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Now

I turn on the faucet and stand in the shower, silky hot steam rising around me. I just stand, letting the water wash away the graveyard cold.

If your mom's crazy, then you're too!

No. No, I am not crazy. I was dead, and now I'm alive. It's not a sick dream, a fantasy of an expiring mind. It's magic.

I am a vedma now.

I knew magic was a vicious joker, capable of many things--I've done many things myself--but...resurrection? In another girl's body? And who agreed to give up their body to me? Magic is nature breaking its own rules. It's death. And now I am death in the flesh.

Forbidden books say if you're brought back from the abyss, you return broken. You don't know who you are anymore, and what's real. Darkness doesn't simply let go of those who belong to it. But here I stand, and I've never felt more alive.

I'm just cold.

The last day of my life is still vivid in my memory: blood and screams and police sirens. I still remember the smell of burnt skin, and the dead standing and tearing at the flesh of the living around me like it's nothing but paper.

The Queen of the Dead?

"If you know what I did before I died," I repeat the words I haven't told Mir.

It was real, it's always been.

Turning the water off but feeling not a whit warmer, I step out onto the glossy white tiles and wrap myself in a towel. I don't recall towels being so soft, but I've never had a chance to take a shower in one of the apartments in the rich old quarters of St. Daktalion where the car brought me, either.

As I dry my damp skin, I avoid the mirror, avoid meeting my eyes, partly because I fear finding a haunted stare piercing me back, partly because I fear not finding it. Nevertheless, I can't resist the urge to inspect my new body. The skin is of warm ivory shade, tender, definitely well-cared and fed. My fingers find no familiar dimples on the cheeks as I make an attempt to smile; I see no birthmark on my left thigh, and surely--no scar on the inner side of my arm that granted me powers.

No reminder of Vlad.

Is it true what they say? You're a witch, a criminal...

Is Vlad still alive? Mir and his friends explained nothing, they kept silent till the very moment I shut the bathroom door behind me, and I couldn't understand if they didn't want to talk to me or were scared to. But why would they bring me back if they were scared? They needed me. Do they want me to cure someone? To kill? Would they send me back to the abyss after?

I don't want back to the darkness. I'll truly go mad if I hear it crooning my name, every syllable winding like woodsmoke sipping through shattered glass. Anything but this. The water felt so nice against my skin, so calm. Even my childhood fears suddenly grow to possess some new taste--of life.

I'll do whatever it takes to stay here. To breathe.

My finger brushing my arm where the scar used to be, I squeeze my eyes shut. Listen. Muffled sounds are coming from the living room, Mir and the others talking about me, no doubt. I hear the tunes and the timbres of their conversation, my breath and my heartbeat in my ears, but nothing else. No darkness. No magic. I used to hear the heartbeats of those around me, I used to be able to make their hearts hammer faster, to make them stop.

But it's only my heart now. Rhythmic, quiet, lonely. One, two, three--stop--it doesn't.

Nobody would choose to be a bad guy.

One, two, three--STOP. My heart doesn't stop, doesn't even slow down.

I would.

Hurriedly, I wring my hair dry and slip into the pajamas that were waiting for me in the bathroom. I leave the jeans and the blouse soaked in graveyard mud lying on the floor, and deliberately push the door ajar, peeking out. Despite the antiquity, the old wooden frame doesn't creak.

A long hall with a golden chandelier welcomes me. Everyone knows that only wealthy families can afford to live here, in the quarters, most of them trace their ancestry several centuries back, to the very times when, according to the stories, the vedmaks vanished. And the buildings here are of the same splendor. The high-ceilinged room across the hall leads yet to another room, and then another, and I can't grasp how big the apartment really is. My entire house was smaller than this hall.

Paneled walls with intricate moldings, a marble fireplace in one of the rooms beyond. I feel like a trespasser, entering some hidden part of a semi-royal palace or a mansion that was cut so as to occupy only one floor for an unknown reason.

"...brought a psychopath?" The voice in the living room sounds angry. I don't recognize it; when we came, two more people were waiting for us. So there're currently five souls holding a conclave over my fate. What an honor. "She's a murderess!"

"That wasn't proved," another voice prompts.

"Wasn't it?" The third one, cynical. "Her dead soldiers were all over the news."

"No one knows what really happened there."

