Page 149 of One For my Enemy

“I can’t keep it,” he told her painfully. “It isn’t mine.”

“So don’t,” she said with a shrug. “It’s a good plan, you know.” Her smile broadened slightly. “With Koschei gone and you installed in the Boroughs, my family can be safe. Sasha can choose another life. They all can.”

“Baba Yaga can’t simply walk away from her crimes,” Dimitri said, and she shook her head.

“No, she can’t,” she agreed, though it was hollow-sounding. False-sounding. As if she knew something he didn’t, and he understood now that she always had. “But still, someone can fall, Dima,” she murmured, meeting his eye. “Can’t they?”

He curled his hand tightly around the knife.

“It can’t be you,” he said flatly.

She looked amused. “Why not?”

“Because.” He swallowed hard, thrusting around for an answer. “Because you can’t die.”

“Oh, but I can,” she reminded him, dark gaze falling again to the vial around his neck as he shivered, registering what she meant. “It should be relatively easy for you, shouldn’t it?” she asked him. “Look what I might have done to your father. To your brother. Can you say you wouldn’t have done it, if I’d succeeded?”

Dimitri pictured his father’s bloodied corpse on the floor, as it might have been if he’d been even a second too late. The image of it was gory and grotesque and unreal. Impossibly so.

Her pulse, amid his hesitation, was calm, expectant. His, by contrast, raced.

“You wouldn’t have,” he forced himself to say, though he only half-believed it.

“I would have,” she assured him. “For my family, Dima? I would.”

“You said you were angry with them,” he argued. “You said—”

“I know what I said,” Marya permitted tightly, “but I told you.” She lifted her chin, watching his thumb slide along the knife’s handle. “I wanted a new kingdom. I never said it had to be mine.”

He wondered if he shouldn’t have known sooner, decades ago, that it would eventually come to this. Time seemed to run in circles, chasing its tail.If I ever decide to give my heart to you, Dima, then cut it out of my chest and keep it somewhere safe.

Many people in love have failed to kill each other before.

Dima, this love I have for you will be the death of me.

“You’re asking me to do the impossible,” Dimitri said hoarsely.

“Well,” Marya said, “only because you’re so very capable.”

Her intent was grossly clear. Behind her, Bryn twitched forward, apprehensive, and she held out a hand.

“You said you wouldn’t interfere, Bridge,” Marya warned.

He sat back unwillingly, waiting, and Dimitri eyed the knife in his hand, still resistant.

“You don’t have to,” he said.

“I know.” Her gaze fell to his chest, to the vial beating against it. “For the record, you could have at least let me finish the job,” she said, her gaze flicking to Koschei and Roman.

Dimitri wanted to laugh, but couldn’t. The sound would surely overtax his swollen lungs to the point of helpless collapse. “It won’t heal you, Masha,” he told her sincerely. “It won’t make you whole.”

She set her jaw. “Then what will?” she asked knowingly.

A pause. A swallow. A confession.

He’d felt the pain in her heart where it lay against his as fully as if it had been conjured from within his own chest. He’d felt it alternately race and throb, skipping beats, shattering itself in anguish. He’d felt it respond to things he’d never known about her before, leaving him to wonder now what he had missed while he’d only been looking. Had she left pieces of herself with him, or had he taken them himself? Had anyone ever given Marya Antonova as much as she had given them? He suspected the answer was no.

Now, though, the pain in her heart was his to bear. None of it registered on her face; only he could feel it. He figured he had two choices: he could stop her. Put it back in her chest. Make her see what she’d done. Make sure she knew the pain echoing against him. He could remind her who she was; make her see she was a consequence of secrets, a tower built on deceit. He could take the heart around his neck, press it into her palm, and remind her what she’d done. He could let her feel the consequences.

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