The Wise and the Wicked

by Rebecca Podos

  “Of course she didn’t.” Talia sighed in exasperation—not with Ruby, it soon became clear, but with her brother. “We’re enemies. And she’s not a complete blockhead. It’s not her fault you spilled the fucking beans.”

  Ruby hadn’t expected Talia to come to her defense—she deserved Dov’s disgust and more—and the shock of it rocked her back like a sudden wind.

  “We’re not enemies,” Cece jumped in. “Okay, maybe our families were. Or are. But that’s not us. It doesn’t have to be. Right?” She glanced between the three of them, eyes pleading.

  Dov wouldn’t look away from the dome light that cast them all in its thin glow, but Talia appraised Ruby coolly. Ruby tried not to twitch, examining her right back. If they weren’t enemies, they’d done a good job pretending to be. Talia had every reason to hate her, and only one reason not to: although they lived on opposite sides of a cold world, the same two suns lit their skies.

  This time, Talia blinked first. She put a hand on Dov’s shoulder, then reached the other around Cece’s headrest to gently work a clump of mud from one wild, white-blond curl. “No,” she said. “I guess we’re not.”

  Cece relaxed against her touch. “Good. That’s good. So the question is . . . what do we do about it?”

  Dov exchanged a complicated glance with his sister.

  “Mom told us to leave town if she wasn’t back by midnight,” Talia explained. “She made us promise. Dad’s at a professional development conference or whatever, but we’re not supposed to wait for him. We’re supposed to call him from the road. She said we wouldn’t be safe here, and she’d come and find us when she could.”

  Dov snorted his dissent.

  “Mom knows what she’s talking about!” Talia snapped back. “Anyway, we were . . . kind of fighting about it, when you guys texted.”

  Just by the look of them, Ruby could have guessed which side each fell on. Talia was fully dressed in black skinny jeans, boots and a high-collared wool coat, her hair braided back into a tight ponytail, as if for battle. Even her diamond nose stud winked fiercely. Dov, meanwhile, did not look ready to run for his life. He wore sweatpants tucked sloppily into unlaced sneakers, and the green Creatures Such As We hoodie that no longer annoyed her. His hair stuck up in black tufts, and she wanted nothing more than to reach out and smooth it down.

  Ruby resisted the urge. Instead, she said, “Your mom’s right,” she said, surprised to agree with Talia for the second time tonight. “As long as my mother’s around, it’s not safe for you. Or for Cece.” She sucked in a deep breath in preparation. “Which is why you guys have to go, and take Cece with you.”

  “What? Without you? Um, no,” Cece spluttered. “We’re going together. We’re going to save you.”

  “Mom’s convinced herself she needs me as her heir, and she’ll hurt you to get to me. She would’ve killed you tonight. You and Talia.”

  “Yeah, that’s why we’re all going together. We’re gonna save you.”

  Dov met Ruby’s eyes at last, and the look in his as he remembered her Time lit a fire behind her cheeks.

  She made herself turn away from him, toward her cousin. “Cece, I can’t do that.”

  “But—”

  “Wait, just listen,” she begged, then fell silent as she sifted through her thoughts. “Chernyavsky magic, Volkov magic . . . it all has a cost. And somebody else always has to pay it. Polina figured that out too late, after she’d already killed one of the people she loved most. She tried to warn Mom. I think . . . I think she tried to warn me, once.”

  Family is everything. The most important power we Chernyavskys have.

  Ruby hadn’t fully understood at the time. How could she have, when she hadn’t known what her great-aunt had—that Evelina had left them in search of a darker power? And Ruby had been so young; too young to sense the regret in Polina’s words. Neither had she known what price Polina had paid for her long years, over and over again. Though even for her wicked great-aunt, spilling Chernyavsky blood had turned out to be too high a cost.

  Judging by the dried blood caked in the corners of Cece’s lips, the rust-brown streaks down her chin, her mother didn’t intend to learn from Polina’s mistakes.

  But Ruby did.

  “The closer I get to—to my next birthday, the more desperate I might get. And as long as I’m looking for a way out, any way, I might make a choice I don’t want to make. I . . . could become somebody I don’t want to be. Someone like Polina, or my mother. That’s why this has to stop here, with me.”

  “So you’re really giving up?” Cece whispered, horror written on her face. “You’re quitting on us?”

  Ruby wiped her nose with the back of her wrist, and dried mud crumbled away. “No,” she said gently. “I’m not quitting, I’m just . . . I’m going to stop playing.”

  “That’s the same thing!”

  “It’s not,” she insisted. And suddenly, she was very sure that it wasn’t.

