Page 140 of One For my Enemy

V. 19

(Disruption.)

It had been a Manhattan witch who finally put the Boroughs’ disbelief into words.

“How can you possibly bring us Koschei and Baba Yaga?”

Translation: How canyoubring usthem?

That wasn’t the real question, Dimitri thought idly, wanting to admonish them for the inefficiency of not saying what they’d meant. The real question, in his mind, was:How is it possible we have been fools with our hands tied for so many years, and yet five minutes in this room you can promise unfathomable reward?

And to that, he wasn’t sure he even knew the answer.

Dimitri opened his mouth, then paused, scanning the room for Marya. She was supposed to be here by now, and though Marya Antonova was many things, late was never one of them. He saw the figure of her bodyguard Ivan slipping into the room and frowned, registering a sense of unease.

“One moment,” he said to the bickering Borough witches, and stepped directly towards Ivan, gesturing to the corner away from the murmurs of dissatisfaction.

“Where is she?” he asked, and Ivan shook his head.

“She said she’d be here. She’s just running a bit late.”

“Marya’s never late,” Dimitri said in a low voice, impatient, and he read in Ivan’s face the obvious unspoken agreement. “Try calling her?”

Ivan nodded, sliding his phone from his pocket.

From where he was standing, Dimitri could hear the phone ring.

And ring.

And ring.

With each ring he felt a thud against his chest; a bleakness. A weary malcontent that festered, growing firmer with each pulse. Dimitri, who’d grown accustomed to the patterns of Marya Antonova’s heart, grew increasingly agitated as he and Ivan waited. In sequence: a ring, a pulse, a pang. The wait was thunderous with warning. The ache tucked under his shirt only seemed to grow, and it felt like fear, or distress, or excitement. It felt like all those things at once, with the added cacophony of suspension, as if she’d suddenly held her breath.

Marya Antonova was never late, and everything she did had a purpose.

Dimitri’s mind flashed to the evening, to the afternoon, to the morning, playing itself out in reverse. Had her rhythms changed? Had he missed something, some subtle sign? Could she have lied to his face without him knowing the difference, even wearing the core of what she was strung around his neck?

What disruption might have happened? Dimitri thought selfishly of himself first. Had he done something? Had he touched her less reverently? Had she?

No. To his knowledge, nothing between them had changed.

Or—?

The chattering behind him yanked him back to reality, his attention snagging on the inscrutable glances from elsewhere in the room.Of course,he thought abruptly, feeling a lurch. Of course. He’d been a fool.Onething had changed. Something—one little thing—was new and stark and different. Because for the first time, Dimitri wasn’t simply a Fedorov, a son of Koschei. He was Dimitri Fedorov, a Borough witch. A representative of the Manhattan Witches’ Borough, and a man who stood alone.

He’d changed, but he wasn’t the part that mattered. He was a much smaller piece than he’d thought.

“I know where she is,” Dimitri said as the call went to voicemail, and Ivan frowned.

“Where?” Ivan asked, but Dimitri didn’t have time to explain himself.

“I have to go,” was all he said, shoving Ivan aside and ignoring the shouts of protest behind him.

V. 20

(History.)

Marya’s departure left Sasha feeling numb for reasons she wasn’t entirely sure she could define. She supposed a more honest part of her had expected Marya to break down in tears, in apology, to beg forgiveness, despite never seeing Marya do anything like it before. In reality, Sasha had never seen Marya Antonova react with anything but precisely the degree of certainty she’d had then, and perhaps that was what was so upsetting. That now, Sasha was just like anyone else in the world, and Marya had never made her feel that way before.

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