“Alexei says I should fol—”
“Alexei knows fuck-all about love,” Sergei said, too loud in the close space of the car. Jeremy shrank against the door. Lower, Sergei growled, “And not much more about magic, either. I can’t have you end up like Alexei. You deserve to be loved, not to be somebody’s whim. Really loved, kid. Is that clear?”
He said it like a Kovrov, imperious and practical, even though his words were tender. Something about it rubbed Jeremy wrong, but he couldn’t grasp it, and then it was gone in a flood of thoughts about Luke. Jeremy couldn’t stop wanting him just because one kiss had failed to break open the world. No one could live up to that.
“I said, is that clear?”
“Yes, damn,” Jeremy said. “He didn’t just catch my eye. I’m not stupid.”
Sergei made a noncommittal umph. “Happened fast.”
“No, it didn’t.” Even to himself, Jeremy sounded whiny.
“Oh yeah?”
Heat rose on Jeremy’s face, but he needed Sergei to shut up, and he thought the truth would do it. “Since I was six.”
Sergei was gratifyingly dumbstruck. Jeremy remembered the Melnyk twins playing knight and dragon, a game of pretend with real magic. Jeremy had consented to be the captured princess to Camille’s dragon, because he hadn’t yet understood, and hated, that princes and princesses were such different things. He didn’t mind sitting and watching them toss and block little jinxes.
Camille had knocked Luke flat on his back and crowed, “I win!” She turned to Jeremy, shrugged, and moved on to the next game—none of them knew what you were supposed to do with a princess once you had one.
As Luke lay on the floor puffing, Jeremy’s small heart had gone hectic with grown-up disappointment. With clarity he would never find again, he thought, That’s what I want.
Jeremy still didn’t know what happened to rescued princesses—or, mostly, what Luke would do with one. Maybe Luke was fascinated with Jeremy’s puzzle, but when puzzles were finished, you dumped them back in the box.
“Huh,” Sergei said, but before he could continue, his attention slung outside the car. Corey Malcolm strode through the parking lot, a slim redheaded man wary at his elbow.
“Oh,” Jeremy said.
“Yeah,” Sergei replied. “Take care of yourself, kid.”
“Okay.”
They waited, watching, until Sergei shouted a bad curse in English and a worse one in Russian, pounding the steering wheel. The sun gleamed on a wave of brown hair, lush as a mermaid’s.
Natalya.
Chapter Thirty-One
“What does she know about you?” Sergei roared over the thunder of the Corvette as he brutalized the highway. “About the curse? Melnyk?”
“Everything,” Jeremy said. He could hardly believe how much he’d told her, opening for her questions like a fish being filleted.
Sergei hurtled into slower traffic and slammed on the brakes. Jeremy’s seat belt cut into his shoulder and brought him back to himself. “Why? Why would she betray us? What do I have to do with anything?”
Sergei raked a hand over his head. “She’s been a Kovrov forever. Her dad worked for ours, and she ran with Alexei when they were kids. It did not even occur to me it could be her until you saw her.”
“Me?”
“At the baseball game. I wasn’t spying on you. If she was watching you, it was for Malcolm.”
Jeremy was queasy with anxious, spinning thoughts and Sergei’s driving. “My hair. In the curse bag.”
“It had to be her.”
“But why?”
“There’s something.” Sergei rubbed his head again. “I’m missing something. I can’t remember. I bet Alexei’s got another binding on it. Call him, will you? Put him on speaker.”
Jeremy pulled out his phone and dialed. Alexei’s voice was so bright it sounded strange, auto-tuned to plastic slickness. “Your highness! What is that noise?”
“Sergei’s car. You’re on speaker.”
Sergei gunned the engine out of spite and had to slam the brakes again to keep from ramming the car in front of them. A horn bleated. “It’s Natalya,” Sergei said.
Alexei swore.
“What am I missing?” Sergei said. “You’ve got a binding on it. I know you do.”
“It’s not me,” Alexei said. “Jeremy said Luke broke a binding, but it wasn’t one of mine.”
“Who else could it be?”
“Natalya? Corey?” Alexei said.