  Ruby had already made the wrong choices, done terrible things she couldn’t take back. She’d lied and spied and stolen, so sure, once upon a time, that she would sacrifice anything and anybody for more time, more power. That she would do whatever it took to win, just as her mother had, and their ancestors before her.

  But she didn’t want the kind of victory that tasted of blood. So maybe . . . maybe the only way to win this fight was to leave it.

  Ruby couldn’t figure out how to say all of this to Cece, not around the rock lodged in her throat, so she simply said, “I’m trying to be good.”

  And perhaps that was enough for Cece, who whimpered, but didn’t argue.

  “Besides,” Ruby said, swallowing hard, “someone has to warn the rest of the family. You said so.”

  “And you said they can’t help us.”

  “Well, there’s always hope?” It felt like the right thing to say, the thing Cece needed to hear.

  Her cousin threw her hands up, face pink and shining. With tears, Ruby realized. “Fine, that’s very noble and all, but you don’t have to like, punish yourself. If—if your Time really is your Time . . . you don’t have to be alone, Ruby.”

  “I agree.” Dov spoke in a low voice that carried throughout the car and stopped their argument, all the same.

  Talia turned sharply. “You better not mean what I think you mean. Because you’re coming with me. Mom said—”

  “Mom isn’t in this car. And one of us should stay. For her.” He looked at Ruby when he spoke, and as he did, it felt like a sunrise after the longest night of the year.

  “You can’t help her if that Chernyavsky bitch”—Talia paused to wince at Cece—“if she kills you.”

  “Why would she?” He shrugged. “I’m not a Volkov woman, so I’m useless to her. I don’t matter. It’s you she wants.” And then, gently, “I’ll be careful, Tal. You’re a badass, everybody knows that, but you can’t protect me forever.”

  Talia sniffed, turning to look at Ruby. “Fine. Then you better.”

  Ruby nodded, her chest too full for speech.

  “You guys should get going. Take the truck,” Dov said. “I think it’ll get you a little further. No offense to the Malibu.” He patted the vinyl seat beside him apologetically.

  Talia flung herself through space to crush Dov against her in a drawn-out hug. “You call me,” she commanded. “Like, all the time. Not just text. And come as soon as you can.”

  “I will,” he promised, patting the back of his sister’s head and pressing a kiss into her hair.

  Then, quick and businesslike, Talia detatched herself, slipped out of the car, and came around the front to open Cece’s door.

  Cece stayed for a long moment, fingers white against the dashboard, until Ruby thought Talia would have to pry her out. But at last, she managed a tiny, bloodstained smile. “I’m not going to give up, you know? Maybe you’re done with magic, but I’m not. I’m going to save you. In fact, I’m going to save all of us.”

  Then her cousin was gone, too, pulled alo
ng after Talia toward the black truck. Because Ruby didn’t want to cry, she didn’t watch Cece tuck herself inside, didn’t watch their taillights in her rearview mirror as they drove away. Instead, she stared intently out the windshield, where a little girl up past her bedtime sat at a picnic table, lamenting her fallen ice cream cone. She watched the girl as Dov came out and climbed into the passenger seat beside her. Ruby reached for his hand and clung to it, so hard his knucklebones shifted beneath her fingertips. Dov held on just as tightly.

  Ruby didn’t trust fairy tales anymore. She still didn’t believe that love could save a person.

  But what could it hurt?

  “Talia won’t let anything happen to Cece. She’ll be okay,” Dov said.

  “I know.” In fact, her cousin might be better than okay. All that awaited Cece in Saltville were long and lonely years, the tight bonds of their family turned to shackles that would keep her from living and loving how she wanted. Without her mother and aunts and cousins to tell Cece who she was, Cece could find out for herself. Wasn’t it possible that fate could be nudged, just a little, just this once?

  “And maybe they will find a way to help you. I mean, what if they can? Like, some kind of magic that really won’t hurt anybody else?”

  Ruby chose her words carefully. “I guess that’ll be a whole other story.”

  “Good.” Then he asked softly, “So, um . . . do you want to tell me more about your Time?”

  Ruby had skimmed over the exact details. Now she opened her mouth to describe them, to describe the memory that hadn’t yet come to pass, but would one year from now: the Malibu, a terrible band on the radio, and the sun glaring pink ahead of her. All of the meaningless particulars of her death, her final moment. For the last three years, it had seemed like the only one that mattered. But there were so many moments in a life, even a little one. Surely they couldn’t all be erased so easily.

  Surely a story still meant something, even after it had ended.

  “I will,” she promised. “But let’s just . . . be here, for a minute, okay?”

