“I didn’t say—”
“You do!” Jeremy said, voice rising. “All the time, you have something to say, about my clothes or my hair or my—” He stopped, with no way to finish the sentence. Luke wasn’t his anything. “It doesn’t make me weak to be different from you. It made me stronger.”
Sergei crossed his arms, and the vein in his temple twitched once, twice. “You want to make a move on the Malcolms? We’re short on soldiers, but we can get some intel out of Natalya if we can find her.”
“No,” Jeremy said. “I’m doing this one my way.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Luke was still in bed when he found himself on the receiving end of a family meeting, all of them tromping into his room and staring down at him. This was going to be bad.
Helene sat on the edge of his bed. “Did I ever tell you about the worst night of my life?”
Luke shook his head slowly, unsure what was going to trigger the explosion.
“I was sixteen. My girls and I went to this terrible party out in the woods—you don’t know about parties in the woods. That’s why I raised you in the city, where it’s safe. There was liquor in a bucket. That kind of party.”
Camille looked as nervous as Luke felt, which was either a great or miserable sign.
“We drank too much, things got scary, this scumbag hit one of my friends,” Helene said. “And we couldn’t figure out how to get out of there, or where to go, or who to call who wouldn’t make it worse.”
She looked at Luke expectantly. He nodded.
“I thought, when I have kids, I’m going to be the person they can go to. My house will be safe. This house.” She put a cool hand on Luke’s head. “I think I forgot that.”
It was quiet—Luke’s turn to talk. “Huh.”
Helene threw her hands into the air.
“You can stop punishing yourself, is the point, I believe,” Yuri said.
Camille smiled with all her teeth. “The point is, we talked about it, and we decided even though you’re stupid, we like you, and we’re going to keep you. Also—” She presented a little poppet that warped the air around it. “Are you sure you don’t want to destroy this?”
“All right.” Luke squirmed around Helene, still sitting on his bed, and got up. “Yeah, let’s go light some shit on fire.”
“That’s my brother,” Camille said.
In the living room, Max was on his phone. “Yeah, I’m coming home now.”
“Is that your father?” Helene said. “Give me that phone. I have some things to say to him.”
Max, wide-eyed, handed it over.
“And you,” Helene started. “What is wrong with you?”
Max looked at Luke, who nudged him toward the door. “Come on. You want to help us burn this?”
They headed downstairs with Camille. “What is that?” Max asked.
“Jeremy,” she said.
“No way.”
“They took my brother; I took him.”
“Let me see.” Max poked at the little doll’s chest.
“Max!” Luke said. “Be careful.”
“No way, he can feel that?” Max poked the doll again, and Luke closed it in a fist. It was as hot as skin, as Jeremy’s wrist in Luke’s hand. He wasn’t sure, exactly, what Jeremy would feel, but he knew it was Camille’s heaviest mojo, and that was not nothing.
Luke drew a circle of salt on the asphalt in the alley and took the poppet apart. “Is this a bird beak?” He pointed it at his sister. “Where did you get a beak?”
Camille leaned against the wall. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to.”
“You are nasty.”
“Dad got me flowers.”
Max snickered.
Luke dumped the doll’s contents—the mixed herbs, pepper, the beak, and a sliver of bone—into the circle. He rifled through and found two strands of blond hair. He did not think about Jeremy’s hair in his bed, or Jeremy’s hair, or Jeremy in his bed. He lit the strands of hair on fire and dropped them, and they burned away before they hit the ground.
Next came the mojo. He squirted lighter fluid over the pile of junk and touched it with the lighter. He half-assed the visualizations, because it was just too hard to think about Jeremy that closely, and when the flame caught, it spat so hard a lick of fire caught Luke’s shorts.
Max gasped, Camille screamed, and Luke hopped in a circle, whacking it out with his hand. “Whoa!” Camille said. “Oops. Was that me?”
