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"Can we finally talk, Mir?" Adélard asks quietly, falling into step beside me. The tree branches overhead sway in the wind, more clouds gathering in the sky.
"There's nothing to talk about."
"Really? How about what we've done? About the dead witch breathing behind us." Ady's voice is not guarded as it was when he was talking to Yaroslava, now it lacks a courteous flatness his parents have taught him and reveals his disquiet.
"No."
"About Vlad?"
I listen to the footsteps behind us, making sure Yaroslava and Laverna are following. The grass rustles unevenly as they do. "No."
Ady doesn't press, surprising me with his silence. He never misses a chance to scold me. Since his parents and mine decided we had to be friends as they had been, since we started a fight in front of everyone's eyes and our split lips assured them otherwise. Adélard Lishan loves rules, I hate them; he follows them, I only manage to break them. He lives up to his father's expectations, I never could make mine proud of me.
We weren't meant to be friends. Yet we are now.
I suppress the urge to turn my head and search Ady's face, refusing to show my confusion.
"You're doing it again, Mir," he finally says after a dramatic pause. His tone is light this time, vibrant. And mocking.
Scolding myself, I look at him. "What am I doing, Lishan?"
He only chuckles.
It unnerves me further. "What!"
"You're trying to succeed in everything at once. Finding the murderer, watching the witch, saving Jasna. Pissing me off? Magic or no magic, you can't..."
I bury my glare into his temple, loading my stare with all the indignation I possess, but somehow I don't find much. Somehow after the time spent with Fire Girl, I find no emotions inside me at all. She is the emotion, she is the words and the actions, and I am merely the sound filling up space. How can a dead girl be so many things?
But Ady doesn't buy it. He used to, when we were kids, but not anymore. He falters but only for a moment, amused, not disturbed, and then his lips twist into a smirk. "...be perfect."
"Says you?"
He's right though, I can't. Yet, I've mastered the skill of faking it.
Mir Praejis gets everything he wants. He has a loving family and the brightest future. His life is flawless, he is perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect...
Almost.
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"You act selfish, Mir," Father told me when he caught me sneaking out when I tried to run off for the first time. It was ten years ago, I was eleven, yet I still hear him chastising me in my head. "What would people say? That you're not happy?" he asked. "Aren't you happy?"
I was happy. I should have been. After all, it was my birthday party, and my grandpa brought me a dog. Every child wanted a dog.
"It's not that bad," Father went on, cupping me by the chin and pushing my face toward the kitchen window to inspect the pinkish-red mark on my cheek that two days later would darken into an ugly bruise. "Next time you'll think twice before running that fast, right?"
I didn't answer, staring through the window. It was winter, snow falling all day, and everything outside was covered in white: street lights, cars, the road...I loved the way snow squeaked under my boots.
"Mir? Promise me?"
"Yes."
With an approving noise, Father let go of my chin. "Clever boy. Hold some ice against it for a few minutes and come back to the party."
And then was the party. Our penthouse resembled a museum because Yumi, Father's wife, was devoted to her style: gilt-framed mirrors, antique vases, and marble statues everywhere. A place should suit its owner, she'd say. As the best attorney in the city, your father deserves nothing but the best. Perhaps she was right, but she cared about our reputation so much she sometimes failed to see how ridiculous her efforts appeared--behind the luxury, no life was left.
Yet everyone came here for the luxury, not life.
I couldn't count all the guests I smiled at and listened to that day, how many times I heard what a great lawyer I would become. "Just like your father," they chanted. People who'd laugh at my bruise and tell me that I'd soon grow serious and mature, and all my little problems wouldn't matter anymore. "Girls and expensive cars," Adélard's dad told me then. "That's what will soon be the matter."
But how could they know if I, myself, didn't know what the matter was? They spoke about everything I would be and nothing about I was.
I can't recall any of their wishes and gifts, I can't recall what my father gave me for my eleventh birthday, but I can recall my grandfather--and his dog. My dog. A white Husky puppy, his eyes bright as two moons at night.
"He will be your friend when you feel lonely," Grandpa said. "He'll listen, and play, and sleep by your side. And he'll remind you of me when I die."
The simplicity in his tone as he spoke of his own death terrified me then. "You can't die." I shook my head so violently it hurt.
But Grandpa only smiled. "Everyone dies, but that's okay as long as there are others to remember us. And you'll remember me, won't you?"
"Always."
And then the puppy was suddenly in my arms, nothing but a small ball of soft fur and warmth. I stared down at him, bewildered. Every child wanted a dog, but I didn't. Dogs were loyal and selfless creatures, and this one looked like he already trusted me. I did nothing but held him, and his eyes said he'd follow me anywhere. How could he follow? If I just wanted to run.
