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Lav doesn't tell Ady and Mir about the accident. She neither mentions I used magic to help her nor asks me where it came from, and it makes me anxious. I'm waiting for a question, for a confession to the boys, for a confrontation.

Nothing.

We walk further into the park, and the paths are totally abandoned here. My companions are quiet, and the silence and the shadows of the thickening trees unnerve me even more. I'm afraid to speak first to break it. And what would I possibly say to the people who see me as a crazed ex-witch whose words can't be trusted?

I trusted once.

Yara...Yara...Yara...

Please, no.

You don't belong here.

Please!

It's your fault.

I'm trying to think of anything but the forest closing around us, think of any warm memory of the past when everything felt good.

And there was something--my first days of being powerful. Where were you? Tatya asked that night as I sneaked back into our room. You seem different.

Better or worse? I asked, pressing my palm against my new scar.

Tatya paused, drawing her blanket tighter around her. I felt her heartbeat, peaceful, calling her back to slumber. Can't say yet. Did you kiss a boy?

Maybe.

Then it's better, Sis, she smiled and, a moment later, was asleep again.

And I couldn't sleep. I was too excited, too electrified by the events of the night. Was it actually real, the magic? Not a dream? If I went to sleep, would these powers still be with me? Sure, I had a scar, right? One little scar was a small price for happiness. Although the cut was fresh, it didn't bleed any longer. But I decided to climb to the attic anyway, to bandage it, just in case. I was rummaging among old boxes, careful not to disturb Mom and Sister, and I ate a whole jar of varenye--not jam, but my favorite thick syrup where berries were cooked whole in sugar, and you could taste them, the fruits soft and candied.

Then I found a box of Mom's old clothes, a dress I'd never seen her wearing, it was rumpled and dusty, and too big for my semi-childish body, but I put it on, and stared at my reflection in the mirror. At the billowing skirts, the silk bodice. And I thought one day I'd wear a gown like that and feel proud and fearless.

At that moment, I felt fearless.

It was good.

Now that dress is gone, burnt with the rest of my house. And the first thing my mom said to me after that night, in the morning, when I was leaving for school, is ringing in my ears. She stared at me as if paralyzed, her thin shape feeble in the doorframe.

What's wrong? I asked.

Mom looked at me, her lips moving soundlessly. Then her gaze focused on something behind my back--on nothing behind my back--and she sighed. What have you done, my little angel?

✧ ✧ ✧

I restore my balance a moment before I trip on the roots protruding from the ground. Ady casts me a worried look, Lav keeps staring at the waffle in her hands, but she has no appetite now, her expression grim and absent. Mir ignores us all.

What have you done, my little angel?

Cut my wings off.

I can still feel the chill Mom's words gave me that day, but I can't picture that moment, I realize. I can't see Mom's face. It's blurred like the sky during thunder.

This is not good.

I try to picture Tatya's face, Bogdan's, Vlad's...Empty. My mind's empty! My stomach knots at the thought. I try to remember the moment in the house, the flames...Hot and raging. I remember a person looking at me through the fire. Why? I was crying. I trusted you. Please!

Nothing. I can't recall the face, the eyes, not a detail. I wasn't thinking of details then. It was burning, it was hurting.

And then it was dark.

How's that I haven't realized it sooner? I'm alone not only in this city now--I'm alone in my mind. Still dead. And what if I'll never--

"Here we are," Mir says as we walk into a clearing near a pond. "Finally."

I'll remember, I have to. But not now.

As I look around, I know I've never been to this place, there're ruins of an old mansion on the other side of the pond--probably the same one that inspired the story of a drowned merchant. And trees, trees, trees.

"It's called a Weeping Pond," Ady says, clasping hands behind his back. "Ironic, right? For a spot where someone turns up dead. What do you see, Yaroslava?"

I look around again. They expect me to give them a clue, but there's nothing but water and leaves. And how can I help them if I've just realized I don't know who I am anymore? I don't even remember my own old face.

"Yaroslava?" Mir says. Unlike from Ady's, my name fallen from his lips sounds like swearing. Fire Girl was better.

No, I can't show them my weakness, there's plenty shown already.

"What do I see?" I begin, scoffing. "Mud, water, a few ducks. Who do you think am I, a hellhound? What am I supposed to see? I can't smell blood, I don't penetrate the soil with X-ray vision, ghosts don't talk to me."

Mir's eyes flash with impatient irritation. He's wearing a gray suit today and a lighter gray shirt beneath the jacket, the color gives him some air of authority but also highlights his paleness. Strange, I haven't noted it yesterday--he's almost sickly pale.

"Let's start with something simple," Ady suggests, stepping between us like a referee. "Why this place, Yara?"

I lift a shoulder in a shrug. "It's a nice place. Quiet. Just what you need for a savage murder, isn't it?"

Unexpectedly, the corners of Mir's mouth curl upright before he manages to suppress it.

Adélard frowns. "I hope this is a joke."

I squat down, surveying the ground. There's a path nearby, almost invisible, right along the water. People probably like walking here on weekends or jogging before work. But does it give me anything worth proving myself useful? Does it buy me some time before I figure out how to steal my bones?

Just pretend to know what you're doing, I tell myself, running my palm across the dewy grass. Because you actually do. If magic was here, only you can tell.

