Witches Burn at Dawn ✔

25. Yaroslava

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Three years and six months ago

Everyone had a phantom in their world, a person who disappeared without calling for years and then returned just as suddenly when you least expected. A phantom. Vlad was that person of mine.

My life in the city settled down for a while. Qing, Wayra, and Euklas weren't my friends, but they never pretended to be. I didn't know their secrets, they didn't know mine and didn't care. We would meet at night, steal a car, split the money, and go our separate ways. No truths about who we were in daylight. No feelings involved.

Only...you couldn't live without feelings, could you?

I had enough cash now, I could afford beautiful clothes and delicious cupcakes. I could go to a theater whenever I wanted and pay for college, but what was the point if there was nobody by my side to share the thrill of all these things with? I sent money home a few times, writing Tanya's name on the envelopes (I always chose yellow ones, it was her favorite color), but she never answered. Maybe she didn't even receive my letters.

People still felt scared in my presence if emotions got involved. Nothing but fear. The only thing magic had always been good at--the promise of death. I was still alone, still lonely, still hollow inside.

That was why I needed my phantom. The only person who knew the real me.

Vlad.

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"I found us a new job," Euklas announced once. "An exquisite Porsche, expensive as hell and totally easy to snatch. Outside the city, an abandoned house. The owners are gone till the spring. It's like a gift from above."

I should have realized back there and then it wasn't some Porsche outside the city, but Qing's excited heartbeat overtook me. I didn't put the pieces together until we stood by that house, at the edge of my hometown.

The front wooden steps were broken, and the roof powdered with the late autumn snow looked as though ready to give in to nature, not that kind of house you expected to see when you knew there's a Porsche in its garage, right? Yet, it didn't bother me until Wayra picked the garage lock.

It wasn't some exquisite car. It was the car. Vlad's car he drove--as I believed, at least--to Blakfait the night he told me about magic. Whoever this house belonged to, Vlad knew them.

For a heartbeat, I thought about stopping the whole stealing thing, but the truth was...I didn't even know what the truth was. Vlad had bailed on me so many times, and I doubted the car was so precious to him since he left it. And maybe--just maybe--if he found out this car was gone, he'd show up, surprised, amused, outraged? Didn't matter. It would be better than hollowness inside me.

So, the car was taken.

My story wasn't about the cars though, it was about secrets--ones I harbored, ones I shared, and ones I didn't suspect existed.

Vlad had never told me who he'd been visiting in Blakfait, but I assumed it was a friend or a family member. Of course, I couldn't resist the desire to know what that friend's life looked like. I didn't try to open the front door. I sneaked in through a window on the second floor instead; a small shed stood next to the house, and its roof was an easy way in.

Thick dust covered everything inside, it seemed no living soul stepped here for years. The furniture was old, nothing spectacular. But there was a library, the books covering shelves from floor to ceiling. My fingers skimmed across their spines, and I drew a random one out.