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Seven years ago

It'd been over a year since I'd seen Vlad. Late September, and he hadn't come this summer. I didn't know his number or what relatives he had in our town-not that I'd go and beg to see him, anyway. I asked Dan though, and he loathed my questions every time.

"Why do you want to see him?" He laughed, contempt in his voice plain. We took a walk into the grove, not far from the hospital, it followed the river and gradually merged with a forest that led far to the east. Well, I was taking a walk, pushing Bogdan's wheelchair in front of me. The path between the trees was narrow, but even, easy to tread, the air calmingly fresh, the world quiet.

"I just want to return him his book," I said. I want more books. "Maybe he gave you something else to read?"

Bogdan glanced up at me from over his shoulder, shadows falling across his furrowed brow. "So this is what it's all about? His books are ridiculous, throw yours away. Or burn it." He sighed. "Not once did you come to talk to Vlad last summer before he gave one to you, and this summer you never even visited me. Texts and calls are fine, but...feel empty."

"Sorry." The word fell from my lips too quick, a shallow apology. I looked at my bandaged wrist, the real reason I came to the hospital today. Bogdan was my best friend, or the only person I considered a true friend, but it unhinged me to go to the place I usually dropped by to mend the outcomes of my school fights. "I help mom in the garden during summers. Don't you know Vlad's phone number or something?"

"No."

Bogdan had always loved stories, loved finding hidden meanings behind them, loved spooky legends and mystical fables and everything that suggested there was more to the world that eyes could behold. So why wouldn't he like another mystery?

"If you believe angels watch over you, even though you've never seen them, why can't magic be real?" I pressed as we turned toward the river.

There was a long pause. "It can. But if so, it's evil. Magic is unnatural, Yara."

Yeah? And those children you watch playing football every day, throwing stones at me, calling me a freak, are natural? I itched to bristle. That some angel of yours wasn't watchful enough, and now you're stuck in these wheels, is natural? We didn't ask for this nature. But if I could ask to change it, I would.

I didn't stomach to say it out loud. And more silence was all I had in response.

"If what's written in those books is real, then don't you think it can hurt you?" Bogdan finally said, his tone guarded. "Magic can hurt you."

So you are interested, I realized. But you're also scared.

And he did have more books. Good. "It doesn't seem evil to me." I shrugged, breathing the air spiced with autumn leaves. "The one I read rather looked like, I don't know, folk medicine?" Under the leather-bound cover was a collection of lores and poems, each rhyming spells and rituals of luck, healing, forecasting the future, summoning courage, and even invoking spirits. Some lines seemed to be in riddles, others required rare herbs and ingredients I couldn't figure out, like immortal fire. What the hell was that?

But what they promised...Vlad had been right, I'd never encountered anything like it before, anything that not only bragged about witchcraft but actually claimed it to be real. So what if? What if.

We stopped by the river bank, the branches low above the water. The slope was short and abrupt, dangerous to come too close, but a perfect hiding spot even in daylight. "Folk medicine does not include drops of your own blood and performing under the full moon," Bogdan teased, gazing upon the waters glittering in the sunlight. Yet the tension around his jaw told me he didn't find it amusing at all.

"So you would try it if you weren't worried about Angelic wrath?" I prompted, watching his hand fumble for the golden cross around his neck.

His fingers stopped. He looked at me, his green eyes hardening. "No."

But the flash in his eyes told me otherwise.

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I'd never told my sister about the book because then it'd be a disaster. She'd been tattling about Vlad for the whole year, like he was some kind of a game for her, too, a connection between her present and her imaginary future in the luxury of the city.

Once we finish school, Yara...Once we get into one of those fancy universities...Once we grow up...Brick by brick, every night before going to sleep, she built story after story, drew picture after picture of how easy and happy the city life would be. How we'd dine in restaurants, drink champagne at rooftop parties, wear jewelry to theatres.

And in every fantasy of hers, Vlad was the constant actor.

He was a gentleman in one tale, and a bad boy in the other, he played guitar in a band and then was a rocket scientist, smoked and then hated smoking. I felt like I already knew him–any version of him, whoever he might really be. That was probably one of the reasons I couldn't forget about that wicked book. Isn't any mysterious future always much more attractive than the present you know everything about?

Still, I doubted Vlad would return, nobody from big cities returned to sad little towns.

In one of Tatya's tales he was even a demon, the ruler of the underworld hidden beneath the walls of St. Daktalion the legends spoke about; according to one of them, the son of the vedma and the vedmak became an immortal demon after his death.

"You talk about him like he's a prize to win," I pointed out, sinking into my bed and turning the lights off that night.