"Who found the body?" I ask.

"I did," Lav admits after a second. All her rehearsed speeches and smiles are gone now, and beneath the mask, she's a tired girl. As she meets a silent question in my eyes, her shoulders drop. "Don't look at me like that. Me and Jasna, we rent a small apartment near the park, and it's a shortcut to the closest bus stop. I can't even bear the thought of sleeping there alone, without her now. Thank Angels, Mir let me stay at his place."

Puzzled, I stare at the ground again. Could Jasna be running from someone? Or after someone? Could some kind of a ritual she unwillingly participated in go wrong? But I know no rituals that require freezing a body into a silvery stone. Stone is stone, dead is dead.

Wait.

"Where was she lying?" I ask, pointing. "Here?"

Lav nods.

"Right here?"

Another nod.

"And where's the body now?"

His eyes narrowing, Mir crouches down next to me.

"In the morgue, I guess," Ady says, watching us. "Why?"

"Not buried?" I glance at Mir, but he doesn't answer.

"Nope," Ady replies instead. It is usually clear who's the so-called boss among friends, who's a decision-maker and who's a follower. But Mir and Ady? It's as if Mir stays in the back row on purpose, watches, tics mental crosses, but doesn't make a move. The question is: until when?

"So you don't have the body?" I press, my eyes fixed on Mir. I want to hold out my hand and shake him, force him to answer me--and I actually can, he's close enough.

His eyes measuring the inches between my knees and his own, too, Mir clenches his jaws and stands up. Not a word.

"Why would we want to keep a dead body in our closet?" Ady's voice is a mixture of surprise and revolt.

"Because you're either lying to me." I straighten up. "Or you're idiots. Or both."

There's no sign of struggle, no sign of fatal incantations used. And if Jasna died of magic here, the grass would have been dead, too. But it's not even withered or scorched. Everything is as though nothing has ever happened. Which means only one thing.

"Jasna is not dead."

A peculiar sound escapes Lav's mouth--something between fear and relief.

"Explain," Mir demands.

I am an irreplaceable witch after all.

"Well, this...technique doesn't actually mean to kill. It's like a trap. You said it yourself, Mir, a silver veil preserves one's body. It's logical someone would do such a thing so as to throw the corpse somewhere a month or two later, away from the actual crime scene, when the evidence's already gone. But again, why keep the body locked in silver? Was your killer interrupted? Here? I doubt it."

"So they left Jasna here for a reason?" Lav's eyes widen.

I nod. "She was supposed to be found like this all along. Now she's dead to the sight, dead to the touch, but she's really just shut in a moment." I read one of Vlad's books about such rituals. Back then I thought if I knew all the tricks, nobody could trick me. How wrong I was.

"Holy Angel. Does it...hurt?"

"No, Lav, it doesn't. You don't breathe, don't feel, don't know if time passes. It's like an endless moment between awake and asleep."

Ady winces. "That's what happened to you?"

"No, I knew my time slipped away."

But the question is who and why would leave a sleeping girl as a message? A threat? If she was supposed to scare the magic users, it obviously didn't work. I steal a glance at Mir, he stands with his back to us, his shoulders wide, aloof. Lav said Mir and Vlad had been friends. And Mir asked me if Vlad was my killer. But it's absurd.

No.

Not Vlad. He was the one who gave me the chance to be strong.

"So we can awake Jasna?" Ady prompts, rubbing his cold palms.

I shake my head. "Only the one who performed the ritual can avert the ritual."

It's a bad thing, but this conclusion inspires me. If Mir thinks Vlad's to blame for all this mess, then he's looking for Vlad, too. And I have another reason to stick around, to actually play a part in this investigation of theirs.

"There's one thing we can still try though," I say, glancing between Lav and Ady. "I know a potion that can help us sneak a peek at Jasna's last memories. I'll need some herbs, something of Jasna's, a napkin or a glove...and--" The magic I no longer have.

"And you can't do it." Mir spins on his heels with startling swiftness.

"Yes, I can!" I lie. Too fast, too blunt. "It's a potion called Morox, a mind shifter."

"Wait, doesn't Nilamcall that shit he deals at his club Morox?" Lav asks. She's thrown her waffle in the bushes, and she slowly becomes her confident self again.

Nilam. The boy I heard bristling about my resurrection last night. Another person who knows who Polina now is, another warden of my true nature.

"I'll call him." Mir pulls his cell phone out of his pocket and starts toward the main alley. No goodbye, no thank you, no follow me.

"As Yaroslava noted, it's a potion"--Ady gives Lav a long look--"not a drug to deal."

Lav makes a face. "No, Adélard, it is a drug if it messes with your brain and leaves it fried like chicken wings." I can only guess why she frets over it so much.

Releasing a vexed breath, Adélard simply leaves after Mir, yet again refusing to quarrel with Lav. As if he's trained to act like a gentleman.

"You know, it's funny." Laverna stands beside me, watching the boys go. "This Vlad saw something special in you, hm? Something that compelled him to give you magic, to choose you as a friend. And you killed seven people afterward?" she claps her hands, dusting the waffle crumbs off. "I wonder what Mir has done then, to earn this friend."

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