Luke popped up his eyebrows and dropped them again. Before he had to drum up an answer, Natalya moved onto Jeremy, eyes narrowing with mischief. “And how’s Raf?”
Jeremy groaned and covered his face. “He texted me on my birthday to let me know the age of consent in New York state is seventeen. How gross is that?” He pulled a face of absolute, hilarious horror, mouth drooping in a melted arch.
“It could be considered helpful,” Natalya said brightly.
Sergei growled. “Eyes front. The age of consent in my house is twenty-five.”
“You had two kids and me when you were twenty-five,” Jeremy said.
“Exactly,” Sergei answered, in the same tone of voice Luke’s mother would say, Twins.
At once, Luke said, “Who’s Raf?” and Natalya said, “Did you write back?”
“I said, ‘Stop texting me,’ and he sent back a pizza emoji.” Jeremy rolled his eyes as he turned to Luke. “Raf Damiani. You know, like, Damiani.”
Luke nodded. Camille and Helene sometimes went shopping for supplies in the Damianis’ place on Mulberry Street, and Luke was never invited, in case he accidentally broke a spell or binding and started a fight. Which, clearly, was a reasonable precaution.
Sergei hadn’t said anything, though. Maybe he was fine—maybe Alexei hadn’t noticed, or hadn’t minded repairing the binding Luke had broken. Maybe—Luke was warmed by an unlikely hope—Jeremy had kept his mistake a secret.
“He thinks we’re doing a Romeo and Juliet thing,” Jeremy said. “You know, two houses both alike in actually I’m just not attracted to you, leave me alone.” Natalya laughed, and Jeremy flipped a hand at her.
Luke stared at him, smiling and whisking his hair out of his eyes in the yellow afternoon light. So he was gay, or bi or something. Luke was oddly proud of him for joking about it so easily, even as Sergei grumbled and tightened his knuckles on the steering wheel.
“Would that not be allowed—” Luke clamped his mouth shut around the tail end of the question and then a frustrated impulse to cuss at himself. How hard was it to stop asking goddamn questions, to just shut up for a few hours? He didn’t even care whether Kovrovs and Damianis could date, or who Jeremy might want.
Jeremy shifted in his seat. Sergei made a production out of a lane change. As Luke tried to map the mistake he’d made and figure out how to fix it, his attention snagged on Natalya. Something about her made his mouth run.
She wasn’t just charming. She was wearing a glamour or seduction, some kind of sparkling mojo. It made sense as soon as Luke guessed it—a troll like Sergei would benefit from that balance as he worked—but he would have liked a warning before they’d let her grill him. Max was a vulnerable thing, a heartbreak Luke could see coming but couldn’t let go; he wasn’t small talk.
These people were the worst.
“No.” Sergei threw the Escalade into park in front of a driveway. “No Romeo and Juliet bullshit in my house, either. No one cares about the Damianis. Time to work.”
Sergei and Natalya unbuckled and climbed out of the car, but no one said anything to Luke, and Jeremy didn’t move. Luke watched through the window as they walked into a convenience store up the block.
“Just like old times, huh?” Jeremy said.
Luke blinked. Old times? Something from when they were kids? He had no idea. “Sure. So what are—” Luke almost said you and I but changed his mind. “What am I doing here?”
“It’s a little complicated. Sergei’s going to call me when he needs you.”
They sat quietly, staring out their separate sides. No one had yelled. Natalya hadn’t used her interrogation skills to probe anything about uncrossing. It might all be fine. A great way to handle that would be to leave it alone, then, but something—an anxious itch to confirm it was truly all right, or a congenital inability to let anything settle at good enough—made Luke turn and say, “About the other day—” just as Jeremy started, “I just wanted to say—”
Jeremy pressed his lips together and nodded Luke on.
Luke gave it one more second to be sure and launched into the most uncomfortable apology he’d ever given. “I guess I broke some sort of magic down there, huh? A spell or something?”
Jeremy nodded slowly.
“I just wanted to say I didn’t mean to,” Luke said. “It was an accident. I wasn’t prying.”
The interest dropped away from Jeremy’s face like a falling stone; the little prince was bored again. “Okay. It was probably one of Alexei’s bindings. He has a bunch on all of us.”
