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Peace never lasts.

Nights end, even when you don't want them to.

Cinder hissing in the dying fire of the hearth, I lie amidst pillows and blankets on the floor, watching the sun rise from behind the building across the street and peek through our room's window. Mir's arm rests on my side as I count my breaths. One, and two, and three. One, two. Three.

I still can't sleep.

I'm not really alive.

When the sunrays crawl toward our heads, Mir grunts behind my back, stirring awake. He fidgets, trying to find a spot where the sunlight can't disturb him, but fails, and buries his nose into my shoulder, rubbing against my skin like a lazy cat. I don't say anything. Never have I greeted the dawn with a boy's cuddling. This is the part when one of us leaves, right?

Yet Mir doesn't leave. And I guess I am the one who should abandon it all this time. Run before I grow used to the fantasy of being taken care of, escape before the memory of feeling alive hasn't withered, replaced by some harsh words.

Praying for courage, I am about to sneak from under his arm, but I miss the moment.

"I know you don't sleep," Mir says, his voice hoarse and drowsy. "But you eat breakfast, don't you?"

No. Not with someone who wakes up to me after asking to stay forever. Nobody's ever stayed forever with me. This is so comical and pathetic in my mind, I almost laugh. There's no reason to worry--because no promises were given last night--but my past is haunted, warning me to remember that maybe I still don't understand how feelings work. Maybe I don't even know what feelings are. Maybe yesterday I misread every emotion of the boy next to me, imagining what I wanted to, as I did before. I was bold and dauntless, while in reality, I am not.

I simply had nothing to lose.

Maybe Mir is merely acting politely now. Why is it so easy to believe you hate me, yet so much harder to believe you don't, Praejis?

As I still don't reply, Mir sits upright, yawning and stretching. From the corner of my eye, I watch him look around, taking in the mess of pillows and blankets and clothes around us. Fishing his pants out, he begins to dress.

So here is the part we part.

Before exiting the room, though, Mir kneels beside me once again. I squeeze my eyes shut, pretending to rest, pretending not to care. He gives a peck on my shoulder, and this time as he speaks, he doesn't sound sleepy, his voice rich and clear. "I love you too, Yaroslava."

My eyes snap open. The air in my lungs catches, chilling me to my core. Mir gets up, and the door clicks open and closed whereas the world before me tilts, knocked over and sharpened at once. Mir? I must have misheard, I must have misinterpreted the meaning behind the syllables, I must have--

He loves me.

But...too? Oh. Did I say it out loud last night? I swore to myself I'd never say it first again! Yet, I guess it doesn't matter, right? He loves me. The echo of Mir's every touch and kiss and push enter my mind at once, causing soft tingling around my limbs. I throw the blanket over my head, but it's no use. I'm smiling. For the first time since I woke up in the graveyard, I think my smile is real.

Happy.

What a dangerous, fragile state.

Our makeshift bed is empty without his voice now, and regardless of the thick rug, the floor is a poor choice of a place to sleep, especially if you don't sleep. Massaging my stiff neck, I sit up--and wince at the soreness down my belly. I swallow, reaching down, and my fingers find the warm wetness between my legs. As I stand up, I stare at a stain of blood soaked into the fabric of the rug. The reminder of what my happiness cost. Will Polina even want this body to be hers now?

Perhaps it'll be better to let Polina's consciousness sleep on and drift into infinity, unaware. Still, a murder.

We have a serial killer's soul to destroy today, I'll think of my virtue later.

Strangling my distress, I pull on my dress while my eyes prowl around the room, inspecting Mir's place in the daylight. The old books on the shelves look depressingly lonely. There's a single photo in a tarnished brass frame. It's not one of Mir's shots, the camera angle is too obvious for his liking. In the photo, a group of people stands on the steps of the building that, after a moment, I recognize as the black walls of Zagovor restaurant.

I come over to look closer. The raven-haired woman in the center is much younger than I remember, but I know Nilam's aunt immediately. To her right are a young man with the same black hair, and a girl with a proud smile. Nilam's perished parents. They seem lovely, but why does Mir have their picture?

Then to their left, I notice a sulking boy who looks just like a copy of Ady. Adélard's dad, the mayor. He didn't look as stern as he does now. The young lady next to him, wearing a modest dress, is definitely Kadri's mother, the priestess-to-be. And my heart skips a beat when behind them, I see a laughing girl holding the hand of the boy beside her. The boy is frowning, struggling to be serious, but his lips form a lopsided grin anyway. Just like Mir's lips do, when he's agitated.

Mir's parents. His mother he's never had a chance to meet. His father who for some reason would turn his son's life into hell later. What happened to all these jolly people? What broke them?

I'm about to return the photo to its place on the shelf, but my eyes linger on a small wooden crescent hanging around another girl's neck. She doesn't look at the camera, her head canted to one side as if she's listening to a faraway tune.

