by Dima Zales
“You have to believe me when I say that what happened to you was the best possible outcome.” He floats down, then rises again with effort. “Had I not meddled, things would’ve been so much worse…”
“You used Nero to free yourself,” I guess.
“He gets to use my services as a seer.” He strokes his beard. “A case can be made that he got the better end of the deal.”
“Let’s not dwell on semantics,” I say. “What did you do?”
“I asked Lucretia to take a message to Nero.” He pointedly avoids my gaze. “In it, I outlined the path to the outcome I wanted. To train you in martial arts. To encourage your use of your powers. To build a jail-like room for you—and to stick a passcode keypad into it—just so that you could escape at the right moment using the technique I taught you. I told him not to stop you when you broke free to attack Baba Yaga with your friends—something he only agreed to when I assured him that you would live through the ordeal. I even told him when and where to bring the healer to you in the end, so that you wouldn’t suffer needlessly.”
I float down five feet as I fully register what he said.
He told Nero to put me in that cell?
“What about the attack on the pier in Staten Island?” I ask numbly. “When Nero didn’t want to help me to save Vlad that time—was all that an act?”
“I didn’t see that in my visions, so I didn’t give him any instructions regarding that,” Yaroslav says, his gaze still trained on his holographic feet. “The only charade he put on was when he didn’t want you to go deal with Baba Yaga. He knew that you’d go no matter what he said or did.”
My transparent head hurts from parsing all this, but what he says fits the facts—like why Isis came into Nero’s building just as I was running out to deal with Baba Yaga.
He must’ve had her ready to heal me before I even escaped.
It had bothered me that Nero had simply sat in the limo on the threshold of Brighton Beach the other day, waiting for Baba Yaga’s death to release him from the contract. A part of me had wished that he’d ignored the contract to come to my rescue.
Turns out, it didn’t matter.
He knew I would be safe.
Darker implications occur to me. “Did you foresee Lucretia turning into a vampire?” I ask.
“It was inevitable,” he says tightly. “But yes. I knew. She says she forgives me, but I—”
“What about Rose?” My ghostly body tightens. “Did you foresee her death?”
“No,” he says earnestly. “I swear on everything that is holy. Just like with Vlad, I didn’t even think to look at her future.” He appears as miserable as is possible for a hologram to look, but it could all be an act; he knows that if I were to tell Vlad that he let Rose die, the vampire would rip out his heart.
Then I realize he might be telling the truth. If he’d looked at Vlad’s future, he would’ve seen him kill Baba Yaga instead of me. Vlad had his own plan to do so and it would’ve worked, except he would’ve died in the process—
“What ended up happening really was the best possible outcome as far as I could tell,” Yaroslav says. “It’s the only one I’ve seen where your friend Ariel survives and lives a full life. It was the only way Lucretia wasn’t going to become Gaius’s slave for a—”
“Stop. You’re doing a good job showing me why people dislike seers so much.”
“One of the most important lessons we seers learn early on is that you can’t save everyone you love,” he says sagely. “None of us are powerful enough for that.”
“I’m done with this conversation. I want to disconnect.”
“I understand.” He starts flying toward the entity that is himself and says, “If you touch that version of yourself at the same time as I do, our meeting will be adjourned.”
Too overwhelmed to enjoy the zero-gravity-like flight, I float to my Headspace representation and touch it.
He does the same, and I spiral out.
Chapter Eleven
The rest of the limo ride, I pillage the snack bar and digest the morsels along with the bannik’s revelations.
By the time we park next to Nero’s building, I decide that nothing is all that different after everything’s said and done.
Yes, Nero is a manipulative bastard, but I already knew that. And obviously, the bannik wanted to be free. Can I really hold that against him?
The one interesting tidbit about this is that Nero now has access to another seer—meaning he shouldn’t need me as much.
Yet he shielded me with his body.
Why did he do that? Is there some small speck of goodness in him?
The door opens up, and I stare at my boss as though for the first time.
“We’re here,” he says, offering me his hand.
Ignoring it, I climb out of the limo on my own.
Nero shrugs and leads the way.
When we get inside the elevator, he surprises me yet again. Instead of pressing the button for the basement—as he did in my earlier vision—he takes us to the top floor instead.
Once the location of executive offices, the floor currently has only one office that’s occupied—Nero’s.
“You have a choice to make,” he says as we come out of the elevator.
“Oh?” I catch up to him when he stops next to Venessa.
Nero gestures at the two offices on either side of his. “Which one do you want?”
Venessa’s beady eyes seem ready to jump out of their sockets.
I gape at the luxurious rooms.
“That one,” I mumble after a moment, pointing at the one with a view of the Empire State Building.
“Please set up Sasha’s new office,” Nero orders Venessa. “Her computer is in storage. The table and chairs are about to get delivered.”
I’m not sure if Nero catches the sour expression that flits across Venessa’s face, but I do.
Great. I can already see that working on this floor is going to be fun.
Not.
Venessa rushes off—presumably to get my computer.