Luke’s jaw dropped before he could control his face. Jeremy’s eyebrow went up.
“I thought Alexei’s bindings were a big deal,” Luke said. He knew they were a big deal, the foundation on which the Kovrov family built their power, even though nobody understood how they worked and Alexei didn’t explain. They kept you safe or they kept you trapped—he showed up to help just as something was going wrong. He made them with his own blood, a magic so old and arcane it made Luke queasy.
“They are a special power,” Jeremy said. “But why wouldn’t he use it to keep his family safe?”
Luke used a special power to keep his family safe, too, but he didn’t trap them inside layers of blood magic to do it. All he said was, “Right.”
Jeremy squinted at his face. “What?”
Luke shook his head tightly.
“Oh my god, what? Do you have a problem with Alexei?”
Luke’s heart skidded in his chest. “What? No, no. I just—” He stopped and wiped a hand over his face, trying to rub off whatever too-honest expression was there.
Jeremy turned back to the window. “Whatever. It’s fine.”
He didn’t sound fine. Luke gnawed on the pad of his thumb, urges to fix it and stop fucking talking battling inside him. The air conditioning in the car was losing its battle against the sun, heat closing Luke’s collar around his throat. He definitely should not sit in a stuffy car and argue theories of magic with this odd little prince. Luke got along fine with most everybody he met, but the one person he needed to work with all summer—whose family sent his parents most of their income—was the one person he kept insulting on accident. “I’m just not used to it. Bindings. Blood magic. I’ll catch up.”
“Blood magic isn’t any different than using fingernails or hair,” Jeremy said. “It makes the intention real.”
“There are lots of ways to set an intention. What about your lights? That was intense, and you didn’t bleed for it. It doesn’t have to work like this—” Luke froze. He’d made his father’s gesture to emphasize a point, tapping his cupped fingers against an imaginary table, as Jeremy turned to argue, and caught his fingers against Jeremy’s palm. It wasn’t a story about blood magic—it was a hand, warm and real. Luke snatched his own hand away, and Jeremy’s head snapped up, brown eyes as wide as a startled animal’s.
It was a lot like how he’d looked in the warehouse, when Luke was asking why Jeremy was a Kovrov at all.
“My bad.” Luke gestured around the car, implying impossible closeness, although it was almost as big as his bedroom.
Jeremy ignored that. “Magic always has a cost.”
“You’re right. I don’t even know why I’m arguing. I mean, I started this conversation in the first place to apologize.” Luke laughed. It was essentially a fake laugh, but Luke’s fake laugh was pretty good. He had a big mouth, so he opened it and people went along.
It worked—Jeremy smiled.
“If there’s anything I should do to fix it, or anything I need to stay away from, let me know,” Luke said. “And that’s it, for real.”
Jeremy shrugged. “I have to talk to Alexei. He can repair it if he wants to. I’ll let you know if he says anything.”
He was going to tell. Luke had no right to be disappointed. “Sorry again, for the mess.”
Jeremy sighed, exasperated. “You don’t have to keep apologizing to me. I’m not trying to get you in trouble or whatever. If that’s all you
’re worried about, you don’t have to be.”
It was both what Luke wanted to hear and not how he wanted to hear it—Jeremy was speaking out the window again, arms tight across his chest and face flushed.
But before Luke could respond, Jeremy’s phone beeped. “That’s us.”
He led the way into a little bodega. The lights were off, but more sunlight should have seeped into the room than did. Luke choked on a nauseating smell, like opening a bag of moldy bread—he glanced at Jeremy and found him calm and cheerful. The smell wasn’t really there, but some nasty mojo was slinking through the room. He threw his arm in front of Jeremy’s chest, stopping him from striding into the sludge—Jeremy stared down at his arm and back up at Luke with a mix of humor and horror, and Luke pulled it back.
This was a real job, no unloading boxes. Sergei, Alexei, and Natalya stood in the dark with a couple, a woman in her twenties and a slightly older man. Natalya gestured toward them. “Luke! Come meet Mr. and Mrs. Eyal.”
Luke shook their hands. Mr. Eyal’s grip was firm, too enthusiastic, and Mrs. Eyal hung on a second too long, like Luke’s hand was lifting her from drowning.