Her giggling drifted across our room. "Why not? He's handsome and smart and clearly has everything we don't. Is it a bad thing to fall in love with a better life? We can work hard and become whoever we want, but you'll need people-powerful friends if you want to be powerful yourself." I heard her voice curl to her grin. "Powerful lovers. Just think, Sis, no one would laugh at you with such a boy by your side. And it's so much easier to achieve heights if you have allies. He's the closest thing to a prince we can get, just pick your tale."

Whoever you want.

Powerful.

No one would laugh at me.

No one would humiliate me.

I lay awake long after midnight, listening to Tatya's measured breathing, thinking about going outside for a gulp of lulling fresh air. Nights were the safest time in Blakfait, and not only because nobody was listening to your secrets at dark, but because everyone knew everyone here, there were no criminals in the streets, and children who loved throwing stones at witches were sleeping. The world was mine every night.

But there was no place in that town I wished to go.

I counted sheep, I recited the facts about spiders and their nasty web types, mentally preparing for the school biology test, but every few minutes my mind strayed back to magic. If sorcery was bygone for being unmistakably evil and if the evil was ultimately corrupt and promised wreckage, why everyone longed for it?..Because the wreckage wasn't certain, but strength was.

Knocking on the window shook me awake in the darkness. I glanced at Tatya, for she had a penchant for sneaking out at nightfall with her crooked-teeth boyfriend, but the hour was too late for that. And no way would she have forgotten about a date.

The knocking disturbed the stillness again, the sound too rhythmic for wind, too persistent for nature. Tiptoeing to the window, I threw the curtain aside. And froze.

Vlad.

All of a sudden, I felt like not a day had passed since we were sitting on the bench, talking about villains and heroes. My stomach dipped, fancying the idea that magic was indeed everywhere, and somehow he'd heard all the nonsense Tatya had said about him. Then another thought dawned on me, more mundane, and my heart stuttered.

"Are you here for Tatya?" I pushed the window open, the night breeze blowing into my face. That was why Dan didn't want to tell me about Vlad? Because Tatya had already made a powerful ally?

Vlad's lips formed a lopsided smile. "I came for you."

"How do you know where I live?"

"Dan told me. How do you think I found you to give you the book last year?" His voice shook with impatience. "Can we talk? Now."

I considered him for a moment. This was what I wanted, a chance to talk, but right now? Why was he even here, in town? To talk to me? Bullshit. But Vlad stared at me, expectant, he looked just as I remembered, a year older, yes, a bit wider in shoulders and sharper in the features of his face, but the same. The same defiant joy in his eyes.

Besides, he was practically my best friend's friend, and it'd be a lie if I said I didn't miss him. "Wait here," I said, and shove the curtain closed.

Tugging on jeans and a sweater, I checked if mom was asleep as sound as Tatya, and ten minutes later I and Vlad were strolling down the street under the clear moonlit sky.

"When did you return?" I asked conversationally.

"Tonight."

I looked at him, he was staring at nothingness before him. One thing had changed though--he wasn't as talkative as before, was glancing around and biting his lips as though suppressing whatever he'd come to say. More than that, he seemed troubled, it was agitation, not impatience that I'd noticed before.

"I liked the book," I began, waiting for him to pick up the subject.

"What?"

"The poetry book about witchcraft? You said you liked it and were curious about my opinion. I do like it, too. Do you want your book back?"

He shook his head. "It's a gift."

His muteness was frustrating. We passed several dark houses and the hospital building, and I led him to the town edge, where I usually went to look at the star-sprinkled river. We were walking for an hour, and he didn't utter another syllable.

A chapel stood past the crossroads. It was the only one in the town, closed for as long as I remembered, a single dome that lost its vivid golden hue but gleamed under the moonlight still. I always wished to peek inside, but during the day it would be as good as asking for trouble, and during nights I didn't have the guts to enter.

Vlad stared at the chapel.

"You know, there's a cathedral in the city," he spoke suddenly. "The story goes that its architect heard from a seer he'd die once the construction was done, so he postponed and postponed it. And the Church cursed him, saying he didn't want the holy grounds to be designed at all. When the cathedral was finally finished, he did die, and his damned ghost lives there since, trapped. He can't leave the holy grounds within the fence, but he can't enter the cathedral either."

"I thought the damned couldn't walk the holy grounds."

"Let's go inside." He started towards the stone steps, and my hand grasped the air instead of his shoulder.

"It's the middle of the night, Vlad!" I said in a vexed murmur. His behavior was tiring, disturbing, annoying. "And it's locked...probably. And I want to go home." My last words worked on him. He halted and spun to face me, the strands of his hair whipping at his temples.

