Witches Burn at Dawn ✔

35. Yaroslava

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As we return to the apartment, it's heated chaos. Nilam, Kadri, and Lav argue over something in the kitchen, and they don't pay much attention to us even when Ady carries Jasna into the living room and lowers her onto the velvet sofa.

I've been searching for the right words to talk to Ady and Mir for two hours while we were in the car, and I still came up with nothing. If I asked them, straightforwardly, they would have just invented another lie to throw me off my balance.

I still have no idea who has hidden my bones. Was it Ady? But Mir wouldn't have confided his secret about knowing Vlad to Ady if he hadn't trusted Adélard. Mir calculates everything--every possibility, every win, every failure.

Slipping my hand into the pocket of my jacket, I squeeze the piece of my skull and cross to the window, while Adélard tucks a blanket around his sister's shoulders. The room is dim, and I can see the street outside perfectly. It's dark and empty.

Where are you, Bogdan?

A strange thing happened when we returned from the morgue. I knew Bogdan was watching us. I didn't exactly see him in the alley behind this very apartment building, yet I sensed that descending cold shift of the wind I'd sensed it in the pantry when I'd met him. And I saw Mir's reaction. Mir sensed magic, his scar answered to it, etching a grimace of pain upon his face, and now he's retreated to his room once again--to drink another vial of reverse elixir to subdue his powers, no doubt.

A ghost wouldn't be able to affect one's magic. And I never could see ghosts, that wasn't my power! This city must be crowded with restless spirits, so why would see a particular one, then?

I clutch my bone harder, its sharp edges digging into my palm. What have you done, Dan? The street is still empty, no matter how long I try to focus my vision on the shadows.

I only saw Bogdan when magic was around, didn't I? On the rooftop, when Mir mixed a drink with a binding spell. At the basilica, when I was drunk on his reverse elixir. At the restaurant, in the pantry brimming with sorcery stuff.

Where's the demon? I asked Bogdan.

Ask Mir.

I shudder at the realization, suddenly cold, even though the air in the room is warm. My best friend is a demon. Then what if... what if Vlad isn't the demon who killed me? Because Vlad isn't the demon Mir suppresses his powers to hide from. Bogdan is.

Bogdan is the serial killer whose soul I'm supposed to destroy tomorrow, isn't he? That's why Mir has never told me the truth, he knew I'd never agree to this.

Footsteps stomp down the hallway, and turning around, expecting to see Mir and confront both him and Ady with what I've just realized, I open my mouth to speak--and then cut myself off. Nilam stands in the doorway of the living room, his expression angry and pained at once.

Adélard blinks at him, confused. "What happened?"

"Laverna happened," Nilam growls, rolling up the sleeve of his hoodie as he walks over and drops in the armchair. "She knocked the pot with the potion off, when she was trying to--" He grimaces, showing us his tattooed forearm, red with a scald. "I don't know, make some coffee? I tried to catch it and ended up splashed."

"Does it hurt?"

"It does, Lishan! Do you know where Mir keeps bandages or something?"

"No, but I'll go ask him."

When Adélard's back vanishes in the hall, I watch Nilam struggle with the cap of a small jar of burn ointment he's brought with him from the kitchen. He tries to unscrew it without moving his injured hand much, and hisses every time his skin stretches.