“The finest herb farmers in the tristate,” Alexei said. Growing herbs for magic was harder than growing herbs for food, with hundreds of arcane rules about moon and star cycles, watering and harvesting routines, precious soils, and grotesque fertilizers. It was difficult anywhere and almost impossible in the middle of New York City. “It appears someone is envious of our close relationship…”
“And crossed them,” Luke finished. “Is that the moldy feeling?”
Impressed surprise scattered across their faces. “Mold.” Mrs. Eyal’s voice was choked. “On everything, all the plants, and…” She took a shuddering breath.
“Yeah, I can tell.” Luke glared around the ceiling and corners. “I’ll hunt it down for you.” Mrs. Eyal took Luke’s elbow. “Come. I’ll show you.”
She led him through one storeroom, filled with stacks of Coke and crackers, and into another with orderly rows of tables under heat lamps sitting cool and dark. Piles of empty containers reeked of bleach, but the moldy feeling still stuck in the roof of Luke’s mouth.
A little girl, four or five, sat at a plastic Playskool table, coloring with her tongue between her teeth in concentration. She had thick, dark curls and black, smeary fractals of something like mold growing down her arms and up her neck. Luke took a reeling step back, and behind him, Natalya made a birdlike noise in her throat.
The girl’s eyes filled with tears, and Mrs. Eyal sighed heavily. Luke froze in place, his chest heaving hard—he had not expected a hurt kid. They had time to talk about text flirting but not to warn him there was a kid? He turned to Sergei and Alexei, but Sergei was glaring at the floor, arms crossed, and Alexei just nodded at him. It was Jeremy, hanging at the back of their group, who stepped toward the little girl.
“Hey, Aviva. You remember me?” Jeremy crouched down next to her table, and she nearly leaped out of her seat, clapping her hands. Luke’s chest eased, and he took a deep, calm breath.
Jeremy glanced up at Luke with an encouraging smile. They were working together again, like when he’d handled the protection spell so Luke could burn those mojo bags. He was like a trick painting that changed as you moved—the bored little prince from the car was gone, and he was the only one in the crowded room who would really help Luke get this job done.
Jeremy put his hands to his mouth and blew, opening a sphere of carnation-pink light. Aviva slapped it like a bubble, and it burst. He made her another, mint green. The light danced pastel over Aviva’s round face and Jeremy’s concentrating one, and it cut through the nauseating mold with a spear like a high, clear note of music.
Luke shook off and got to work, turning away from that light-sound vibe and toward the moldy one. The room was so thick with menace it was hard to find the source, like trying to untangle old Christmas lights, and Luke had an unusually crowded and attentive audience yanking at his attention.
The only ripples of anything different came from Jeremy’s witchlights. They had a thread of protective magic in them, or just cut through the gloom. They were as calming as a cool hand.
“Kovrov,” Luke said, and both Sergei and Alexei turned to him. “Ko—Hey, Jeremy.”
Jeremy looked up.
“Could I have one of those?” Luke asked.
Jeremy nodded. His chest lifted with a big breath, and he made Luke a larger, bright white globe of light, waving it gently forward. It seared through the mold as it traveled and made a clean bell around Luke. “Perfect. Thanks.”
Jeremy’s lips quirked, and he turned back to the little girl as she tugged on his arm. Luke walked a circle around the room, the light tailing him. It cleared the air around a plume of the moldy smell, spilling out of the air conditioning vent. Luke dragged over a step stool and pulled the grate off. He nudged the light in and revealed the burlap bag, curled small and innocent as a mouse. Luke smiled as he grabbed it and jumped down.
He closed his eyes and held the bag in front of his chest, bidding the moldy smell gone. It was easy to do with the light hovering next to him. The bag shriveled in his palm, crumpling like an animal whose bones had disappeared, and a soft chorus of ahs and gasps lifted from the adults by the door.
They were wrong. Luke kept his eyes closed, squeezing, as he walked—across the room, at the baseboards, just there. A second plume of the sick-sweet smell.
“Ha.” Luke crouched to pull the board away from the wall with a pop and a puff of dust. Another bag had been tucked back there. “Got you,” he said and brandished it toward Sergei and Alexei.
