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The St. Seraph's Morgue is a lone building on the edge of the city, sad and silent as death itself. Sneaking in through a window, I find myself in a long unlit hall. Adélard climbs over the windowsill after me, but Mir stays outside.

"Don't waste time," Mir says and pushes the window shut in front of my and Ady's noses. Yet, before turning his back to us, I notice him give Adélard a stern look, just a flash of his eyes, but I know Mir well enough already to catch the meaning behind it. He's irritated. Giving me a chance to stay alone with Adélard wasn't the plan.

"Has he always been so friendly?" I intend it as a joke, but my voice appears strained. And I do feel anxious after the drive.

Neither Mir nor Adélard has uttered a word on our way here. I ended up sitting in the back, and all I could do was see Mir's eyes constantly snapping to the rearview mirror to look at me. Still, every time I tried to meet his gaze, he looked away.

"Depends on your definition of friendly." Chuckling, Adélard starts down the hall. "You really don't know how to drive a car? Or did you say it so you could have a chance to take a tour around the morgue?"

"I didn't lie if that's what you're asking."

And that's why Mir's irritated. The plan was for me to stay outside. To avoid any suspicion--since a car parked in a middle of an abandoned street, conveniently under a window, like a midnight thief, doesn't look good--we've agreed that one of us had to drive around and return half an hour later, while two others would go fetching Jasna's body. I was supposed to drive--until I admitted I didn't know how to.

"Why didn't you admit it earlier?" Adélard goes on, his quiet voice piercing the darkness. "Before we've spent two hours on the road?"

So you'd leave me home and take Laverna with you instead? "I didn't think it was so important," I lie with a sheepish smile.

"Weren't you stealing cars for a living once?"

"Stealing cars didn't imply driving them, Adélard."

Ady only laughs in response, he's not irritated but merely amused. He's a much easier person to talk to, easier than Mir. I almost feel guilty for wanting to trick Ady into telling me things about himself he doesn't want to. But I need the truth, right?

As we trudge down the hallway, darkness enfolds us tighter. The building is old, the wall paint peeling. This morgue is definitely not the first choice among all in the city, I get now why it was a perfect place to leave Jasna's body--to hide her, because who would think of looking for a mayor's daughter in this shabby place?

There's not a living soul around, except for a sleepy attendant at the front door reception who we glimpse from around the corner. The skinny man doesn't notice us, napping behind his desk. Of course, he doesn't. I bet he's never heard about a morgue ambush.

"This way," Ady says, taking a left turn after we pass the reception.

I glance sideways at him, conflicted. Adélard strides beside me as though he knows exactly what he's doing, his back erect, his steps sound and confident. He's been here before. And it makes me wonder... If Jasna is his sister, how could he be so calm all this time while she was sleeping in the morgue?

"You did it on purpose, did you, Adélard?" I ask.

Puzzlement flickers across his face as he looks at me. "What do you mean?"

"I knew something was off yet when we were in that park where Jasna's body was found. There was no way that you or Mir wouldn't figure out that Jasna was still alive. And there was no way you'd be so peaceful if you thought your sister was in danger. You two arranged it from the very beginning." Which means you didn't need my help at all. Why am I alive, then? "Why didn't you tell me?"

Adélard is quiet for a long moment, though I can't detect his emotion behind his pause. "As I said, your reputation didn't inspire my trust, Yara. It's not Mir, it's me. I asked others not to tell you everything." He holds up his hand and shows me his signet ring. "Jasna wasn't the only one prepared to meet the killer, we all were. We are."

I stare at the ring, its silver shimmers a little too bright in the dimness, prompting that the metal is enchanted. Bitterness tugs at my guts. So everyone knew what happened to Jasna, and nobody told me? What was it, a test of my skills? Of my honesty? My good intentions? Nilam must have spelled a trinket for everyone. It's better to turn into a statue and fall asleep than end up murdered by a demon in a gruesome way.