Tears claw at my throat. "Mom?" My thumb brushes over her silhouette, longing to reach her through the years. Grief mixes with fear in my chest as one thought forms in my mind. I always wondered why she's never talked about her past. Did she know that the pendant she'd given me was enchanted? Was she a Vedma once?" I don't even recognize your face now, Mom. I'm sorry." Nonetheless, this is the youngest I can imagine her, and her eyes are merrier than any of my memories of her are. Who was she before Tanya and me? A copper-haired boy stands a step away, stealing glances at her. Can he be our dad?

I flip the frame over, freeing the photograph from its metal band, searching for a signature.

To my Indigo Society, a new generation.

May the magic thrive.

P. S.

These hasty letters written long ago hypnotize me for a moment. There's nothing else. My mom knew all these people, my mom knew of magic!

Yet, it's not her secrets that provoke tears stinging my eyes. It's the knowledge that I will never see my own family again. How ridiculous is this? The same city, the same roofs and streets, the same moon and stars, but those who breathe are different. Time, merciless and unstoppable, separates us, caging each of us in our own lifetime. Everyone's here, yet everyone's gone.

We're side by side, but we're never together.

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I buy myself time sneaking around the apartment, taking shower, changing clothes, thinking of those letters. May the magic thrive.

Magic has never thrived, has it? Half of the people in that picture are dead, and the other's smiles turned cruel. Magic has destroyed my past and killed my mother and sister, and even if Nilam is right and it's not the darkness but power that scares the mortals away, no one should possess such power.

My cautiousness is in vain, though. No one's here to question why I've spent the night in Mir's room. There's an hour or so before we all agreed to meet to proceed with our plan, so nobody has arrived yet. Laverna is gone, Mir is in the kitchen, and Jasna's silvered body lounges on the sofa in the living room, where Ady left her. She's eerily unmoving, like a fairy frozen in her sunbathed chambers.

As I enter the kitchen, Mir is indeed making breakfast, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up. Just scrambled eggs with cheese and some herbs, nothing fancy, but it's much more than nothing. It's everything.

Noticing my hesitation at the threshold, Mir offers me a shy smile. "What? Don't tell me it smells as shitty as what Laverna tries to accomplish every time she sees something cookable."

"It smells good." A new pang of hope threatens to throw me off my balance. Maybe this can be my reality after all? "It's good. You're good."

A smile spreads wide across Mir's lips. I'm not sure I've ever seen him this radiant. He thinks I've made my decision, doesn't he? He thinks I'll stay forever. He believes he's convinced me.

But you only make it worse, Praejis.

I can't stay. I can't trade Polina's life for mine. And a year will only result in a harder way to welcome my end again. Preparing for death, knowing when your final breath will be released is worse than dying. And then what? An eternity in mythical Heaven to remember everything I've lost and given up? I'm not sure I deserve Heaven even now. I'm not sorry for Euklas's broken nose, for Zoryan's curse, for all the cars and money I've stolen and people saw killed. Hell?..

I won't go back to the abyss.

However, I can still save the day, be a hero of my own story at least for once. My fingers trace over the wooden lines of the crescent under my chin as I seat myself into a chair across from Mir. I don't meet his eyes as he sets a plate before me.

I'll catch the serial killer today and return Polina her body. She's been taught her lesson, I've already taken from her what she's taken from Kadri. It's enough. She's been punished enough, she deserves her second chance. I don't want mine.

We eat in silence, Mir repeats his attempts to catch my eye, but I refuse to look at him, staring down at my plate instead, savoring my last meal. He doesn't ask anything, but as though suspecting, his gaze follows my every gesture.

"Yara, you know," he begins when the silence becomes heavy, "since tomorrow we're officially free, we can go--"

"We can't, Mir." I've made my decision. There won't be a tomorrow for me. If I take my pendant off before breaking the Soulwrecker, not only the killer's soul will end up obliterated, but mine as well. No Heaven, no Hell, but permanent death. I won't have to fear, or hope, or regret. There will be nothing. No Yara. The closest thing I can have to the rest in peace.

Mir's shoulders bunch, and something testy and rebellious glints in his eyes. A second later it's gone. He stares out the window, at the sunlit sky, and his expression is once again schooled into a mask of cold neutrality. It hurts seeing him like this, but I'm not going to explain myself. He'll try to stop me, and I don't want to be stopped.

When we're almost through with the breakfast, Mir's cell phone rings. He brings it out of his pocket and listens to someone's voice burbling in his ear. The veins in Mir's arm become prominent as he balls his free hand into a fist, his face growing wan.

"Who is it?" I ask, alarmed.

Putting his cell down, he slowly meets my eyes. "It's Charlie. The barman from Ninth Circle. He says Nilam is dead."

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