Witches Burn at Dawn ✔

19. Yaroslava

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Now

"And what's that supposed to be?" Standing beside the university's cafeteria, I wrinkle my nose at a thumb drive in Ady's palm. My knuckles throb after I've hit Euklas, and I rub the back of my hand, wincing. Hurting someone hurts, damn it. And I wasn't even the one who broke Euklas's nose, I only gave him a black eye.

"Euklas says it's the proof." Ady shrugs, starting down the alley, toward the eastern part of the campus.

"The proof of what?"

"I don't know, Yara. Maybe if you and Mir weren't that impulsive, Euklas wouldn't have run off before he could explain."

I snort. "We found him once, we can do it again."

"No." He slips the thumb drive into his pocket and adjusts the front of his beige overcoat, obviously unnerved, when he catches two girls stealing glances at us from across the alley. "Apparently, even without your magic you still can make things...bloody. So we'll do it quietly from now on. A friend of mine lives in the dorm nearby, we can use his laptop to check the drive."

"Yara's right," Kadri says all of a sudden, stepping to walk between me and Ady. "Euklas used her situation for his own gain. He deserved more than a few punches."

I glance at Kadri, but she refuses to meet my eyes, staring straight ahead, and I can't say why she's so sympathetic to me after calling me a sinner less than half an hour ago. "Thank you, Kadri."

She doesn't reply.

We pass a couple of blocks and cross a miniature bridge over a gurgling stream running across the campus when another company of students gapes at us through a dusty window of the local library building. They whisper to each other, and Kadri clasps Ady's hand tighter as if scared that those whispers can push them two apart or--scared that she can want to push apart?

"Is there a charm or a magical sign to draw across the lawn to force people to stop staring?" she asks, sullen.

"Well, I know one magical sign." In response to Kadri's intrigued expression, I throw my head up to look at the window and demonstrate my middle finger to the gossiping company. Shocked, their faces scurry away.

A peal of giggling rushes past Kadri's lips, this pious girl keeps surprising me. Adélard only groans though.

"You're impossible, Yara," he says. "No one taught you the manners?"

"Saintly sinners, you grumble like a TV sitcom old grandma."

"And don't use foul words."

"Fuck me!"

Just as I expected, he shudders at the word, proving my peculiar suspicion. Ady has been raised to be a part of the so-called cream of the high society, from a young age being around respectable people who show nothing but respect themselves. But that's also the problem. Nobody taught him the fun of the world outside that golden cage.

"Are you intimidated by swear words?" I wiggle my eyebrow at Ady, teasing. "That's kakologophobia."

Kadri coughs, trying and failing to conceal her laughter. And, honestly, I want to think of anything right now, just not about Euklas, and Mir, and my missing bones. Even if it means pranking Ady a little.

"You just made that up," he scowls.

"No, I didn't. I read it somewhere a long time ago, but I'm good at remembering letters." Better than at remembering faces. "And you know what, I think I can help you. Let's start with something less foully to your ear? In Blakfait, I learned quite an exquisite language. Like sterva, which means a bitch."