“The Malcolms don’t get in your head. They mess with space.”
“Well, it’s not me. I would know if it was me.”
Sergei sneered. “Hang up on him.”
“Bye, Alexei,” Jeremy said. “Let us know if you hear anything.”
“Of course. Be safe, your highness.”
Sergei commanded Jeremy to wait to talk to Luke until he called the Melnyks himself. Jeremy didn’t eavesdrop but he didn’t leave, either. He hovered in the hall outside the office, listening to Sergei’s voice rumble and turn into a shout.
“And he didn’t think to mention that? Let me talk to the little prick!”
Jeremy took a galvanizing breath and walked into the room. Sergei hunched over his desk, phone at his ear. Jeremy sat down across from him as if he were applying for a bank loan. “Jesus,” Sergei said. “No, I didn’t… Well, hell, what do you think I wanted you around for? No. Fine… Go ahead.”
He dropped the phone on his desk with a disgusted noise. “Your boyfriend knew the whole time. Didn’t think to mention anything.”
“He’s not—how did he know?”
“Well, he noticed she wore a glamour. He said he felt it when she asked questions.” Sergei switched to a high, mincing voice that set Jeremy’s teeth on edge. “‘Mr. Kovrov, you didn’t know?’” Sergei snorted.
“Luke doesn’t talk like that.” Jeremy sort of did, though. He heard it in his protesting voice and burned. “Two hours ago we were talking about you not being an asshole anymore. He’s not the traitor here.”
Sergei got his temper under control, wrestling it down. “Yes, okay.” That was like apologizing, for Sergei. “Go on, then.” He waved Jeremy out.
Jeremy stood and looked down at Sergei’s head. He relished being taller. He knew he should take the rare, apology-shaped thing and go. Sergei focused on his phone, swiping with fake randomness.
Jeremy was so tired of having the same fights. Of course he was grateful for everything Sergei did for him, and had done since before Jeremy could remember. Of course he wanted to be badass and strong, too. He couldn’t help that he never knew how to act or what to say.
Jeremy pushed his shoulders back, trying to think of something brave: something powerful, like Sergei, or moral, like Luke. “What are we going to do about Natalya?”
Sergei looked up from his phone like he was surprised to find Jeremy still there. “We’ll take care of it, kid. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
Jeremy was free to make the call, but too wretched with nerves. He had misplaced something important today, but he couldn’t remember what it was or how to find it. He sat on his bed for hours, repeating episodes of his favorite shows that he’d watched so many times they were as worn-in as old shoes and swiping his phone open and closed, open and closed.
He couldn’t believe he’d really thought Natalya was his friend. He thought of his hair in that blue tartan bag, of her creeping into his room and sweeping over his pillows and hats. He’d even caught her and been too worried about his little problems to see.
At dinner, his steak was all blood, and he left most of it on his plate. Luke didn’t text or call, not even at midnight. Jeremy wandered downstairs and poked around the kitchen. He wanted macaroni and cheese, but he had a terror of using the stove during the midnight hour—what if he caught the house on fire, trapped inside?
He pulled a bag of bread out of the freezer and peered down at the toaster.
“Cupcake.” Marta floated in. “Why are you still
up?”
A lot of answers were true, so he went with the simplest one. “Too hungry to sleep.”
She took the bread out of his hands. “Yeah, you didn’t have much dinner.” She put two slices in the toaster. “Sergei isn’t going to let anyone hurt you.”
“That’s a little bit of the problem.”
“Ah.” Marta wiped the hair out of his eyes. “You need a haircut, cupcake.”
Jeremy wrinkled his nose. “If I have my hair short, I look like a lizard.”
She smiled and pushed his hair off his forehead. “Never.”
He did. A gecko, with the skinny jaw and the wide-apart eyes. Also, Luke was always stroking Jeremy’s hair when they kissed, or brushing it off his cheek as a little excuse to touch him. He twisted away, toward the fridge—cheddar, mustard, dill pickles, tomato—and asked, “When did you know you loved Sergei?”