As soon as she’s out of earshot, I catch Nero’s gaze and say, “How interesting. You’re not bothering to keep me in that basement prison. It’s almost as though you don’t need to do so anymore...”
“The bannik squealed already?” Nero looks anything but apologetic.
“You should’ve told me that the whole thing was—”
“No. If I’d given you any hint of what the future held, you could’ve changed it. Tell me that isn’t true.”
He has a point. The more information I have about a future event, the easier it is to change. On the flipside, without foreknowledge, things do happen exactly as in the visions. I wonder what that says about free will, after all. Then again—
“I’d like you to see Lucretia,” he says, pulling me out of my metaphysical ruminations.
I frown. “I’d rather not. I need to work off that ungodly debt of hours that I owe you.”
“How about a deal then?” Nero leans in, making my heart rate speed up. “Though seeing Lucretia should not, by all rights, count as work time, I’ll make an exception today. In fact, I’ll count every minute you spend with Lucretia as two work ones.”
“Quadruple that, and you have yourself a deal.”
“Triple. And that’s my final offer.” To punctuate his words, he heads for his office without waiting for my reply.
“Fine,” I say to his back. “I’m going.”
Without turning, he gives me a thumbs-up sign.
I head for Lucretia’s office and am not surprised when I find her waiting for me.
Nero’s pawn once again. Maybe I should just relax and let him do with me as he pleases.
Lucretia clears her throat.
Crap. Did she pick up on my thoughts using her empath powers?
“Seems like your new state of being doesn’t impede your job,” I say instead of a hello. “Is it distracting, wanting to eat your clients?”
“My em
path abilities are intact—and make me a lousy predator.” Lucretia gestures at the chaise with her delicate pale hand, and I try not to think about what I’ve seen that hand do in the bannik’s memories. “Nero is able to get me fresh blood from many donors,” she continues. “So I don’t feel any desire to, as you so crudely put it, eat my clients.”
I sprawl on the chaise, grab a nearby doll, and do my best to relax.
“So.” Lucretia lowers herself into her throne-like chair. “What would you like to talk about?”
“First, full disclosure. I talked to the bannik today and learned about his deal with Nero.”
“Oh.” She crosses her legs, her face unreadable. “And how does that make you feel?”
“Like I want to punch Nero in his smug face.” I squeeze the toy’s neck. “Maybe your boyfriend too.”
I’ve got to hand it to Lucretia. Her expression doesn’t so much as flicker at the mention of “boyfriend.”
Sagely, she says, “I understand.”
“You do?”
“You like to be in control.” She steeples her fingers. “In control of your destiny. And emotions. And other people’s actions.”
“So what?” I sit up straighter. “Who doesn’t like to be in control?”
“We’re here to talk about you.” Lucretia smiles, and I can’t help but notice that her teeth look completely normal right now.
All righty then.
Talk about me.
Where do I start? Should I talk about how I felt seeing Bentley’s burned body or witnessing Baba Yaga getting killed by a drekavac?
Nah. Though disturbing, those things didn’t end up keeping me up at night as I feared—the prospect of public speaking did that.
Maybe we should talk about my insomnia priorities?
Then again, the topic that most interests me is the meeting with my father, but that’s tied to the map and my desire to go on a rescue mission—something I don’t want Nero to learn about, given his reaction in my vision.
“There’s not much to talk about,” I finally say. “But I’m game to sit here as long as you’ll let me. Nero and I have this deal—”
“The funeral is two days from now.” Lucretia looks at me intently.
I stare back at her in shock.
Is this a standard therapist trick?
The back of my throat throbs, and I nearly rip the leg off the poor doll.
Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Lucretia says soothingly. “I figured you knew.”
Though Kit has already told me about the funeral date, the pain at the reminder is just as sharp. I curl my hands over the doll and do my best to even out my breathing. When I think my voice will be calm, I say with my eyes still closed, “I did know.”
“For what it’s worth, you’ve learned to calm yourself well,” she says. “Now that this is out in the open, would you be willing to talk about your feelings?”
I open my eyes and try to get to the source of the anguish choking me up inside. “I think I’m worried about the eulogy,” I say. “Didn’t sleep all night thinking about that.”
“Is that all?” Lucretia studies me intently, her blue eyes so hypnotizing I half expect them to turn into mirrors.
“What else is there?” I set the doll on my lap and rub my chilled palms together.
“How about the guilt?” Lucretia suggests gently. “I’m sensing a lot of that. I think—”
“Get out of my head.” My hands tense. “What gives you the right to keep invading my privacy like that?”
Lucretia’s gaze softens. Her face is a mask of patience as she sits there, saying nothing.
I move the doll off my lap, cross my arms, and prepare to sit here, also without speaking.
Lucretia’s body language mimics mine.
I take in a breath, then another.
When I feel calm enough not to blurt out something I might regret, I say, “Her death was my fault.”
“But it wasn’t,” she says. “She was in the way of Gaius’s ambition. Baba Yaga got Koschei to do Gaius’s dirty work. How is any of that your fault?”