This bag was the true trick, hidden better so that the average magician might find the first one but fail to break the spell. Luke, though, was no average magician. He jumped up, tossing the bag and catching it again, grinning to the group.
Natalya and Alexei made matching tennis claps, ironic in a gentle way, like they just didn’t know how to be sincere, but Mrs. Eyal pulled her hands together under her chin. The room was silent behind Luke—he checked and found Jeremy watching, eyes round, even as the girl tugged on his shirt for more bubbles.
Luke stood. “This is it, these two. I’ll just burn some incense, and then I can destroy these at home?”
Alexei nodded, and Natalya went to find him supplies. Luke nudged the light back toward Jeremy and Aviva. “Thanks.”
Jeremy nodded. He was so quiet in the group—he barely opened his mouth, not even to say yes or thank you.
Luke had done his job perfectly and even brought the fight in the car to a decent conclusion. If he could just figure out how to cure the hurt he’d caused, he’d have three straight wins.
Luke was staring. He looked away when Aviva clapped her hands through the ball of light, casting Jeremy’s face back into shadow.
Chapter Nine
The thin, curling smoke of incense filled the room. Jeremy loved that smell—it reminded him of church, and maybe it was obvious, but cleansings always made him feel so clean. Sitting with Aviva, finally being able to do something he was good at, made the boiling discomfort and embarrassment Jeremy had been feeling since the car—since he’d dropped that jar and splashed himself with curdled blood—settle some. Aviva had more use for him than anyone else did, and she was more pleasant than most of them, too.
She dropped her head against Jeremy’s shoulder and shut her eyes, sighing, as the black smudges covering her face and arms started to fade. “Sergei,” he said, voice empty, and more clearly, “Look!”
Mrs. Eyal screamed and pulled Aviva up from Jeremy’s arms. She pushed at the neck of her dress, checking her skin, and started to cry into Aviva’s hair. Alexei went to her, and Sergei said something to Mr. Eyal. Jeremy got out of the way, sidling around the edge of the room, and came to Luke’s side. Luke watched it all with his arms crossed and the barest smile on his face.
While Alexei repaired the binding, Luke went outside to call his sister. Jeremy me
ant to give him his privacy, but as soon as he walked away, Alexei caught Jeremy’s eye and waved his hand shoo.
Jeremy stopped in the closed bodega. Luke stood outside, back to the window, and the dry smoke of Alexei’s spell wafted from the other room. Alexei’s bindings wove a web, and he, in the center, felt every twinge the way a spider feels her web catching flies. That was a bad metaphor, because it made it sound like an evil, stalking thing, and it wasn’t—it only meant that he knew what was happening, when his people were in trouble or pain. It took a lot out of him, too. His mind stretched in a hundred directions all the time, and the people he’d bound to him haunted his dreams.
Alexei always said the Kovrovs worked hard for their people, and so they asked for very reasonable things in return: loyalty, compensation, occasional favors. He said the people they helped—he called it helping—were grateful. Jeremy had never questioned that, never had reason to believe otherwise.
Alexei didn’t like people to know how vulnerable binding made him, how open to the world, so he kept it mysterious and swanned around in his Bentley. But even though Jeremy did know some of his brother’s secrets, now that he could see things through Luke’s eyes, there was a lot that looked awful. How even the sick little girl had been wearing a neat dress and hair bow, and Sergei hadn’t even put on a real shirt.
And Luke seemed actually afraid of Jeremy. Every time a conversation turned real, he stopped himself and made a big show of deferential manners. He acted like Jeremy was a live grenade or—Jeremy gave in to a flash of self-indulgent bitterness—a spoiled prince who would throw a tantrum if he said one wrong word. Jeremy would never, but apparently the Kovrov name ran ahead of him and he was guilty until he could prove otherwise.
He did still have to talk to Alexei about the binding Luke had broken, whatever protection Alexei had built for him. He just had to figure out how to explain, that was all. Then Alexei would seal up whatever crack Luke had made by coming a little closer, and the wall would slam down between them again. Jeremy’s chest hurt to think about it, but Alexei wouldn’t have built the binding in the first place if it wasn’t for the best.
The Uncrossing Page 5
