Witches Burn at Dawn ✔

20. Yaroslava

✧ ✧ ✧

It's already dark when Kadri, Ady, and I drive back to the apartment.

"Today went better than I was preparing myself for," Ady admits, pulling the car to a stop. I strangle my smirk when he rubs at his brow, and his fingers spattered with Gyoku's glitter smear the gold across his skin.

"Ruslan will kill you two when he finds you've spilled the glitter over his part of the room," Kadri says. She hasn't spoken a word about our bathroom conversation to anyone, but something's changed in her--she doesn't avoid looking into my face now.

"Who's the mysterious Ruslan I keep hearing about?" I ask.

"Mir's brother. They don't talk after their father died though, so you'd better don't mention him to Mir, you know?"

Another person pissed at Mir, why am I not surprised?

"I don't want to talk to Mir at all," I groan. He's lost my damn bones in four walls, the only thing that separates me from being swallowed back into an infinite abyss.

Pushing the car door open, I realize Ady and Kadri stay in their seats. "Aren't you coming to make sure I don't end the world while walking up the stairs?"

Adélard gives a small shrug. "I bet you can manage a dozen steps without burning the city."

I flick my eyes to Kadri and catch her staring. Upon meeting my gaze, she says the words I least expected to hear. "Thank you, Yara."

My mind goes blank. "For what?"

The corners of her lips drift downward, only to form a shy smile after. "For being you?"

For being me. No one's ever thanked me for that. In less than a week, I've accomplished more than in my entire life--I've met people who want me to be me, without demanding to prove myself, to change, to earn their love. If only I'd met them sooner...Maybe poets and dreamers are right after all, and we are never broken, we're always enough--all we need is the right people to see us?

"Good night!" Kadri and Ady's voices merge into one a moment before the engine roars.

"Good night," I smile, standing on the porch and watching the car take them into the night. They don't know I can't sleep. Yet they know I was a witch and a liar and a criminal, and they still choose me.

✧ ✧ ✧

I feel a little lightheaded as I walk into the apartment. "I'm back!" I announce, loud, because nobody's in the hall to scold me. Doesn't Mir always want to scold me? "Mir? Lav? Nilam?"

Silence.

"The witch is in the house! Light the torches, everyone!"

Stillness. Nothing moves, not a shadow.

A sense of foreboding settles over me. "Anyone?" Not the darkness again. Please, not alone. Mir won't leave me, not the Fire Girl, not in his precious apartment, not out of his sight.

Is this a trap? Is he waiting for me to let my guard down and retrieve my bones from where, as he believes, I've hidden them? Or maybe he's angry with me. Or tired of me. Damn, why do you even care about his feelings, Slavich? I shove the thought aside, trudging deeper into the murky hall. Yes, Mir's the one who brought me back to life, but he's also the one who promised to let me die again.

Darkness.

Darkness.

Darkness.

Why is the apartment so dark?