"So what will you call him?" Grandpa's voice was kind, yet strong, unmoved by my father's grumbling about the uselessness of such gifts, my stepmother's complaints about all the dirt the dog would bring to the house, and my little brother's excited whoops. It seemed nothing could sway the old man. Mr. Praejis was a rock, a bay. He was the only one talking about the things I already was, not expected to be.
"I don't know." But I did. The name was suddenly there as if meant to be given all along. "Aamon? Like in the tale you told me." Like in the story about mages who once lived among people; one of them had a familiar, a dog with the wings of an eagle. That Aamon could grant his master many talents, make one eloquent, or invisible, or immortal. He could reconcile foes, he could start wars.
Grandpa's eyes shone, agreeing. "That's a good name. Powerful."
Yet, it was he who had names for everything. For a dog and a storm and a smile. A special word. An inspiring story. Not those typical ones of dragons and knights who inevitably saved the world, which my stepmother tried to read me before she had her own son, but those which left your mind begging for more, not with the happily-ever-after but with a question mark in the end. Leaving you with a choice. Of Hero without armor who wanted to save the world but failed and was called a villain for losing; of Death who wished to bring life but was created to take it; of Angel who burned their wings and lost their way to heaven.
"That's what your grandfather's stupid fairytales made you," Father grumbled. "A dreamer. Dreamers don't survive in this world."
"Don't behave like a tyrant, Igor. I taught you better," my grandpa would dispute. "Mir's just a child."
A tyrant. I didn't know what the word meant back then. But I remembered it. What an amazing thing, human language. Whatever good or bad we do, we always create a word to call it. A name. Like a trophy--or a warning.
"He's my child, and I won't let you ruin everything I've worked my entire life for," my father rebuked in return. "I'm doing it for him."
And then a few years later, my grandfather died. And all the stories disappeared with him.
And I finally ran away. With Aamon who was no longer a small puppy but a big loyal dog. A friend. I bought cigarettes because my grandfather used to smoke, sat on the marble steps by the river, stroking Aamon's cuddly head, and breathed the nicotine. I imagined Grandpa sitting beside us again, imagined him silent for a long minute before starting another story.
I didn't want to believe he was gone, it meant everything he told me was gone too, all his words and promises. That I was alone, that he had lost, and I had no choice but to be like my father.
Only Aamon, his eyes bright as two moons at night, was still with me, just like the day Grandpa brought him to me. His eyes felt like some kind of connection, a promise that I could still find that world.
Find magic.
Why did you run away?
I had everything: a loving family, the brightest future, a perfect life. When I asked for a new toy, I got a new toy; when I grew old and asked for a car, I got a car. An expensive one. A car that only the son of the best lawyer in the city deserved.
"I love you, son," Father said. "You'll make me proud."
My father loved me, he said so himself. And I had to love him back. I awed, I feared, I worshiped him, but...A word was lacking.
Why did you run away?
Father gave me everything I asked for. He raised me, paid for my food and my clothes and every summer holiday trip. Even though my mom had died before she had a chance to hold me in her arms, even though he had to take care of me, working and studying at a young age, even though now he had another wife and another kid. He never left me behind, never abandoned me.
The least I could do was to make him proud.
Yet somehow I never could. His smile vanished the moment people looked away, his words of admiration were never addressed to me. After winning a medal in the school swimming competition, I wouldn't be enough for him; after becoming a class president, I wouldn't be enough for him. After getting into law school, I wouldn't be enough for him.
My father knew how the world worked, and I was a dreamer who still failed. I won the silver medal, not the gold one; a class president is not a student council president; and if you're not being praised for your law school application essay, what is there to be proud about?
I still wasn't the best, I wasn't trying hard enough. Not for my father.
I ran away.
Spending two days wandering the streets, I only came home when a policeman found me asleep on a bench.
"You think this is funny, Mir?" Father asked. He never shouted, his voice was calm, and I never could know what was coming. "I had to humiliate myself, calling a friend in the police and asking to find you. That's how happy you are? I work night and day so you can have a bed, not a bench. If not for me, we'd still be living like I lived when I was your age, in a filthy house, counting coins to buy bread." His belt buckle glinted brightly that day. "If you can't see that, I will help you see."
Brightly.
My father knew how the world worked, how to be successful and respectable and indispensable in it. How to be the best. And if I wasn't trying hard enough, he knew a way to help me. Because he loved me. His belt and the scars that the belt left on my back would always remind me of his love.
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"I can be perfect, Ady," I say now when we approach his car parked by the alley.
Adélard's brows almost meet as he frowns at me.
"Because I know a secret." My eyes travel to the path between the bushes, to Yaroslava walking several paces behind me. "You don't need to be something, you only need people to believe you are."
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