“My, my,” she murmured. “Little Lev has grown, hasn’t he?”
There was no doubt the twist of her coquette’s lips, however misleadingly soft, was meant to disparage him.
“I have,” Lev warned, but Dimitri held up a hand, calling for silence.
“Sit, Masha,” he beckoned, gesturing her to a chair, and she rewarded him with a smile, smoothing down her skirt before settling herself at the chair’s edge. Dimitri, meanwhile, took the seat opposite her on the leather sofa, while Roman and Lev, after exchanging a wary glance, each stood behind it, leaving the two heirs to mediate the interests of their respective sides.
Dimitri spoke first. “Can I get you anything?”
“Nothing, thank you,” from Marya.
“It’s been a while,” Dimitri noted.
The brief pause that passed between them was loaded with things neither expressed aloud nor requiring explanation. That time had passed was obvious, even to Lev.
There was a quiet exchange of cleared throats.
“How’s Stas?” Dimitri asked casually, or with a tone that might have been casual to some other observer. To Lev, his brother’s uneasy small talk was about as ill-fitting as the idea that Marya Antonova would waste her time with the pretense of saccharinity.
“Handsome and well-hung, just as he was twelve years ago,” Marya replied. She looked up and smiled pointedly at Roman, who slid Lev a discomfiting glance. Stas Maksimov, a Borough witch and apparent subject of discussion, seemed about as out of place in the conversation as the Borough witches ever were. Generally speaking, none of the three Fedorovs ever bothered to lend much thought to the Witches’ Boroughs at all, considering their father’s occupation meant most of them had been in the family’s pocket for decades.
Before Lev could make any sense of it, Marya asked, “How’s business, Dima?”
“Ah, come on, Masha,” Dimitri sighed, leaning back against the sofa cushions. If she was bothered by the continued use of her childhood name （or by anything at all, really） she didn’t show it. “Surely you didn’t come all the way here just to talk business, did you?”
She seemed to find the question pleasing, or at least amusing. “You’re right,” she said after a moment. “I didn’t come exclusively to talk business, no. Ivan,” she beckoned to her associate, gesturing over her shoulder. “The package I brought with me, if you would?”
Ivan stepped forward, handing her a slim, neatly-packaged rectangle that wouldn’t have struck Lev as suspicious in the slightest had it not been handled with such conspicuous care. Marya glanced over it once herself, ascertaining something unknowable, before turning back to Dimitri, extending her slender arm.
Roman twitched forward, about to stop her, but Dimitri held up a hand again, waving Roman away as he leaned forward to accept it.
Dimitri’s thumb brushed briefly over Marya’s fingers, then retreated.
“What’s this?” he asked, eyeing the package, and her smile curled upwards.
“A new product,” Marya said, as Dimitri slid open the thick parchment to reveal a set of narrow tablets in plastic casing, each one like a vibrantly-colored aspirin. “Intended for euphoria. Not unlike our other offerings, but this one is something a bit less delicate; a little sharper than pure delusion. Still, it’s a hallucinatory with a hint of… novelty, if you will. Befitting the nature of our existing products, of course. Branding,” she half-explained with a shrug. “You know how it goes.”
Dimitri eyed the tablet in his hand for a long moment before speaking.
“I don’t, actually,” he replied, and Lev watched a muscle near his brother’s jaw clench; another uncharacteristic twitch of unease, along with the resignation in his tone. “You know Koschei doesn’t involve himself in any magical intoxicants unless he’s specifically commissioned. This isn’t our business.”
“Interesting,” Marya said softly, “very interesting.”
“Is it?”
“Oh, yes, very. In fact, I’m relieved to hear you say that, Dima,” Marya said. “You see, I’d heard some things, some very terrible rumors about your family’s latest ventures”—Lev blinked, surprised, and glanced at Roman, who replied with a warning head shake—“but if you say this isn’t your business, then I’m more than happy to believe you. After all, our two families have so wisely kept to our own lanes in the past, haven’t we? Better for everyone that way, I think.”