Stopping by one of the doors, Adélard looks around to make sure nobody's following us and then pushes the doors open. A chill crawls down my spine as I enter the room, and I'm not sure if it's only the low temperature. The outlines of cold lockers where the bodies are kept loom before my eyes. They are dead, ominously still, frozen. They can't move and touch me, I remind myself. Yet a memory has already emerged to the surface of my mind--when those dead bodies moved, touched me, stood around me. That's what my magic did to them. That's why I was a monster.

"Don't tell me you're scared of corpses now." Ady's voice cuts my memory off, making me flinch. "You literally have your own bag of bones."

I swallow, but my sudden trepidation refuses to let go of me. "Those bones don't look as realistic as what I imagine to be in these lockers. Please, just open the one where Jasna is, and we'll be off."

"I don't know which one is Jasna's. We need to check them all."

"Then check! I'm not touching frozen human flesh."

"So much for a witch." With a sarcastic sigh, Ady begins passing around the room, clicking open and shut each locker, one by one. Thank angels, I don't see what's there from my spot by the door. "What kind of witch were you, by the way? Or...a Vedma? That's how old legends called those."

I study him for a beat, hesitant. Am I the one who came here to pry the truth out of Adélard or is he here to pry it out of me?

"There are no kinds," I start, licking my dry lips. But is there anything about me that can ruin me more now? I am dead, and I'll be dead again in a year. "A witch or a mage, or a shitty illusionist, call us whatever you like it, Lishan. It's just stupid labels people invented. They called me a witch because they were scared of me. Because I had a sigil, a scar of a certain shape channeling energy straight from the world of the dead, giving me an extraordinary ability to manipulate human emotions." I pause, waiting for his reaction, but Adélard doesn't seem impressed. Did he know all that? When Laverna heard the words sigil scar at the garage, she had no clue what it meant, she had no idea where magic comes from. Does Ady know Mir has a sigil too, then?

"So that's why we could resurrect you?" Adélard asks instead, unfazed. "Because of your scar?"

"Yes. Only if you are to get killed with magic in your veins, then you can be brought back to life. Without the scar now, I'm just me."

"Were you in Hell?"

"No." Then I stumble over my own thought. Wasn't I? "I guess not. I'm not sure it's Hell, it's..." I don't remember what it is. In my mind, it has always been an abyss, endless darkness and shadows calling my name. "Death."

I chose not to remember. The realization settles heavily like a lead chain on my shoulders. The moment I saw the fire blazing around me in that house, I knew I was doomed. I knew my flesh would turn to ashes and my spirit would have nothing to return to, no body to be resurrected in. I never thought someone would give up their body for me as Polina did. And I was so terrified of dying before I even lived. The last thing that sparked in my head then was that I wished I could never remember I lived at all.

My heart lurches, doleful. That's why I can't recall a single face, including Vlad's and my own. I asked for it, and the magic obeyed my command. As long as I have no powers, I have no memory. The only way for me to remember my killer's face... is to become a Vedma again. A monster.

"Found her." Adélard grunts, pulling a metal table out of one of the lockers. "Yara, some help?"

Gulping back another wave of sadness and nausea, I cross over to look at Jasna. She doesn't look like a corpse at all. She looks beautiful, bewitching, just like in Mir's picture at the basilica.

She's not dead pale but coated with silver, wearing men's clothes and numerous thin bands around her fingers and wrists that made her look controversially charming. Her silvered curls have fallen around her face, framing her high cheekbones and full lips and closed eye rimmed with thick lashes. "No offense, Ady, but she doesn't really look like you."

Adélard chuckles, a shallow sound this time, no humor. "Jasna's adopted," he says. "She's not less of a sister to me, though."

"And your parents didn't notice she was missing?" Tentative, I skim my finger over her hand, but her skin doesn't feel like stone or metal. It's soft, silver skin. So magic turned her into something as invincible as stone, yet as real as a sleeping beauty. Surreal.

