Page 136 of One For my Enemy

“Yes,” Dimitri confirmed.

Another ripple of whispers, tension rumbling like thunderclouds.

Dimitri waited, and after another moment of growing unease—a half-silence set to overfill—a Queens witch got to his feet.

“How?” the Borough witch demanded.

“An excellent question,” Dimitri said, half-smiling as he glanced around the room. Marya would be here soon, he reminded himself; it was almost over, and that was relief enough. “I’m so pleased you thought to ask.”

V. 17

(Deliverance.)

Barely a word passed between Sasha and Lev in the moments they stood alone in the dark, reaching silently for each other and transmuting the afflictions ofI missed you, only you, always youinto tiny, penitent experiments. She touched the features of his face, one by one, to prove they were his, to prove she hadn’t dreamt him, and he tangled his fingers in her hair, holding himself captive by the sanctity of each blessed strand. She seemed unsure of him, as if he might slip through her fingers at any moment, so he undressed her with care, with patience, pausing to remind her of her corporeality, the cravings of her appetites and the physicality of her needs, and of his. To remind her of this,here,with his hands digging into her waist so she’d suck in a breath, to prove her lungs could fill.Here,with his lips near her ear, to remember her blood could still rush. It was a silence that spoke volumes, that made promises; a rush of urgency they both knew would find no patience for the luxury of a mattress and sheets. When the blades of her scapulae hit the wall behind her, Lev thought only:Here, now, this.

They reminded each other of the little vulgarities of existence; of sweat that glistened in sheens, first, then in slow beads of it; the rawness of contact, not an inch left untouched, with its gentle quaking of limbs; the oppression of breaths that could not come fast enough; all their little mundane limitations. With barely a sound, they both caught a sigh of relief, of release, of captivation, before being delivered to a different sort of silence, this one heavy with things yet to come.

Lucky the city never slept. Disruptive bleats of banality called up to them from the street, binding them to the rigidity of the present. Gradually, they lay together in his bed, Sasha’s head on Lev’s chest, her fingers resting penitently in the slats of his ribs. She’d placed them there deliberately, he suspected, to root him to this world; to fix him at her side. He, likewise, had rested the tips of his fingers along the notches of her vertebrae, floating atop her spine.

“Why did you come back?” she whispered.

“To save you,” he replied.

“From what?”

He shrugged, sliding one hand behind his head. “From everything.”

She closed her eyes, saying nothing.

“I expected you to tell me you don’t need saving,” Lev commented, shifting to look at her, and felt Sasha’s lashes fluttering against his chest as her eyes floated open.

“I think I did, this time,” she confessed. “This time, I do. Not from the world, though.” She paused, letting him toy with her hair. “From myself.”

He waited, saying nothing.

“I was… angry,” she admitted, fingers digging possessively into his torso as she spoke. “But now that you’re here, it hardly seems worth it. I just want to stay here, to be with you. Everything else can continue as it was.” She closed her eyes again. “I no longer care whether Roman ruins himself or not. Your father seems to be doing plenty to destroy his sons without my help.”

“What?” Lev asked, startled.

She seemed surprised. “Did you not… know that?”

He wasn’t sure how to explain to her the volumes he hadn’t known, and she must have seen it.

Thankfully, she was quick to explain. “Dimitri isn’t speaking to Koschei,” Sasha told him, looking uneasy. “He won’t forgive him for letting you die, or Roman, either. It’s a mess.” She held him tighter. “Whatever happens next, though, I no longer want any part of it.”

Understandable, Lev thought.

But still.

“Sasha,” he said, frowning. “What’s your sister Marya’s role in this?”

He felt her stiffen. “Masha?”

“Yes.” Abruptly, Sasha pulled back to look at him, as surprised to hear her sister’s name on his lips as he’d been to hear his brothers’ on hers. “Why do you think I was answering Eric’s phone?” Lev reminded her, and she balked. “I’ve been working for your sister.”

“What?” Sasha asked, gaping at him. “But—”

“She brought me back,” Lev explained, and then amended quickly, “No, actually. Marya didn’t, but she was the one who, I don’t know.Fixedme. I was just awake, but not alive,” he clarified uncertainly, “until Marya.”

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