"People like us know! Know that she practiced eerie stuff and that she's crazy. Even for us. And now we let her walk in Polina's body?"

My nails sink into the door's wood at the word. Polina. I wish I didn't know the name of this girl. It would have made it easier.

"... and if someone learns she's here?"

"She has a new face, Nilam. How?"

"I don't know, Kadri! Once she cuts our throats while we sleep?"

"You all agreed to this." The same unyielding confidence. Mir? "We need her, and more than that, we need what she can do."

"But--"

The arguing stops abruptly as I swing the door wide open. Passing the hall, my gaze settles on a large bag in the corner--the bag where what's left of my body is stashed. My charred bones. If I get to destroy them, I stay in Polina's skin permanently. Alive. But to do so, I'll need magic I no longer have, and if I destroy them the wrong way...I'm done. No second chances.

For a minute, I gawk at the bag, toying with possibilities. Take it and run? But even if I manage to outsmart five magic users, where will I run? I have nothing left. No one. And if those know Polina catch a glimpse of me in a street, and I'm discovered.

And what if not all my bones are in there? Think.

Not without regret, I let the ideas go and walk down the hall. I ignore the five pairs of eyes daggering me through the arched doorway of the living room, willing myself not to look, not send the daggers in return. I need time, I tell myself. My legs bring me to the kitchen, and I can't occupy myself with anything else but examining the fridge.

"Oh for Angel's sake!" barks a boy's voice, and exasperated feet hurtle to the front door. "I won't pretend like this freak's here for a casual dinner."

The front door bangs open and shut. Others murmur, then the door clicks again--a girl, as the footsteps are light and consistent this time, probably went to calm him down. I stare at the bottle of milk, my temper flaring. The last person who called me a freak almost choked in their own blood. And I couldn't help desiring for that little almost to disappear at that moment.

I sigh, slowly, releasing the resentment. The bottles chime a sad note as my hand holding the fridge door trembles. Dead or not, my anger seems to be stuck with me--because my pain is still here. Because all the memories and the deeds are still mine.

I should be grateful for breathing again, and I am. Yet I'm furious and scared and amazed. It's like a thunderstorm gathering in my mind. Yesterday I burn, today I'm whole, and between yesterday and today stretches a menacing hollow I can easily slip into at any time.

...If you were to choose, a hero or a villain?

You're nicer without bruises, Yara...

But first things first. I need to know who these people are. How did they know where to find my bones? How did they know what to do with them to conjure whatever I was now? And--what are they capable of, themselves?

"Looking for a unicorn's heart or virgin's blood?"

Startled, I whirl in place. Folding his arms across his chest, Mir rests his hip against the kitchen counter. His gaze is fixed on me, his expression unreadable. Whatever his little conclave has decided, I can't see it through him. He has washed the smears of dirt off his pale brows, but his black hair is still a mess falling over his eyes.

And these eyes sparkle with...amusement? Of course, his question was meant as a joke. If unicorns had existed, the remains of my own old body wouldn't have been lying as a bag of bones.

"Fairy dust," I say, straightening my shoulders, refusing to show that his silent approach caught me off-guard. "That's how I prefer to kill people in their sleep."

To my surprise, Mir laughs, though there's no humor in his laughter. It sounds like a reply rehearsed for unpleasant conversations. "You're sarcastic already. That's a good sign. How does being alive again feel?" he takes a step toward me, then halts, seeing my tension, and nods at the fridge.

I move aside, watching. Thinking. As if by sheer accident, Mir's hand slides past my arm at a safe distance, when he reaches to bring the food out. He obviously doesn't trust me, despite what he's said in the graveyard. But I need him to, I need to know what his plans are. So I pretend I don't notice and sit at the table.

Mir sets a plate of sandwiches and a jar of jam before me. I've heard of innocent people held hostage, tortured, and killed, but not of criminals treated like special guests. Nobody treats one another in my world. If he's hiding something, he plays it cool, and those who play are usually keeping the ugliest secrets.

"What do you want from me?" I ask as Mir pours me a cup of tea, and glides onto the chair across the table.

"How are you feeling?"

Like I was dead. Like I was shot, then bled half to death, then burned still alive. Like I was asleep, saw a nightmare, where I was shot, then bled half to death, then burned still alive, and now I'm awake, but I don't recognize myself.

"Fine."

