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Four years ago

"You should go to college," Tatya said, her smile brilliant. "Move to St. Daktalion, start a new life."

I stared at my high school diploma in my hands. Almost three years had passed, and Vlad never came to Blakfait after the night he'd helped me acquire magic. All this time, I lived constantly toying with the idea of taking a bus to the city, but I dreaded both finding and not finding him there.

And now my sister suggested exactly what terrified me.

Mom was cooking dinner to celebrate our graduation, and the smell of roasted chicken wafted out of the kitchen and into the little garden behind our house, blending with the sweet scent of raspberry bushes.

"But I thought we'd go to college together." I watched Tatya hide her own diploma into her bag and drop the bag on the porch before ducking into the bushes, her coppery hair flashing between the leaves.

"I'm not sure Mom will manage here alone," she said without turning to me. She spoke as though had been rehearsing her speech. It still sounded like a terrible excuse though.

Mom was managing better than ever. It didn't take much effort for me to figure out how my powers worked--they came naturally as if they had always been with me. You knew when you sank into a bathtub and the water was too hot. In the same way, I knew the emotion of people around me--all I needed was to wish, to sink into the hot water.

Mom's emotions were strong, fierce. It surprised me at first because all I glimpsed in her eyes was melancholy, no anger, no delight. Yet her heart was an ocean. And that ocean of hers didn't care about bad weather, or lack of money to repair our leaking roof, or people's derisive gossip. Furthermore, whatever Mom thought had happened to me, it seemed to give her a new purpose, a resolve to cherish our modest way of living. She started to arrange a vase of fresh flowers on the dinner table every evening, cooking raspberry tarts for weekend breakfasts and making sure Tatya and I always shared the last tart, splitting it equally.

Or maybe it was all me, my involuntary desire to see her happy affected her heart and behavior.

At home, everything was perfect. Until this.

"But you said you'd always be there for me," I prompted, following my sister gathering ripe berries in her hand.

Tatya bit her lip. "You don't need my protection anymore, Yara. Nobody dares to laugh even at your back."

Including you? My mind stretched out, exploring Tatya's nervous pulse pounding in her veins. She had no reason to be nervous around her little sister, yet she was.

The first few months of possessing magic were euphoric, I felt truly invincible. As if sensing my new strength, nobody suddenly wanted to jeer at me. And if people merely thought of it, I gave their nerves a tiny push--not enough to scare, but enough to disturb. To coax them into wanting to leave me alone.

Then the havoc began.

There was a girl in my class who tried to steal my clothes while I was in the shower after basketball practice. She'd done it before, just to guffaw and watch as I, red of embarrassment, ran around the school, wearing nothing but a towel, looking for my own pants.

But that one day, I sensed her intentions before she acted, and instead of shooing her away, I confronted her. She denied everything, said that I'd inherited my mother's issues and was imagining things.

Humiliating. And enraging.

I didn't touch her when her nose bled, or when she collapsed to the floor right in front of me, or when she passed out. I did not touch her. But every girl in the locker room saw what'd happened--they didn't understand it, but they saw it.

They felt the dark magic rippling the air, burying deep in their bones.

Whatever's off about Yaroslava Slavich, you'd better stay away. Wherever she goes, jinx follows. That was how it worked from that day on. I was promoted from a joke to a plague.

Besides Mom, the only other person who'd never branded me wicked was Bogdan. Not the slightest shift to trepidation in his emotions when I came around. Yet again, I hadn't summoned the courage to tell him about the scar, about the magic.

My truth still belonged only to Vlad.

"But we wanted to move to the city together, Tatya," I pressed. The sunlight was filtering through the bushes, peaceful unlike my scattering thoughts. "We've been saving for college, it's not enough for us both, but we can pay for a year and then work to get more, that was the plan! You won't find a good job here anyway and--" I realized I was mumbling, and stalled off.

Tatya pushed a twig away from her face to look at me. Her eyes shone, reflecting the warmth of the sun, but there it was, painfully clear, the real reason--her fear. She was scared of me like everyone else. She didn't understand it, but she felt it deep in her bones. Danger.

She was willing to give up her dreams if it meant escaping from fear.

My throat knotted. "It's our dream!"

"I know, Yara." Her voice was soft, remorseful. "But..." she hadn't prepared an answer for this question. "Maybe I'll come to you later?"

Later.

Maybe.

And does Mom want me gone, too? I was about to yell. But I knew the answer. Mom wanted the best for me, and she knew I loathed this town. I could pull a trick on Tatya's feelings and force her to reconsider, but it'd only unhinge her further afterward. I could stay, but every day I would hear apprehension in my sister's voice and see melancholy in my mother's eyes. What have you done, my little angel?

An angel with no wings.

"Please, Tatya," I whispered. "Please, I don't want to be alone."

She hesitated. Then she carefully poured the collected berries in her cupped left hand and used her right to bring a small package wrapped in yellow paper out of her pocket. The money she'd saved. "Sorry," she said, giving it to me. "You know you don't belong here."

I couldn't believe it. I squeezed my eyes shut but still sensed Tatya next to me--her heartbeat, her anxiety, her distress. She didn't know why her little sister made her so uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry," she repeated, tucking the package I didn't accept behind the sash of my skirt. Then I heard her retreating footsteps and the front door of our house creaking open and closed.

I'm sorry, you're scaring me.

You're not welcome here.

I'm sorry, you don't have a sister anymore.

No home.

No shoulder to cry on.

No heart to confide in.

I'm sorry.

No one to miss you when you're gone.

You're alone now.

Nobody loves you, because fear kills love.

Because you cheated.

Because you ruin everything.

But you have no one to fear now. Isn't it what you wanted?

One choice.

One skipped heartbeat.

Why are you hurting?

Invincible. Untouchable. Unlovable.

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