  When Dov nodded and squeezed her hand again, she reached for the radio and scanned through until she found the familiar intertwined chords of electric guitars and ukuleles—Creatures Such As We was always on some station or other. Ruby leaned into Dov’s warmth and his weight, and let the song play.

  She didn’t know if she was any of the things the people who loved her believed her to be—if she was strong, or brave, or worth saving. She didn’t know if she deserved a happy ending, or stood any chance of finding one, whether it happened a year from now, or not.

  But at least the story belonged to her.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks, first and foremost, to my husband, Tom, and to my in-laws, Dick and Jeanne Wiley, and my parents, Brandon and Linda Podos, for all of the childcare required to complete this book. I appreciate every Saturday afternoon spent bean-wrangling while I hid in the office with a laptop and a coffee for two hours. I literally couldn’t have done it without you!

  Thanks to Lana Popovic, my beloved first agent, for all you’ve done for me over the years. I apologize for the panicked late-night “omg no wait read this version instead” emails, but I regret nothing. And thanks to my incredible second agent, Eric Smith, for taking a chance on me. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

  Thank you to my editor, Jordan Brown, for all of the work you put into helping me write and shape a damn fantasy novel (and it was sooo much work). Thank you for being a partner, champion, and cheerleader in one. I couldn’t ask for better.

  Thanks to the amazing team at HarperCollins! To Sarah Kaufman, the best designer in the biz, and Gina Triplett, who created the astonishing cover art. To Alessandra Balzer and Donna Bray, Tiara Kittrell, Alison Donalty, Laura Harshberger, Shannon Cox and Bess Braswell, and Mitch Thorpe—thank you all for everything.

  To my earliest readers, Ashley Herring Blake and Rachael Inciarte, for your enthusiasm and invaluable feedback. And thanks to Gabe for your help in making this book as strong and respectful as possible. And thanks to Claire Legrand, one of my literary heroes, for reading and blurbing. I’m still verklempt.

  And thank you to the beans, Anya and Asher. You are a constant source of love, delight, and inspiration . . . though perhaps your naps could last a little bit longer while I’m writing Book 4?

  About the Author

  PHOTO BY CARTER HASAGAWA/LONG RIVER PHOTO

  REBECCA PODOS is the author of Like Water, winner of the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Children’s/Young Adult book, and The Mystery of Hollow Places, named one of the best books of 2016 by Barnes & Noble and MPR. A graduate of the writing, literature, and publishing program at Emerson College and the creative writing program at College of Santa Fe, Rebecca has had fiction published in journals like Glimmer Train, Paper Darts, and SmokeLong Quarterly. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and children. You can visit her online at www.rebeccapodos.com.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  Books by Rebecca Podos

  The Mystery of Hollow Places

  Like Water

  The Wise and the Wicked

  Back Ad

  DISCOVER

  your next favorite read

  MEET

  new authors to love

  WIN

  free books

  SHARE

  infographics, playlists, quizzes, and more

  WATCH

  the latest videos

  www.epicreads.com

  Copyright

  Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

  THE WISE AND THE WICKED. Copyright © 2019 by Rebecca Podos. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  www.epicreads.com

  COVER ART © 2019 by Gina Triplett

  COVER DESIGN by Sarah Nichole Kaufman

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Podos, Rebecca, author.

  Title: The wise and the wicked / Rebecca Podos.

  Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2019] | Summary: “Ruby comes from a family with a rare power: to see the moment in time when they are to die”—Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018055696 | ISBN 978-0-06-269902-2 (hardback)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Extrasensory perception—Fiction. | Sisters—Fiction. | Family life—Fiction. | Fate and fatalism—Fiction. | Vendetta—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.P63 Wis 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018055696

  Digital Edition MAY 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-269904-6

  Print ISBN: 978-0-06-269902-2

  1920212223PC/LSCH10987654321

  FIRST EDITION

  About the Publisher

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.

  Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street

  Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

  www.harpercollins.com.au

  Canada

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

  Bay Adelaide Centre, East Tower

  22 Adelaide Street West, 41st Floor

  Toronto, Ontario, Canada

  M5H 4E3

  www.harpercollins.ca

  India

  HarperCollins India

  A 75, Sector 57

  Noida

  Uttar Pradesh 201 301

  www.harpercollins.co.in

  New Zealand

  HarperCollins Publi
shers New Zealand

  Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive

  Rosedale 0632

  Auckland, New Zealand

  www.harpercollins.co.nz

  United Kingdom

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF, UK

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  United States

  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  195 Broadway

  New York, NY 10007

  www.harpercollins.com