Page 117 of Kingmakers, Graduation

The left Bookend, apparently named Georgiy, turns his head toward me, scowling behind his sunglasses. “Who this Tweedledee?” he demands.

“He’s a famous rockstar,” I say. “I’m surprised you haven’t heard of him.”

I could swear Jasper almost smiles before remembering to be miserable.

He’s in a worse mood than usual. Adrik pulled me aside before we left, asking me to take it easy on Jasper.

“How come?”

“It’s a bad time of year for him,” Adrik said.

I assume he means this is when Jasper’s family died—the kind of anniversary no one wants to celebrate, but you can never forget. That would make sense, because for the last week Jasper has barely left his room. He looks so fucked up that even I feel sorry for him—hair not combed, face unshaven, shadows under his eyes dark as bruises. So thin and pale that he truly does seem determined to starve himself down to the bone.

He obviously hasn’t been sleeping. He’s keyed up and twitchy. Every time Zigor makes a loud or abrupt noise—about every two minutes—Jasper jerks in his chair. If glares could kill, Zigor would be on his twenty-eighth resurrection. I’d be on my sixth or seventh.

“How much longer?” Jasper demands of Zigor.

“How I should know?” Zigor shrugs. “No cell service.”

“He was supposed to be here an hour ago,” Jasper says, checking the time on his phone.

“You know boats …” Zigor says, making a vague gesture in the air.

To irritate Jasper, I say, “I don’t know boats. Can you explain them to me?”

Jasper shoots me my eighth fatal glare.

“Boats …” Zigor says wisely. “Sometimes fast, sometimes slow.”

“Wow.” I nod. “You’re so right.”

Another ten or twenty minutes pass in silence. And by silence, I mean no one is speaking but Zigor is making a clicking sound with his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He’s managing to do it at precisely the irregular interval you can’t get used to. Every time he clicks, Jasper’s eye twitches. Jasper’s leaning forward on his knees, hair falling into his face, clutching his head.

“You have HEADACHE?” Zigor booms at top volume.

I take back what I said before—Zigor’s growing on me. The enemy of my enemy is, if not exactly my friend, at least a useful annoyance.

The Bookends break out a pack of cards.

“Vy khotite igrat’?”Tweedledee asks Zigor.

“Nyet,”Zigor says, looking sulky.

The Bookends bet heavy, and I’m guessing Zigor already burned through his allowance. He’s been making the strippers of Moscow rich and happy.

“Vy?”the right Bookend says to Jasper.

He shakes his head.

They don’t ask me to play. That annoys me, not because I want to play, but because they would have asked if I was a man. The Bookends treat me like furniture, or actually, more like a yappy little Pekingese brought along by Jasper for no discernible reason.

Zigor watches the Bookends methodically turning over cards on the upturned milk crate between them. With a dramatic sigh, he stomps outside again, returning a few minutes later flushed and glassy-eyed.

“We play real men’s game,” he announces, pulling his revolver from his pocket. He holds up the gun so the steel muzzle glints in the greenish light of the shack.

“Put that away,” Jasper snaps.

We’re all armed, but it’s bad form to pull out your gun and play with it. Bad form to even acknowledge it’s on your person.

---