She smiled, leaning against the counter with her hips. “Sergei was love at first sight. I saw him in the coffee shop at school one afternoon. He had this sweet little boy with him”—she reached over and knocked Jeremy’s hair again—“sharing a piece of cake and reading a book. And you were bossing him around. I never expected someone like Sergei would have that side to him. I thought, I need to get to know this man.”
“You loved him before you even knew him?”
“Yes.” Marta was confident, but this all sounded off to Jeremy. He believed he had upped Sergei’s cute quotient significantly—he still did—but he wasn’t proof of Sergei’s virtue.
Marta grinned. “And I hear you’ve been in love with Luke since you were six?”
Jeremy’s ears caught fire, then his cheeks. Sergei told Marta everything—he’d guessed when Sergei shut up in the car that he was pocketing that baton to hand over to her—but it still killed him to hear it. He mumbled some sounds that weren’t words.
“Tell me.” She clapped her hands. “I won’t make fun of you.”
The toast popped up, and he busied himself making a sandwich. It was hard to talk to Marta sometimes, because if he said anything wasn’t perfect, she’d get sad and he’d have to comfort her. He couldn’t point out that there had been weeks on end when the Melnyk twins were the only kids his own age he saw, or that some families they knew wouldn’t let their kids play with Jeremy at all.
And it wasn’t only that, not anymore. Luke was always so confident and sure, always trying to do the good, right thing. Jeremy would pick Luke’s cheesy lines and careful hands over anyone else in the world, even if he had to stay cursed forever. That, he definitely couldn’t say to Marta. “I don’t know. I just always liked him. How do you know what makes it love?”
Marta smiled. “He loves you if you can make him get your name tattooed on his neck.”
Jeremy laughed, and Marta nodded at him, owl-eyed. She made a gesture like slitting her throat, to trace Sergei’s tattoo. “Then, when he forgets how to act, you can say, dude, you are screwed if I leave you.”
Jeremy sliced his sandwich into two triangles, and his stomach growled. He kissed her cheek and took the plate up to his room.
His phone might as well have been a brick.
It was almost one. He wasn’t even a little bit tired. Finally, hands sweaty, he texted Luke: I don’t even know what to say about Sergei, and Natalya and everything. I didn’t mean to put you in danger.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Jeremy woke up overheated, with a constellation of bread crumbs stuck to his face. Three texts from Luke waited for him:
No way, you didn’t do anything wrong
& you send the cutest texts
& hey, your court
Jeremy stared at them. What kind of English was “& hey, your court”? It probably meant something like, I’m exhausted by your cursed life and annoying personality. I noticed you look like a lizard person. Solve your own problems. He put his plate on the floor and stretched out in bed, unwinding the bunched muscles in his neck.
His hips were sore, so he shouldn’t go for a run. Sergei and Alexei would be chasing Natalya, and it might be dangerous. Jeremy wouldn’t be able to help. There were things he could do, though: he could get up and stretch, play with the babies, eat something real. After one, he could borrow the neighbors’ dog and walk to the coffee shop or the park.
He could read a novel or his physics textbook.
Or… Luke.
He closed his eyes, turning off the world. He opened them again, and the world was still distant and gray. He wondered what was wrong with his texts. He wondered if he could kiss his true love but then go back to Luke after.
Three hours later, Marta came in, knocking on his door as she opened it. “Cupcake? You want some lunch or anything?”
It was a gamble. If he asked her to bring him food here, she might. But she might also tell Sergei, and then Sergei would know Jeremy didn’t want to get out of bed and that would make him mean.
Marta’s eyes narrowed. Sergei was busy. Jeremy felt so gray inside. Charlotte, his octopus, glubbed in her bowl.
“Will you bring me some?”
He could see Marta running the same calculus he had, but in the end she brought him lunch and dinner, too. He stayed in bed as it got dark and light again.
One gray day every now and then was okay, but two in a row spelled trouble. Instead of breakfast, he got Sergei. “It’s time to get up.”
When he was thirteen and fourteen, and the babies were little, Jeremy had spent hundreds of gray days in his room or trying to stay there. He’d lost track of why it mattered to leave. If he could go no farther than a few hours from home, why did it matter if he went no farther than the attic bathroom? What was the point of going downstairs to eat lunch in the dining room at noon, rattling to another corner of his tiny cage? The distinction was so small, it was no distinction at all. And somehow, in losing the understanding, he’d lost the will.
