Page 25 of Dark Ink

“What doyoufeel about this?”

“I feel neutral. It is good I have met someone who can both understand me and explain this new world to me. It isn’t good that she talks so strongly against me.”

The bar woman brings us some tea and I thank her without sparing her a glance.

“I’m sure she doesn’t mean it,” I say with such weak conviction, I barely get the words out.

We are silent for a few moments. I bring the tea to my lips and burn my mouth.

“Fuck!” I spit the liquid back into the cup, unwilling to burn my throat.

Jenya scrunches her face in obvious disgust. So she can express feelings, just… not all of them. And not to Tanya.

“You can leave me here,” she says. “I will find a way to get along with Tanya.”

“Uhm…” I scratch my neck. It’s the out I’ve been looking for. I want to leave so bad, it’s almost a physical feeling. My mind tells me I should stay, but the awkward part of me, the one that recoils from people’s emotional vulnerability, orders me to go.

“Why are you hesitating? You have been trying to get rid of me from the moment you saw me.” Jenya’s unsettling gaze burns a hole in my face.

“Was it that obvious?” I ask, already standing up.

“Yes. But thank you for not punishing me when I made mistakes yesterday. I enjoyed learning to read the holy alphabet.” She offers me a small smile, and it transforms her.

She’s only seventeen and I can finally see the youth in her bony face.

“You know what?” I say on my way out of the booth. “I will go speak to my boss and then I’ll come back for you. And for those clothes. Right? I have a reason to come back. Yes. Stay with Tanya for now, but tell her I haven’t just left you here.”

Jenya nods. “I have a feeling you won’t have to come back. I make her angry with my questions, but your presence makes things harder.”

“What?” I know the relationship between me and Tanya is volatile at the moment, but Jenya’s blunt words hit the bull’s-eye of my anxiety.

“Only an observation.” Jenya blows on her tea and then takes a cautious sip, swallowing contentedly without burning herself.

Another enigma. I don’t get people. I definitely don’t get how she was able to pick up on Tanya’s negativity toward me, yet ignore the waves that were directed at her. I shake my head and leave. I hope Tanya won’t hate me more for this decision—at least this time I plan to come back.

In front of the Arcana Headquarters, the air carries the scent of a warm evening. I look up at the imposing building, which looks more like a twentieth-century mansion than a gang’s compound. How would it look to Jenya? The scale of her village was so small. I destroyed her whole world with the tap of my finger on my iPad.

I’ve been doing this job for years, and I’ve never had someone slip by the crew before me and survive my cleanup. Jenya is either very lucky or truly immortal. Her appearance shook me so much, I’m now doubting everything I did that night. If she was there, alive, who else survived? Who didn’t? Did I burn someone to death? That thought makes my stomach spasm, so I push it to the side and enter the building. I don’t want to be in trouble with the Empress again, so I have to tell her everything.

As I climb one side of the double staircase in the middle of the large foyer, I arrange everything I’m going to say in my head. Reporting to Emilia Rogers, the Arcana Empress, always feels like I’m defending my PhD thesis. The only difference is that I had months to prepare for my dissertation defense and only a twenty-minute walk to prepare for tonight.

I have a pretty good outline ready when I knock on the door and hear her voice beckon me inside. Expecting to find her alone behind her big desk, I stumble into a room filled with unusual people.

Startled out of my wits, I forget everything I was going to say and just gape at the small crowd. Damien and Sophie from Love and Err sit in the two chairs in front of the Empress; to the left of the room, near the massive wall-to-wall bookcase stands Ivo, looking severely hungover; the Empress perches in her usual regal way on the massive chair behind the desk.

“And here he is.” Ivo shifts from one leg to the other, pointing at me as if they’ve been waiting for me to arrive.

My eyebrows climb to the top of my forehead, questions battling for attention in my head. I can turn to each of them and ask them what they’re doing here. Instead, I decide to follow protocol.

“I have a report to make about last night’s operation,” I say, ignoring everyone’s stares and focusing only on the Empress’s face.

“Go ahead,” she replies.

“It’s sensitive information.” Does she really want me to reveal our oversight in front of members of another gang? Sure, they’re Tanya’s bosses, and I trust Tanya, but still. Not being enemies doesn’t mean we’re allies, surely.

“Is it about the child who survived and sought you out?” The Empress asks.

I glance at Ivo, who has taken a book off the shelf and is conveniently engaged with its contents. He could have waited for me to report before telling everyone about my late-night call.

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