Page 42 of One For my Enemy

This would never have happened if you’d never existed—

—if she’d never loved you—

—if you’d ever been deserving—

—if you hadn’t wrongedher,wrongedus,wrongedme—

“Yaga, I—” Dimitri slowly held up his bloodied hand, his voice leaving him at a whisper. “I took something.”

Yaga inhaled sharply. She glanced back at Ivan, whose face had paled.

“Have it, then,” she said eventually. “It was always yours. But give me my daughter back.”

Dimitri let out a low, incoherent sound of anguish, and Yaga gestured to Ivan.

“Take her,” she said to him. “He won’t fight you.”

Ivan shifted with a grave nod, coming forward and bending to one knee, and then he removed Dimitri’s fingers, prying them free one by one to gather Marya up in his arms. Ivan rose slowly, staggering to his feet as he stared down at her unmoving face, and Yaga rested one hand on his arm, steadying him.

“Who did this?” Yaga asked, and Dimitri didn’t answer.

She waited, but he merely remained unmoving, his hands still covered in her daughter’s blood.

“Fine, don’t tell me, but know this: Whoever did this to my Masha will suffer for it themselves, tenfold,” Yaga pronounced firmly, swearing it to all three of them. She let her curse hover in the air, binding itself to truth, and even then, Dimitri still said nothing.

But once Yaga had turned to leave, she heard his voice at her back.

“If you are even half the witch my father says you are, Baba Yaga,” Dimitri Fedorov said hoarsely, “then bring her back. Even if you have to go through hell to do it, Yaga, do it. Bring her back.”

She paused, stiffening. “We are only witches, Dima. Not gods.”

And then she turned to walk out the room, one hand on Ivan’s shoulder as he carried her lifeless daughter back home.

II. 22

(Epics.)

LEV:this story we’re writing sasha

LEV:it’s going to be epic

LEV:that, or a disaster

LEV:tbd

SASHA:in fairness most epics are about disasters

LEV:true

LEV:not you and me though

LEV:definitely not us

SASHA:you sound awfully confident

LEV:hard not to be

LEV:I can still taste you

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