“。 . . leery with strangers,” I finished, jaw agape. “Okay, what the hell? He never does that right off the bat.”
“An Avramov perk, this time,” she said with a half shrug, looking up at me through a loop of shining hair that had slid across her face. “Dogs do like us. Yaga was pretty tight with forest wildlife, according to our lore, so maybe that’s part of it. The wolf connection.”
She gave Jas a final scratch, then smoothly found her feet, without the rattle of clicking joints that would’ve issued from my own roller-derby-weathered knees. Jasper lay where she’d left him for a minute, thumping his tail hopefully, before giving up the dream and trundling off to his bed beside the hearth with a dispirited huff.
Shaking my head at his treachery, I dropped my key into the owl-shaped bowl on the table by the door, then lit all the candles in the room with a flick of the hand, showing off a little for Talia’s benefit.
“Harlow!” she cried, wheeling around to grin at me as the room lit with a muted glow, looking genuinely delighted on my behalf. “Look at you, back at the witching! Seems like congratulations are in order.”
“I can’t take much credit. It just came rushing back the other night on its own, out of nowhere,” I said with a shrug as I headed toward the kitchenette, playing down my own bone-deep thrill at being magical again. “I must be reacclimating. Can I get you a drink? Your choices are . . .” I cracked open the mini fridge and peered inside, as though I had any actual doubt as to its limited contents. “White wine in a can, or rosé in a can. And I’m not sorry about any part of this situation.”
“I’ll take the white, and no shade here. Canned wine is abjectly underrated.”
“I’m glad we can agree on the things that really matter.”
While Talia prowled the perimeter of the room like a cat pacing out new territory, I grabbed two cans of Dark Horse from the mini fridge and a pockmarked Sumo orange from the fruit bowl. Talia joined me as I moved to the couch by the picture window and tossed her one of the cans, sinking down next to me in a cloud of sweet perfume.
“Nazdravye,” she said, popping her can and clinking it against mine.
“You are far beyond ridiculous.”
“So says Electra Hex, she of the atrocities committed against defenseless grains.”
I gasped through laughter, clutching a fist to my heart. “Low blow, Avramov. Things told in confidence.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” she assured me, “I plan to only ever mock you about it when there’s no one else around to hear.”
“And they say Avramovs aren’t considerate.”
I dug into the orange with my nails, peeling the rind in gratifyingly long curls, the sharp sweetness of citrus filling the room like a genie freed from a bottle. I tugged the two lobes apart with a neat snick and offered one to her, trying not to stare at her lips as she peeled off a section and lifted it to her mouth.
But she caught me looking; I could tell from the deliberate way she ate, lingering over each piece and sucking her fingers clean.
She chased the orange with another sip of wine, then set the can on the coffee table. “Speaking of confidences,” she said, beckoning imperiously toward my arm. “I was told there’d be more.”
“So demanding.” I scooted closer to her with my feet tucked under me, until my knees brushed hers. Being so close to her made me feel dizzyingly present, hyperaware and oversensitized, as if the whole of my skin had woken up after a long sleep. My heart kicked up into overdrive, thrumming against my ribs. No one knew what all my tattoos meant; not my closest friends in Chicago, not even Lin. I’d been hoarding them like a treasure trove of secrets I carried around hidden in plain sight. And I was about to share them with Talia, whom I’d technically known my whole life but really only known for the last two weeks.
Trying to muster up some courage, I rolled up my sleeve and draped my arm across her lap. She ringed one warm hand around my wrist, keeping it in place, and lazily circled the first tattoo with a fingertip. “Let’s start with this one. The arrow.”
I cleared my throat, taking a sip of wine with my free hand. “That was the fall after the . . . you know, the summer that shall not be named. November, I think, so I would’ve just turned eighteen. It was when I decided I was getting the fuck out of Dodge for good.”
Talia traced the arrow, a tiny, pensive furrow forming between her dark brows. “So that’s what it means? That you were set on leaving?”