Page 141 of One For my Enemy

“What do we do now?” she asked Lev, mumbling it. It was difficult to calculate her gains and her losses; yesterday, no Lev. Today, no Masha. Was she only ever to possess one or the other?

“I don’t know.” Lev’s lips pressed into her hair, comforting. “But I do think we have to stop your sister before she’s too far gone.”

“What can she possiblywant,though?” Sasha asked, pained. “Your father’s been brought low already. Roman’s half mad as we speak. And Dimitri…”

She trailed off.

“I think I always knew my brother loved someone,” Lev said slowly. “It’s strange, saying that and never having known my brother while he wasinlove. He just always had an air of heartbreak to him, and I think it’s what made him so… vast. So untouchable.” He paused. “He always had this grace about him, like a man who had lost everything and still refused to be hollowed out.”

The words echoed in the vacancies of Sasha’s recognition; the holes in a history she’d never known but understood were meant to be filled.

“My sister was the same,” Sasha eventually said. “I always thought she was what she was because of something that had happened before I was even born. Like she’d been feeling a loss for centuries. For lifetimes.”

“Can you imagine?” Lev asked her, shaking his head. “Feeling that way.” He slid his arms around her, almost by necessity; as if the words were absent any meaning without proof. “I can’t imagine having found you only to let you go now. I couldn’t do it.” She felt his grip tighten. “Not for anything. I’d learn to hate every shred of everything, of every person who’d kept me from you.”

Sasha slowly relaxed in his hold, leaning her cheek against his chest.

She took a breath for certainty. In, slowly, and out.

Another for cleansing.

Then a third, for recognition.

“I think we have to find out where she’s going,” Sasha said, the realization dawning slowly, tendrils of it creeping through her bones. “Don’t we?”

Lev’s voice was uncharacteristically grim. “Yes. I really think we do.”

V. 21

(Dead Girls.)

“Bridge,” Roman said, begging from the moment he appeared in Bryn’s office, “please. I need your help. You know the dead, don’t you? If you could just intercede on my behalf, if you could tell her that I’m sorry—”

“Roman,” Bryn said, rising to his feet, “when I said to meet me here, it was so that you could help me. Not the other way around.”

Roman blinked, still wild-eyed. “And why would I do you any favors, Bridge?”

“Oh, you aren’tdoingthe favor,” Bryn assured him with a laugh. “Youarethe favor.”

He stepped aside, revealing Marya Antonova in the chair behind him, and Roman turned slowly to stare at her.

“So you’re alive, then,” he noted hoarsely, and she chuckled.

“Yes, despite your best attempts,” she confirmed, and eyed him for a moment. “You look afraid, Roma,” she noted, turning to Bryn. “Doesn’t he look afraid, Bridge?”

“He does,” Bryn agreed, leaning against his bookshelf. “Rightfully, don’t you think?”

“I do,” Marya said, turning back to Roman. “I hear my sister is haunting you,” she remarked dispassionately, and at his silence, a smile pulled at her lips. “Good. Personally, I had plans to do the same.”

“What do you want from me?” came from Roman’s apprehensive mouth. “I’m trying to repent.”

“You’re not trying very hard,” Marya said. “I’m not very impressed. Are you, Bridge?”

“No,” said Bryn, before letting his gaze flick expectantly to hers. “My payment, Marya?”

She waved a hand over his desk drawer, levitating the kidney from it. She passed a hand over it, pausing a moment, and then beckoned to him.

“Come here,” she said, crooking a finger, and with a mostly-feigned reluctance, Bryn went, Roman’s eyes following their movements warily. “Now, Roma,” Marya beckoned, “tell me more about what ails you. You worry my dead sister will kill you, is that it?”

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