Once he was sure he wasn’t on fire, Luke said, “You’re all right. Wasn’t paying attention.” He had gotten used to doing this with Jeremy behind him, manning the protections. He’d forgotten he was flying solo.
And he’d missed this crossing letting go. The fire in the salt circle was just fire, a low, flickering flame curling the dry leaves. If any part of Jeremy had been there, he was gone.
Luke crouched against the wall and rubbed his face while he waited for the fire to die. Once it was down to embers, he dropped the husk of the poppet on top and—just in case—he thought, Goodbye.
Chapter Forty-Six
Katya drove Jeremy to the Melnyks’ store in a Camry from who-knew-where. Forehead against the window, Jeremy tried to pray, but all he could think of was Luke glaring and spitting blood. Something petty inside him wanted to put every scrap of the blame on Katya, not because it was fair but because it was easier than blaming Alexei or Luke or himself.
Katya could tell, or guess. “I’m sorry I lost it on Luke.”
Jeremy looked out the window. “I understand, if you thought he was hurting me. You don’t have to apologize.”
She clicked her tongue at the traffic. “No, I’m sorry. That didn’t help anything. But when all you are is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
“When all you have.”
Katya shook her head.
Jeremy watched her profile. “Did you know the girl? Annabel?”
“No. Or if I did, I don’t remember her specifically. All Natalya’s friends were bad and glamorous. I was so intimidated.”
Jeremy grinned. “You’re so bad and glamorous now.”
Katya snorted.
“Do you think—” Jeremy paused. “Do you think that’s why Alexei turned out…the way he did?”
“Queer, you mean?”
“No!” Jeremy sighed. “I mean, like…sad. Alone.”
“He’s not alone. He has us.”
“You work for him.” Jeremy turned out the window. “And I’m his curse.”
Katya was quiet. “Well. I don’t know, J. But he has tried. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out.”
That gave Jeremy more than enough to chew on for the rest of the ride. She dropped him off a block away and stayed to wait out of sight. He was a mess of contradictions: Here to threaten, or to beg. Here to apologize, or to demand answers. He had worn a pink shirt to show he didn’t care what anyone thought of him and because Luke might like it.
Luke was behind the counter, talking to his mother. Jeremy paused and watched them through the window. He was about to go in there and cause nothing but problems.
When he turned and saw Jeremy standing outside the window, Luke’s whole face fell. Jeremy’s cheeks burned, and he had to drag his hand toward the door—maybe Alexei should handle it, maybe it would be better to try the Malcolms first, maybe he could just run and figure out where he was going later—but he shook his shoulders out and went in.
Helene put herself between Jeremy and Luke, which didn’t make sense because Jeremy obviously hadn’t brought a weapon, and because if he had, she wouldn’t be able to protect anyone like that.
“Can I talk to you?” said a tiny voice, not at all the one Jeremy was planning to use.
Helene stayed between them, but she looked at Luke, letting him answer. “Do I have a choice?”
“Sure you do.” Jeremy felt a pinch—he was twisting a rubber bracelet against his arm. “It’s important, though. It’s about, um”—your fa
mily and my family and me and murder and whether I can ever leave the house—“magic.”
Luke rolled his eyes. “Of course it is.”
Jeremy threw his shoulders back again. “Okay, look. You can be a jerk about it if you want, but I’m here to say you were right and ask for your help. I’m sorry we didn’t figure it out sooner and I’m sorry Katya hit you and I’m—I’m sorry I left, but that’s how it is, all right? I don’t know how it got so wrong and I’m sorry.”
He sucked in air, all his gone hot around him. Anger danced just out of his reach, a pure, energizing fire, but all he’d done was say sorry fifteen times and drop his stupid heart on the floor between them. Luke stared at the ground like, What is this? I never asked for this.
Luke lifted his head and said, in a faint, mystified way, “All I wanted to do was help.”
Helene shut her eyes with a wince.
“It’s a long story,” Jeremy said. “We might want to undo something Alexei did, so we could use your help, and also, your mom made a weapon, and we need to know what it was.”