“Because Baba Yaga was my enemy. I should’ve foreseen that she might go after people close to me.”
“But she didn’t,” Lucretia says. “You know—rationally, you know—that she went after Rose for Gaius. It had nothing to do with you.”
I take in another breath. “Maybe, but I should’ve still foreseen it. I should’ve saved her. If I’d been a better seer—”
“And we’re back to your need to control everything,” Lucretia says. “Even the best seers can’t always protect those they care about.”
I roll my eyes. “You sound like your boyfriend.”
“Well, he is a seer.”
At the reminder of Yaroslav’s nature, I recall our Headspace encounter, and the image of Lucretia covered in honey pops into my head.
Crap. I have to keep these free associations in check—or else Lucretia might catch on to what I just felt with her empath mojo.
Oops. I think she did. Her cheeks are suddenly pink. She must’ve sensed something.
Again.
“Listen, Sasha,” she says after a small pause. “I want to remind you that this is a safe place. You can talk to me about any urges you want.” She looks over her shoulder to make sure we’re still alone and adds, “No matter who’s causing those urges.”
“It wasn’t Nero I was thinking about,” I say quickly. “It was Yaroslav. I mean, not like that. When we met in Headspace, I gleaned his memories, you see, and—”
“You saw a memory of a vision where the two of you were intimate?” She looks at me as calmly as if she’s talking about the weather. “Yaroslav told me about those. He had them before either of us had even met him. Once he committed to me, they stopped, but—”
“Wait. Hold up. What?” I search her face for any sign of humor, but she looks as serious as taxes. “You’re not joking? He had visions of us? As in, me and him?”
She shrugs. “Sexual urges are perfectly natural.”
“Right. Except Darian had those visions also. My hypothetical future self really gets around in the seer community.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that.” She uncrosses her legs. “Whereas a normal person would have a fantasy, for a seer, it can play out as a vision. The trick is to have an intention of getting together with that person—and being able to see far into the future. Yaroslav has admitted that he’s had visions like that featuring every attractive female he came across—until he met me, that is. That’s when he had a vision of the two of us together and realized that was it for him. I’m still wrapping my brain around it, but I think it’s romantic.”
I ponder this. At the core, it’s a little bit like the visions I’ve experimented with—the ones where I make a choice (say, to tell Nero a secret), then see a vision of how that choice plays out (Nero locks me up in a cell with no way out).
Is that what Darian did also? Did he experiment with seeing visions of a number of women until he fell in love with the future of the two of us?
Lucretia drums her fingers on the arms of her throne, reminding me of her presence.
“Interesting,” I say. “Does this mean that if I were determined to date Michael Fassbender and Matthew McConaughey, I could get a vision of a threesome with them?”
“Probably not.” Lucretia smiles. “I think your choice needs to be more rooted in reality. It would work better if you decided to be with someone you already know. Someone who might be willing to be with you. The question is, are you brave enough to try?”
Is she daring me to see a future where I hook up with Nero?
If so, I’m probably not brave enough. Or crazy enough.
But the idea isn’t bad.
A part of me is curious about what would happen if I tried such a thing with Nero as the target suitor—and another part of me wonders about that future with Darian, especially in light of Chester’s interference.
No wonder other seers do this. If I go down this path, I might end up with a whole harem of hypothetical vision lovers.
Except, for whatever reason, I keep coming back to the idea of doing this with Nero.
Stupid Nero. Ever since that kiss, he’s been stuck in my head.
Does it matter if Chester made the kiss more likely? The key is how it makes me feel. Except it takes two to tango, and I doubt Nero—
Lucretia clears her throat.
Oh, right. I got lost in embarrassing thoughts again. It seems to be becoming a therapy tradition.
“I just realized, you still don’t have the Mandate aura,” I say to change the subject.
“Oh, that.” She looks down at herself. “After a pre-vamp turns into a vampire, the Mandate needs to be reapplied. I’ll have another Rite when I’m ready. Speaking of which—I’d love it if you were there for the ceremony. It’s not as fancy as the very first time, but—”
“Of course,” I say. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
It suddenly occurs to me that I’ve been a self-centered nincompoop. Lucretia was under Gaius’s control—made to kill someone—and I haven’t even asked her how she’s feeling.
Well, better late than never.
“Listen, Lucretia,” I say, trying to think of the most tactful way to approach this. “We’ve talked a lot about me. Can we talk about you?”
Her jet-black eyebrows travel almost to the middle of her pale forehead. “During your therapy session?”
“How about lunch?” I suggest, mentally activating “smooth-talking magician mode.” “I know you don’t have to eat in the traditional sense, but you still need to take breaks—and we can go outside.”
She smiles. “That sounds wonderful. When would you like to go?”
I grin. “How about now?”
“There isn’t really much to talk about,” Lucretia says once we’re sitting on a bench in the park, with me eating a burrito and her feeding the pigeons. “I don’t consider myself responsible for any lives Gaius made me take.”