"She fought with them about a year ago. Then she moved out and lived with Laverna since. Our parents don't know much about her life now, I'm the only family she still talks to." Before I have a chance to ask anything else, he yanks Jasna off the table, collecting her in his arms. The table creaks, the echo bouncing off the ceiling. "Crap, she's always been muscular. And heavy. Open the door, Yara. Let's go."

Glad to be out of this place, I hurry toward the door. Pulling it ajar, I peek out to make sure we're still unnoticed, and then sneak out into the hall.

"And if you die this time?" Ady continues behind my back. He's oddly curious about my life and death tonight. Why? Was it you who hid my bones, Ady? "While you have no powers?"

"If my bones are destroyed first, I die, yes." My hand slips into my pocket, squeezing the fracture of my skull I still have left. I can't die just yet. "Forever."

Now, something shifts in Adélard's expression. Something akin to alarm. He didn't know that. Is he worried about my well-being? It can't be it, he has only known me for a week. What about Polina's well-being? And we're almost done with the job, yet I haven't learned anything useful about Lishan and his secrets.

Footsteps resonate in the darkness ahead of us as we retrace our steps to the window where Mir should already be waiting. I halt, stopping Ady with a wave of my hand. Glancing from around the corner, I see the sleepy attendant, awake and shuffling toward the coffeemaker. "We need to wait."

"Just in time." Loosening an exhausted breath, Ady lowers Jasna onto the floor, propping her back against the wall. "I need a minute anyway."

Ducking back into the unlit hall, away from the attendant's eyes, I look at Adélard again. I watch him, bending, hands on his knees, as he takes another deep breath. Even now he somehow manages to appear gracious. His clothes are clean and ironed, his gaze soft and discerning. I've never thought of the city's mayor as an influential kind of person, but Adélard? He looks like one who people would listen to, and would follow.

"Ady, do you know what they say?" I begin, studying his face, expecting him to react to my words. "If you use magic once, your soul's cursed, destined for Hell. No forgiveness."

He looks up at me, unimpressed. "So?"

"So you don't believe it as Kadri does? Please, Ady, I just want to understand you. Mir strives for unnecessary perfection, but for you, it comes naturally. You're not perfect, but you're human, and that's the best part. You're compassionate, generous, considerate...What's your dirty little secret? Why would you need Morox? Did you accidentally kill someone or--"

"Gyoku's my boyfriend."

I gawk at him, dumbstruck. A minute trickles by.

"You look disappointed, Fire Girl."

"I'm not, I'm just--" Surprised? Bewildered? That's not the sort of a secret I anticipated. I anticipated something bloody, ugly, and outlaw, but this...Such a romantic lie only makes him more perfect.

"A boyfriend, huh?" My bewilderment gradually trickles away as I mull over it. How could I fail to see it? The moment I met Gyoku, I knew there was something more to these two. He and Adélard looked too good to be just friends. "Wait, that's why Kadri couldn't find you two at the basilica?"

Ady rolls his eyes. "Yes, we were in an empty hall, alone, doing none-of-your-business-what." He kneels to pick Jasna's body. "Can we go now?"

I reach down to help, grabbing Jasna's legs, and together Ady and I lumber down the hall, carrying her. So that's what Adélard used Morox for--someone caught him and Gyoku? And Ady didn't want people to know. "Why is that a secret? What's wrong with that?"

Annoyance sharpens Ady's eyes as he looks up at me, that type of annoyance I thought he's incapable of--full of bitterness and resentment. "Nothing, Yara. Nothing's wrong unless you're the mayor's son who has to be a model citizen, and choosing a whimsical actor over a virtuous person from a religious family doesn't fit in that model. Nothing unless your marriage to someone's daughter has been arranged without asking you, taking it for granted that, since you're boy, you're interested in a girl--any girl. Nothing! Now, please, move."

Once the attendant is back to his post, we veer toward the window. The moonlight is weak tonight, but I see our car outside and Mir's silhouette wandering back and forth. He doesn't seem irritated anymore but rather impatient.

"Ady, does Mir know about you and Gyoku?" I ask quietly so that Mir can't hear us.