“Me?” Helene looked up sharply.
“It was some candles.”
Helene rubbed the middle of her forehead with two fingers. “Flip that sign and lock the door.”
Jeremy closed up the store and followed Helene back through the door Luke held open for both of them. He sat at the table and told the story they’d pieced together, heavy-handed with the details around the candles and Alexei’s good intentions. Luke’s attention was so focused and powerful it hit Jeremy’s skin like sunlight, burning him pink.
After Jeremy finished, Luke turned that glare on his mother.
“Agrimony,” she said. “I don’t remember, but I’d bet on it. It turns the spell around on the caster.”
“Agri—what?” Jeremy asked.
“Agrimony? It’s an herb.” She mimed turning with her hand. “It turns the spell around, like—”
Luke interrupted. “Giving someone candles with agrimony would be like giving them bullets you knew would make their gun backfire.”
Jeremy nodded. “Alexei was doing messy work. Too much, too panicky. It was probably primed to backfire anyway.”
Luke tipped his chair back and rubbed his hands over his face. “I hate agrimony. I should have known there was agrimony in here somewhere.”
“Why?” Jeremy asked.
“The feel of it.” Luke made the same hand motion Helene had, quick and angry, probably not aware that he was mimicking her. “It can keep turning around on you even as you try different things. Like whacking two magnets together the wrong way. Those notes Sergei made, about your crossing, how nothing worked. That’s agrimony,” he almost spat, and then turned to his mother again. “I can’t believe you would sell that.”
Helene gave him a flat, censorious look and didn’t answer. Luke tried to stare her down, but he dropped his gaze first.
“Would you have done anything specific?” Jeremy asked. “Anything for Alexei? I know it’s probably hard to remember—”
“Not that job, but I remember Ivan Kovrov,” Helene said. “No, he wouldn’t have told me who they were meant for or how they’d be used. He wouldn’t have told me anything except what he needed.”
A muscle twitched in Luke’s jaw. Before he could say anything, Jeremy asked, “Exactly what he needed? All the details, or just the outline?”
“He’d just want it to work. He wouldn’t care how.” She paused. “I would not have guessed he’d give that to his own son. But I probably would have made it anyway. He was the boss. He made trouble with people who can take care of themselves.”
Luke glared at the table. Tentatively, Jeremy said, “I understand. I’ve made things for my brothers just because they asked me to. We did jobs for Alexei this summer without making him explain first. I’m only now figuring out how to push back.”
At that, Luke finally looked up. “For real?”
Jeremy shrugged.
“Well, you tell me how that works out.” Luke glanced at his mother. “So you sold him the weapon, and you didn’t know who it was for, but Ivan knew what he was doing with it. And when Alexei got a hold of them, he thought he was making a spell to hide them from their families. But he was doing way too much fool-ass magic, and when it backfired, he…” Luke looked expectantly.
“He disappeared her,” Jeremy said.
“What does that actually mean?” Luke asked.
Jeremy opened his hands. “Well, that’s where you come in.”
“What are you going to do?” The space where Luke hadn’t said we was enormous.
“We were thinking of doing a ritual.” Jeremy’s voice had gotten small again, and he cleared his throat. “To wind it back, and see if we can undo it or if it’s connected to me. And if we did, we thought it would be good if you could help.”
Luke didn’t answer. He turned to Helene, and she tilted her head.
Hesitantly, Jeremy said, “If you want—obviously, we can pay.”
That should have either solved the problem or made them mad, but they kept up that secret, silent conversation. Luke turned away first. “I think we can help, but we have to talk to my dad. I can let you know.”
That was fair. No reason for it to hurt. Jeremy nodded and pushed his chair back, and Luke led him into the store alone. He turned on the lights as Jeremy flipped the sign and unlocked the door. He was going to let himself out, but Luke said, “Have you heard any more from Malcolm?”
Jeremy turned away from the door. “No. Sergei is still looking for Natalya.”
Luke made a mean, twisty face.