Sometimes Sergei wouldn’t let anyone bring him food. Sometimes Sergei hauled him bodily into the car and left him somewhere, and he’d have to stay upright long enough to walk home or the curse would hurt him. Usually Sergei shouted, and sometimes Sergei cried.
Both Sergei and Alexei had apologized a lot, which he’d never understood. It wasn’t their fault. He’d only wanted to stay in bed.
Jeremy was almost grown now. He knew why it made Sergei so afraid. He knew he ought to get out of bed.
Jeremy said, “I can’t.”
“You have chores,” Sergei said.
“Go to hell.”
Sergei didn’t say anything—he turned around and left. That was new, and Jeremy sat in bed for a while and thought about how he’d messed everything up for good now. Sergei wouldn’t talk to him. Sergei would let him stay here, locked in his tower forever.
Right before noon, there was a knock on his door. Alexei called, “It’s me.”
“Come in.”
When Alexei peeked around the door, his face was different than Jeremy expected: less concerned, coyer. “Your highness. I brought you a gift.”
Alexei opened the door all the way to reveal the sheepish and beautiful form of Luke Melnyk. He wore a black shirt and looked even hotter than usual. Jeremy did something suave and classic. Actually, he squeaked and pulled the covers over his head.
Alexei laughed like Jeremy had made a spectacular joke as he left, closing the door.
“I come bearing Hunan chicken.” Luke paused. “Do you want me to go? I know this isn’t leaving the ball in your court.”
Why had he decided the ball ought to be in Jeremy’s court? Jeremy was clearly doing a shit job with it. He said something passionate and intense. No, he said, “You can’t stay. I’m smelly.”
Luke climbed onto the bed and burritoed Jeremy up inside the covers. “I don’t care. To be honest, I like that.”
Jeremy froze, and Luke snickered. His body settled around Jeremy’s, solid through the layers of covers. “I hear you won’t get out of bed.”
It was hot inside Jeremy’s burrito, but his fa
ce burned wilder. He said something intelligent and reassuring. Actually, he said, “I did some science work.”
“Good job. I have all this summer homework, and I haven’t touched any of it.” One of Luke’s hands moved under the covers. “Camille keeps finishing things out of spite. Here we go.” A hand touched Jeremy’s stomach, moving the fabric of his shirt against his skin.
Jeremy didn’t understand the shiver that went through him until he’d already said, “Hey!”
Luke faded like a shadow, hand and arms and everything, though his weight still tilted the side of the bed. “My bad. I had an idea for something we could do. Not groping. But also, Sergei and Alexei wanted me to trick you into something.”
Jeremy flipped the covers down and let lovely, crisp Luke see how rumpled and smelly he was. “Trick me?”
“Well. They said Sergei needs the house empty tomorrow at two and could I get you out of it. I think they don’t want to tell you because it’s about Natalya. That’s just a guess.”
It was a good guess. What a pair of lying manipulators. “Why are you telling me, then?”
“I’m not going to lie to you.” Luke picked up his hand and moved his fingers over the scruff on Jeremy’s cheeks. It came in patchy and wasn’t cool at all. Jeremy was about to say, Don’t make fun of me, when Luke continued, “Definitely not for your brothers.”
Jeremy sighed and rolled into Luke. He had his face at Luke’s hip, too aware of both of their bodies. He said, I love you, take me away from these people. I want to try having sex, kiss me. No, he said, “That’s cool of you,” and rolled away again.
“That’s basic decency.”
It was like being tortured. “Okay. I’m going to get a little less smelly, and then we can do your idea and then you can invite me out tomorrow.”
“All right. Can I use your laptop?”
Luke clicked around while Jeremy found a new shirt. He took it to the bathroom to brush his teeth, shave, and put on some deodorant. He felt so much better right away that he couldn’t remember why he’d spent so much time in bed. Maybe he didn’t want to go back after all—maybe he’d take Luke to the diner again, or they could go for a walk.
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