"You're lying, Yaroslava," he said it as an obvious fact.

I found no words to argue. He was right I did not, staying at home for too long made me feel like choking from inside, like my life ceasing, no promise of changing. That was why I liked going out at night when couldn't sleep. But it didn't mean I preferred getting cold here either, especially if he wasn't going to tell me anything.

"You don't want to go home," he continued and shifted back to the lowest step where I was standing. "But I think you want the same thing I do."

"And what is it?"

He gazed into my eyes. "Your heart is beating too fast. Am I scaring you?"

Of course, you're scaring me! I was about to shout but realized it wasn't true. Not anymore. As I held his gaze, I felt my heart calming down. It was like seeing your fear and accepting it and letting it go instead of hiding.

Later I'd know it was the first time I experienced magic. The bygone one. Magic that could force you to feel things which were not there. Magic that was dangerous, deadly, buried beneath the city walls for better or worse.

But that night it wasn't magic for me, it was just me.

Powerful friends if you want to be powerful yourself, Tatya's voice echoed in my memory. Powerful lovers.

Back then, a fifteen-year-old girl who believed everyone was judging her constantly, I would have never let myself do what I did next.

I kissed him.

My mind clouded over, daring to act. It wasn't magic that made me do it, but the result of it maybe-the peaceful quietness in my soul. It had nothing to do with my heart, or if it did, then only because my serene heartbeat decided I wasn't supposed to be a comfortable person people asked for. Not with Vlad. I could do as I pleased and deal with the aftermath later.

Maybe I did it because I knew nothing about him, or thought I would never really know him. Everyone's eyes around me used to say, Give us a reason to choose you, Yaroslava. His eyes, black as night, contradicting his blond locks, said, I don't need anything.

I knew it was a bad choice to be daring a second later. Vlad stumbled back, staring at me in bewilderment. "No," he said, his expression lost.

My cheeks turned hot. "Isn't that what you wanted?"

"No." He ran his fingers through his hair, his eyes sweeping around the empty street as if looking for a distraction. Then he looked back at me. "I mean, not like this."

"I don't understand."

"Exactly. Let's go."

We rounded the chapel and appeared by the river, the forest looming on the left, the town to the right. It was a small patch of old marble embankment, the waters beyond it black and still. I felt stupid, yet I knew if I left now, I would regret it forever.

"I think I died yesterday," Vlad said when we stood side by side, the liquid abyss in front of us. The dark marble was wet and shiny under our feet.

I swallowed. "What do you mean?" He didn't sound joking.

"My heart stopped. And then I was alive again and heard it. Everything." He fumbled in his pocket and then showed me a page ripped from a book. Another book. It was about sigils that granted magical powers, no poetry, no folklore. My book was mentioning it briefly, saying it required moonlight, water, and something about a blood sacrifice, but I hadn't even considered it meant dying.

Before I could reach out and take the page, Vlad put it away. "Sorry." He sighed, and all the agitation left his voice along with the secret he tried to tell me all this time. He sat on the marble, his head in his hands. "I just...I didn't have anyone else to tell this about. And I really needed to tell someone."

Magic is real, magic is real, my mind chanted.

That was what I was looking for, the ability to know everything, to feel everything. I'd know what to do and say to stop people from laughing at me, what to do and where to go to get people to like me. I'd catch others lying before they knew they'd lied.

I seated myself beside him. "Did it hurt?" Magic is real magic is real magic is real.

"Yes," he said. "But just for a second."

I stared at the river, at the hint of sunrise already painting the horizon purple. People never truly understand, Mom said. If you want to be happy, be quiet, my little angel. Or they'll cut your wings off.

But if I had this kind of power-whatever it was-no one would ever call me a joke. No bruises, no hiding, no being flawed. No need to seek out powerful friends, because I'd be the powerful one. Invincible.

"And now?" I glanced at Vlad again.

He glanced back at me, his eyes searching mine. "And now I can hear your blood. I can feel your heart's beating too fast," he said after short thinking. "You're worried, but also excited and... fascinated?"

He was right.

Magic is evil, Dan had said. And I wanted to be a hero, heroes can't use evil magic. Heroes don't cheat to become ones.

"Can you slow my heart down again?"

He didn't answer. He didn't move, but I felt my chest easing the next moment. I leaned forward and picked a sharp piece of broken glass from the ground. May the heroes be damned. My fingers didn't tremble as my hand cut a harsh, untidy sigil the way the books showed it on the inner side of my arm. Blood spilled down my skin.

"Do it," I said. Cut my wings off if that's what I need to take over the control.

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