“What?” Jeremy asked.
“Sergei couldn’t tell she was wearing a disguise when he was working with her every day. He’s not going to find anything.”
Jeremy slumped over the counter. “I know. Luke, I already said you’re right, you win. What do you want from me?”
“No, I wasn’t—” Luke wiped a hand across his eyes again. “You know, with everybody else, I’m pretty good at talking. What is it with you?”
“The awkward is contagious.” Jeremy spread his hands out like skittering bugs.
Luke grinned in a quicksilver flash before his face went serious again. “Nah. I think you talk about realer stuff. What I meant to say was, I’m glad you’re fighting it.” He tapped a line across the counter, hand closer to Jeremy. “When they showed me Annabel’s stuff, all I could think about was what if someone hurt Camille like that. What I would do, if I were Corey Malcolm.” His fingers walked another step closer. “And Alexei was the one who hurt her, who—” He stopped.
“I understand.” Jeremy watched the counter sit quietly between his fingers and Luke’s.
“But if I imagine losing you like that… If I was trying to protect you and it turned around on me…” Luke stopped and looked up, like he was surprised to find Jeremy still there. “Not that you were—or we…”
Not that they were anything or had found time to be. “I meant it when I said I was sorry.” Jeremy searched Luke’s eyes, but he couldn’t read anything there. “I lied a lot and made this whole mess. But I’m trying really hard to do the right thing here, and I’m going to fix it.”
He thought Luke would argue—that he had been trying to do that; that Jeremy should have helped earlier; maybe that Alexei and Corey, if not Jeremy himself, were beyond fixing—and he saw the argument on Luke’s face. His lips pressed together, holding back words. All he did was nod.
Jeremy stepped back and put his hands on his hips so he wouldn’t let them anywhere near Luke. He had his answers and his plan, and enough of Luke’s silent, assessing gazes to weigh him down for weeks. “Let me know what your family decides.”
And then he went back down the block toward Katya and home.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Luke showed up half an hour before midnight, a dream in a white T-shirt. The effect wasn’t diminished by his mother standing at his shoulder, although Camille’s glare was intimidating. She wore a
thick layer of black lipstick like she wanted someone to ask her whether it was a metaphor.
Luke had texted the final yes, letter-true to his promise, but Yuri and Alexei had done the real negotiating. All Jeremy knew was that Alexei had been in the foulest mood all week. Marta was with the little boys at the Melnyk place, either because Yuri was generously helping babysit or as a demonstration of everyone’s goodwill.
While they made small talk in the living room, Jeremy slipped away and got to work. He used a cake of white soap to draw runes on a piece of glass laid over the dining room table, copying from a tattered book of Alexei’s. He focused on the smooth, powdered weight of the soap in his hand, the squeaks it made against the glass. As long as he kept the circle of his attention precisely small, he was fine. If he let himself think about the whole room—the other room—the plan unspooling ahead of him, his mood skidded underneath him like a derailing train.
Camille walked into the room and gasped. “Is that a grimoire?”
Jeremy nodded. “You can read it, if you want. Some of it’s in Russian.”
She made a soft ooh and plopped into a chair. The book was as big as an atlas and puffed dust as she moved it.
She was careful not to smear the runes. “What’s this?”
He traced the circles. “Power and protection. I don’t think they do anything, but Alexei likes them.”
“I can hear you!” Alexei called from the living room.
“Are you sure?” Jeremy shouted back. “I said they don’t do anything.”
“Those runes were good enough for Ivan the Terrible,” Alexei said, and Jeremy mouthed the rest along with him, “and they’re good enough for a pipsqueak like you.”
Luke appeared in the doorway and laughed as he saw. Jeremy looked up, primed to smile along, but Luke’s glance slid away before he could make eye contact. Jeremy was back where he’d started—he wasn’t sure if Luke even wanted to talk to him, too many layers of power and obligation between them, and couldn’t ask without putting Luke in another terrible position—except that now he knew what he’d lost.
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