Witches Burn at Dawn ✔

32. Yaroslava

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Is your heart beating faster?

Sitting in the kitchen, at Mir's apartment, I watch Nilam and Kadri who chat quietly beside me and chop herbs for the Bloodcage potion. The snake skulls lay scattered on the table before me, and Lav grounds fern flowers in a mortar, seated in a chair opposite mine.

The sun already climbs down the sky, spilling its soft dusk light over the city outside the window. The day after we've created the Soulwrecker has gone by, uneventful: everyone needed to rest after the night of work, and I had nothing to do but lie awake in my bed and rewind what has happened at the garage over and over in my head.

Good, Fire Girl. Hold on to that emotion of yours.

I'm here.

My skin tingles at the sheer memory of Mir's lips touching my skin. I fidget on my chair, but the feeling refuses to vanish. Mir's been avoiding me since last night. I shouldn't have kissed him, should I? Perhaps he didn't like it. Or he liked it too much? Considering his law of nature.

Once we caught the immortal fire into the glass ball, alarmed Nilam and Lav bolted into the garage as they must have heard the bench being knocked over--Mir had knocked it over, hurrying away from me as though stung.

"What happened?" Lav asked, noticing blood on his lips.

"Nothing," he snarled before leaving. "Fire Girl poked me with her elbow and split my lip."

That's how lawyers obscure lies, huh? I did poke him with my elbow and I did split his lip--but not with that elbow of mine. I adjust a lock of my hair falling over my shoulder to hide the mark Mir's teeth have left on my collarbone. Yes, he did like my kiss. And he saved my life at that garage. Again.

Why won't he talk to me then? This cold uncertainly troubles me, begging to do something.

Rolling the Soulwrecker between my fingers, I glance out the window. It's the third floor, and I see the sunlight shining in the windows of the building across the street. People stroll down below, but they're not who I'm looking for now. Bogdan's ghostly silhouette is nowhere to be seen.

Why Mir hasn't told me about Bogdan? He knew I had a sigil scar, and he knew where to find my bones. He must have known about Bogdan as well... Mir has a reason for everything. He didn't want to upset me? No, Mir's not avoiding me because of our kiss, he simply suspects I can start demanding answers.

"What are you cooking?" Adélard's tall figure appears, filling up the kitchen doorway. He grimaces at the pot on the stove Nilam pours his chopped herbs into. "It smells like rats."

"How would you know what rats smelled like?" Lav sneers. "I wager your mayor's house is licked clean every day."

Ady gives her a humorous look. "Yours isn't though. And I've been to your place when you shared it with my sister."

The Soulwrecker stops between my fingers. "You have a sister, Ady?" I stare up at him, surprised.

Realizing he's said too much, Adélard tries to school his expression into neutrality, but he's not as skillful at that as Mir is. "Yes," he admits and props his side against the kitchen counter, pretending and failing to be nonchalant. "Jasna is my sister."

"Jasna? And nobody mentioned it to me before?"

"Sorry, Yaroslava, but your notorious reputation didn't really encourage me to share."

I grunt under my breath, irked. He's right, but it's still irking. And then it means Ady asked others to keep their mouths shut about it too, didn't he? I realize that more or less, I know everyone's story now--but not Ady's. What has he done to be hunted by a demon?