it sounds like politeness, not kindness. "You start."

I can't tell if he's serious, and I can't reveal to him my whole truth. Nobody knows it, and since I don't remember any of the faces of people I once loved, I'm not sure if I know it now either. But I should try, right? I've been searching for someone who could listen, could understand me for so long, maybe this is my chance.

With fake nonchalance, I take a sip of my juice, its bittersweet taste tingles the tip of my tongue. "I hate pomegranates."

Mir laughs, his eyes narrowing into slits at a puff of wind kissing his hollow cheeks. "I love pomegranates."

"I--" My courage rises dangerously close to the surface. "I had the sigil scar."

"Doesn't count. I already knew you were a vedma."

"Before all that, I wanted to be a doctor."

This somehow works. Mir's eyes finally dart in my direction, he's about to laugh again, but upon seeing my face, he stops short. "Really? You wanted to save people? And--"

"And killed them, yes. Thanks very much for reminding."

"Why?"

"Why I killed?"

"No, why a doctor?"

His sudden interest catches me off-guard. "I wanted to understand people. If you know how to cure one's pain, you know where it comes from, don't you?"

He doesn't answer, but his eyes crinkle around the edges, revealing...regret? Mir looks down at his glass, his fingertip tracing along the rim. "I never wanted to be a lawyer," he admits, his voice small. "My father decided for me. He always had a plan, I never did."

"I never knew my father."

"Maybe you're lucky."

"And what did you want?"

"Does it matter?" As if disgusted, he shoves his glass away, and now it's inches apart from mine, his hand is inches apart from mine. "It's easier to be someone others expect you to be. Of all people, Fire Girl, you should know it."

The words sting like a wasp. It hurts, I want to say. Life hurts, I want Mir to answer, to understand. But how can he? He has a home, friends, presumably a family. I have no one to live for.

Our conversation lulls, only the wind keeps murmuring, bringing the smell of distant rain. As I turn around, my back leaning against the parapet, I think I recognize the building. When we entered the club from the sidewalk I couldn't have a good look at it, but now I'm sure I've walked past its front before. I've even been inside.

It is a library. The St. Daktalion's Historical Library. Nilam's nightclub is indeed a library. Oh. I get the joke now. Where do you think you're going in this provocative outfit, my dear? To a library. You look exhausted, did you sleep last night? No, I was in a library. Where did you two lovebirds meet? In a library.

The kind of lie that is beautiful. Fascinating.

It's late, all the windows unlit, and my eyes crawl up, up, up, to the very top rising against the starless night. Something moves there. I squint, hoping to see a crow or a pigeon, but... It's too big for a bird. Billowing, like smoke. Blink, and a human figure hovers at the very edge. Staring down at me.

Blink, and I'm cold.

Death doesn't just let go of those who belong to it.

Blink, and it's gone.

Your choice...

A shiver runs down my spine. I cast a worried glance at Mir, but he still contemplates the river, thoughts fogging his pupils.

"I was told once Vlad was a demon," I say, recalling old legends and Tanya's fantasies.

Mir cranes his neck and--finally--meets my gaze. "And what do you think?"

The keen awareness of his eyes shoots through me. I swallow. "Demons don't get their legs broken."

"They do if they want you to believe they're human."

"So that's why you assume he killed me? Because you believe in an old stupid story that says there is an immortal son of the first mage and the first witch from the legend, and you think it's Vlad?"

Mir frowns. "That's two questions, two truths."

"Then ask me two questions as well."

His hand still rests close to my elbow, but Mir doesn't edge away, instead he takes a step toward me, a tiny one as if simply shifting from foot to foot. "You remember you can't lie to the person who has the sigil scar, right?"

I fail to answer, thrown off by his suggestion. Did he just admit that he had the scar, too? That he can feel how anxious I am? How my heart just quickened at this step of his? Does he make my heart quicken?

But if magic's been circling through his veins all this time, he knew how I felt from the very moment I woke up in the graveyard. Why all the questions when he could simply listen to my heart? If he could make me feel frightened as hell and convince me, why negotiate and offer me a year?

"I can simply stop talking, Mir."

"I don't need your words to know your truth." Another step. A few more phrases like this, a few more steps, and he'll pin me to the movie wall we're standing next to. But he won't do that, will he? He avoids my touch.

"And what's my truth?"

"You hate my presence," he says flatly.

Another step. It's not danger, it's worse. The wind blows between us, tousling Mir's raven curls. His hair's short enough to call it a haircut but also long enough to pull the locks behind the ears. I find myself thinking of reaching out and fixing the disarray nature has done. Right now I hate that I prefer your presence to loneliness.

This is not real.

I'm not afraid.

I'm not bewitched.

Maybe it's Polina's feelings, not magic? Maybe the two of them stood on this very roof once before, and Lav was bitter about it once before.