"Yes, why?"

Does he tell you his secrets as well? I shake my head with pretentious nonchalance. "Just curious."

Leaving Jasna in Ady's arms again, I try to push the window open, but it doesn't work. Noticing us, Mir stops in front of the window outside and levels his finger at something. I look down and realize that the old rusty latch is stuck. How hard has he slammed the window shut if it got locked now? I scowl at him, but Mir only shrugs in response. He never admits his mistakes, no matter how big or small, does he?

Gritting my teeth, I struggle to lift the latch. "And why were you, Adélard, asking me about my magicless and possibly permanent death earlier?"

"Just curious," he repeats my words, mimicking my casual tone. Lying.

Curious because you want me dead or alive? "And it has nothing to do with a particular demon? Let's say...Vlad?"

Adélard has no poker face, and he proves it again as his eyes brim with alarm. "No," he blurts out, too fast, too glib. "I don't know Vlad. And Mir doesn't tell me anything since--" He trails off, pretending to be preoccupied with shifting Jasna, whose head rolled to one side, in a more comfortable position in his arms.

"Since?"

An abashed pause precedes Ady's answer. "Since I kissed Mir once."

My eyebrows quirk up. "Well, aren't you full of surprises?"

"It was nothing, Yara. I was a bit drunk and...I don't think he was happy about it, okay?" Shoving my hand away, he snaps the latch open with a smooth motion. "Forget it, he's all yours."

The next second, all my Mir throws the window open from the other side, allowing the cool night breeze to rush in and tousle my hair. I can't keep interrogating Adélard now.

"Finally," Mir grumbles, leaning in and helping us move Jasna over the windowsill. "What took you so long?"

"The attendant and his coffee," Ady murmurs.

Yet, I still can't get my head around it when I hop off the window after Adélard, and my feet hit the soft ground. Mir wasn't happy about it, what does that mean? Not happy because it was a bad kiss? Because Ady kissed him? Because Mir couldn't accept Ady's truth?

When Adélard goes to start the car's engine and Mir grumbles, trying to seat Jasna upright in the back while she keeps slumping to one side, I deliberately stay a step away, watching him struggle.

Mir stops, glancing up at me, suspicious. "What?"

"Adélard told me everything."

"Everything? Like, from the beginning of times?" He scoffs, but his eyes dart toward Adélard, revealing the slightest worry. "Then you've actually made it fast."

I cross my arms over my chest. I'm not sure what I'm doing though. Do I want to catch Adélard lying to me? Or do I want to prove myself being jealous? I'm not. "Ady told me that he kissed and you didn't like it, Mir. That now you disparage him for that."

Abruptly, Mir stiffens as though I've insulted him. He leaves his attempts to settle Jasna and straightens his back, standing face to face with me. "Did Ady say that? He thinks I disparage him?" Hurt etching a path across his countenance startles me.

That wasn't the emotion I expected from Mir either, and I feel my confidence fade to hot dismay. "No. But I figured out you--"

The car door bangs shut. "Then don't try to figure me out! I'm not a riddle to solve."

Yet you are. I see Mir stall for a few moments and then take another step forward, leaving barely an inch between us. A new emotion flickers across his face, something I can't place, something I can only describe as annoyed amusement. "I might be many things, but I never put myself above others, Yaroslava. That was my father's forte, not mine." He meets my eyes, amusement in his gaze winning. "And if you really wish to know, Ady didn't kiss me."

Confusion pinches my eyebrows together, and I see that Mir sees that.

His breath is hot against the tip of my ear as he cranes his neck to whisper, "It was me who kissed him. And I definitely liked it."

He turns around and slips into the passenger seat while Adélard is already waiting for us behind the wheel.

And I still stare.

Because it is a damn riddle. Because if the kiss is not what these two are fighting over, it means Ady used it as an excuse, and he hadn't warned Mir about it. It means these two haven't set their story straight, and they still hide a part of it from me.

The part that includes my death.

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