Mir's eyes narrow. "Fine?" A shadow of suspicion flashes across his face, then instantly disappears, and I'm no longer sure it was there at all. "Fine...Well, then we need your help, Yaroslava."

A sandwich barely manages to plug my mouth in time, but guffawing bubbles up my throat anyway.

"Help? My help?" I repeat, chewing. What a wonderful taste, this jam over cheese. Did food always taste so good? Or are four years of limbo responsible? "I'm the last person someone would ask for help."

Mir doesn't laugh. "You're the last one, yeah."

That sounds remarkably sincere and... lonely.

But before I can answer, shuffling echoes in the hall, a boy and a girl enter the kitchen. Two left, Mir and two more are here, that must be it. Not too many to deal with. If I had magic, I scold myself.

It's the same boy who was in the graveyard, but the girl is different. But both look at me like I'm a wolf uncaged, so I give them a grim look in return.

"Right, the awkward part." Mir's the only one who seems unfazed. "Kadri," he says, gesturing at the girl. "Adélard." At the boy. Then his eyes return to me. "And this is the famous Yaroslava Slavich."

Famous. I hope that is a joke, too.

Kadri looks young, not more than sixteen, though I've always been bad at guessing people's age. She's quite short, porcelain skin, two French braids and blond bangs, and curves and forms boys definitely like to kiss and squeeze, almost an angelic face--who glares at me like I'm her personal enemy. Adélard's about twenty-one and the opposite of her in everything: not broad-shouldered, yet tall, his skin dark, his hair shorn close to his head. And his glare is more cautious than hostile, his bearing dignified.

Adélard pulls a thick envelope from the back pocket of his jeans, and drops it on the table, right in the middle, between me and Mir. "Printed as asked."

"Thanks, Ady." Mir nods. "Tea?"

"No, I have to be--" he trails off. "Somewhere in an hour. And Kadri has classes in the morning."

Mir keeps nodding, his features unreadable still.

"Just say you can handle her till midday, Mir."

"I can handle her till midday."

And what's at midday? I wonder if they know I have no magic now.

Kadri glances between the boys, introspective. "Maybe she's not as crazy as they say? Or dangerous"--This is the first comment I actually appreciate--"Or maybe she's even worthless."

Or don't.

"I can hear you, you know?" I snarl.

In no way abashed, Kadri's bright gray eyes travel to meet mine. "Was it all true then? What rumors said about you? Could you tell when people lied? Could you kill with a snap of your fingers?"

"Like?.." I raise my hand and press three fingers together, pretending to snap. I do it leisurely, theatrically, watchfully.

And here, their disguise falls away.

Kadri stiffens, blood drains from her round face, and I think I can even hear her hold her breath. Adélard's shoulders tense, he makes a small motion, about to step up and shield Kadri, before the logic reminds him I'm harmless in this body, and he relaxes once more. So they know my magic's gone. From the corner of my eyes, I see muscles in Mir's neck cording, he's leaned forward, just a little, ready to leap, to seize, to stop me. But if I really were about to snap, he'd be too late. In fact, I'd never even needed my fingers for that, I'd needed a thought, a simple push of will.

"Saintly Sinners, guys." I shake my head, a nervous laugh escapes my lips. "You are terrified of me." Unexpectedly, it makes me sad. It occurs to me now that they probably gave me the pajamas on purpose. They're all still wearing jeans and sweaters, and I feel exposed and naked, sitting in these stupid yellow pants, barefoot, and holding a slice of bread with jam dripping from it. I feel humiliated. "And you gave me a body of your friend?"

Realizing it was just for a show, Kadri purses her lips and storms out of the kitchen without a word.

"Not forever," Adélard points out. He exchanges another meaningful glance with Mir and then leaves as well.

Mir doesn't speak until the front door resonates open and shut again. "As I said." His voice's flat, but when his eyes catch mine, it quirks in determination. "We need your help."

Once I was willing to do anything for someone to ask for my help. Anything to be the one who saves, not struggles. To be defined by my wits, my ideas, my heart. To be trusted. I wanted people to notice, to understand, to give a chance without prejudice--but it never happened to me.

The girl, who believed in all that and dreamed, is dead. And now I understand how to use people to my advantage, too. Truth is, it may be the only thing I still understand.

And so I smile. "Tell me."

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