With only one light hanging at the other end of the roof and spilling its dim glow over us, Mir's face is an artwork of shadows, prompting imagination to fly. His jawline and cheekbones are as though chiseled out of stone, and darkness folds and unravels around his deep-set eyes. Whoever you want this darkness to be--it's there, it's him. He can even be Vlad. Mir is nothing like Vlad in daylight, but here and now...

Let's play a game. He didn't want to tell me his truth, he wanted to hear mine. And what do you think? To test me.

Realizing it is like driving a knife in my heart with my own hands. Mir has the scar. Mir has magic. Mir is a vedmak. And here it is, the feeling.

A predator to a prey.

But why am I afraid of his words, not of him?

"That's all you can say?" I order my knees to stop shaking and straighten my back, challenging him. He's not much taller, and I use it, rocking onto my tiptoes so our eyes are on the same level.

He blinks, conflicted, and his determination loses its brightness for a moment. But then gathers again, like woodsmoke. "It's not about magic, it's about what one can see. I watch you just for a day but already see you shut down on every opportunity you have."

I'm looking for opportunities, bastard.

"You joke and laugh and smile because... why?" The last step, I'm trapped. Mir's too close now to call it a polite distance. I can feel the warmth of his body shielding me from the wind. I can reach his lips with mine if I want to. "You expect an attack of some sort, seek out a war, get ready for a betrayal before it actually happens? Because someone betrayed you once, and you don't even remember who. You never tell what you really feel."

Anger.

"Fear," he says, his voice low and husky. "You don't talk about your past, you haven't even tried to explain your crimes." My breath gets stuck in my throat as Mir's hands travel down, his fingers close around my wrists, holding me in place. His skin on my skin. "What can be worse than what's undone you once?"

Polina's memories, Polina's feelings. Are they though?

A smile tugs on his lips as I grit my teeth to refrain from pushing him away, from giving him the pleasure of victory. "You see? I was just rambling and found the right color in your palette. So what is it? Who failed you first and turned you into a mistrustful liar? Your parent? Your sibling? Your friend? Or did you really fall in love with a monster who could not love you back?"

My cheeks fan to red. The cold wall is behind me and Mir's heat is before, the contrast frustrating. You can't make me feel things, I know it's a ploy. I hate you. Does he want to see me war? I'll war.

I twist my hands free and grip his wrists instead. Too bad he doesn't resist. "Why do you think I want your trust?" I spit out. "Why do you think I'll tell you my story?"

His smile becomes sardonic. "Please, don't. I don't want to find myself sympathizing with you."

Hate you! Yet, through all the hostility enveloping us, I begin to see something I haven't before about this boy. The first rift in Mir's polished defense. They say that in others, we only see what we refuse to acknowledge in ourselves. We strive to scare people around us away when we are scared.

I'm not scared. Not of him. "Why don't you tell me of your crimes first?"

The joyful darkness in his eyes fades. It's my turn to use colors.

"You say it's not about magic, so what is it? I died for my folly, fine, but what about you, Mir? How did you get yourself into this mess? Did you set your expectations too high? Were you lonely in your law school? Bored at home?" I grip his wrists, appreciating how strong Polina is. Strong enough to make it hurt. "Maybe once, but..." Slow, agonizingly slow, my eyes drag to the scar on Mir's lip. "A broken heart?"

Wrath ripples across his face. I rejoice inwardly.

"You can tell a dead girl." Instead of cringing into the wall and extending the space between us, I brace myself against him, my eyes trained on his lips an inch away from mine. He sucks in a rugged breath as I whisper into his mouth, "A dead girl will take your secret to the grave."

He averts his eyes. "Don't start a fire you can't douse, Fire Girl. You're a liar."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are. What are you trying to prove? How tough, independent, powerful you are? More words, no action. Come on, show me your power then."

What does he mean? But before I can make sense of his words, Mir's eyes darken a shade. "I can show you mine first."

Leaden alarm pits inside me. I glance around, looking for what that power has done, but nothing's changed on the roof. And then, I feel it. Spiking chill wrapping around my arms.

Dismayed, my right hand traces along my left wrist, and the air itself resists me. Black mist spirals around my forearms, thickening until two metal bracelets glint taunting me from beneath the hem of my sleeves. No. I'm so naive. A gem encrusted with steel, a drop of blood cursed with magic, and pomegranate juice.

A binding potion.

Tears threaten the back of my throat. Mir has just taken away the last part of my freedom, of who I was. With these bands on, I can't even use the simplest of spells. I can't even use my pendant.

A slave, I raise my eyes at him. After accomplishing what he's accomplished, he still dares to look at me as if I'm the one who wounded him.

"I'm a liar?" I repeat his words, fighting my tears. "Then listen to my heartbeat. Is it lying?" I grab his hand, pull it under my sweater, and press it against my heart, his cold palm landing on my breast. "Is it?"