Witches Burn at Dawn ✔

10. Mir

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"Can we finally talk, Mir?" Adélard asks quietly, falling into step beside me. The tree branches overhead sway in the wind, more clouds gathering in the sky.

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Really? How about what we've done? About the dead witch breathing behind us." Ady's voice is not guarded as it was when he was talking to Yaroslava, now it lacks a courteous flatness his parents have taught him and reveals his disquiet.

"No."

"About Vlad?"

I listen to the footsteps behind us, making sure Yaroslava and Laverna are following. The grass rustles unevenly as they do. "No."

Ady doesn't press, surprising me with his silence. He never misses a chance to scold me. Since his parents and mine decided we had to be friends as they had been, since we started a fight in front of everyone's eyes and our split lips assured them otherwise. Adélard Lishan loves rules, I hate them; he follows them, I only manage to break them. He lives up to his father's expectations, I never could make mine proud of me.

We weren't meant to be friends. Yet we are now.

I suppress the urge to turn my head and search Ady's face, refusing to show my confusion.

"You're doing it again, Mir," he finally says after a dramatic pause. His tone is light this time, vibrant. And mocking.

Scolding myself, I look at him. "What am I doing, Lishan?"

He only chuckles.

It unnerves me further. "What!"

"You're trying to succeed in everything at once. Finding the murderer, watching the witch, saving Jasna. Pissing me off? Magic or no magic, you can't..."

I bury my glare into his temple, loading my stare with all the indignation I possess, but somehow I don't find much. Somehow after the time spent with Fire Girl, I find no emotions inside me at all. She is the emotion, she is the words and the actions, and I am merely the sound filling up space. How can a dead girl be so many things?

But Ady doesn't buy it. He used to, when we were kids, but not anymore. He falters but only for a moment, amused, not disturbed, and then his lips twist into a smirk. "...be perfect."

"Says you?"

He's right though, I can't. Yet, I've mastered the skill of faking it.

Mir Praejis gets everything he wants. He has a loving family and the brightest future. His life is flawless, he is perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect...

Almost.

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"You act selfish, Mir," Father told me when he caught me sneaking out when I tried to run off for the first time. It was ten years ago, I was eleven, yet I still hear him chastising me in my head. "What would people say? That you're not happy?" he asked. "Aren't you happy?"

I was happy. I should have been. After all, it was my birthday party, and my grandpa brought me a dog. Every child wanted a dog.

"It's not that bad," Father went on, cupping me by the chin and pushing my face toward the kitchen window to inspect the pinkish-red mark on my cheek that two days later would darken into an ugly bruise. "Next time you'll think twice before running that fast, right?"

I didn't answer, staring through the window. It was winter, snow falling all day, and everything outside was covered in white: street lights, cars, the road...I loved the way snow squeaked under my boots.