Spells of Blood and Kin (12 page)

“We all eat like this when we can. I thought you knew,” he said when Lissa raised her eyebrows.

She hadn't spent enough time with her extended family to have any idea at all that they were big eaters, but she didn't care to admit as much to Maksim. “Anyway, don't stop on my account.”

“The eggs are wearing off. I think you should give me more,” he said.

“Already?” Lissa blurted. She'd definitely got the recipe too weak, then, somehow.

“You are not afraid of me,” Maksim said, looking up at her from his slouch over the plate. “Why is that?”

“My grandmother was not afraid of you,” Lissa said, hoping it was true.

“Ah—I see.” He scraped his bowl clean and sprawled back in his chair. Quite different from the sleepy sprawl on the steps somehow; he looked tighter wound now and ready.

“So,” she said. “Are you going to tell me?”

“I have figured out part for myself now. Why I have gone mad again. I have been many years without the madness, since your grandmother made a spell upon me. I believe the blessing has passed with her, and now I must make shift with my own weak will.”

“My grandmother gave you a cure for … madness?”

“Not a cure—or so I see now. I thought it was one until I felt it slip with this full moon. Before I knew what I was about, I came upon the boy. You know the rest.”

“Pretend I don't and tell me.”

He knotted his hands together so that the knuckles stood out heavy and white. “He had the marks of violence on him, quite fresh. I think I could have run my madness out if not for that.” He was silent again. Lissa could see his jaw clenching, the way it had the other night.

“So you … licked him,” she prompted.

“I told you it was madness.” He looked up from under sullen brows. “When I am sane, it is a madness I would never wish on another. When I am not sane … I do not rule myself as I ought. And it is a madness that spreads.”

“You think you infected him? With your madness?”

“If I did, it will be some weeks before he is fully consumed. We have a space of time to find him.”

“We?”

“Augusta and I. She is my … she is my family. And you—you said you would help also.” Maksim hunched over and trapped his hands between his knees. “No. That is very forward of me. You have already helped me with your eggs, and if you will let me take more of them with me—”

“Of course. But I thought they were to make it easier for you to sleep.”

“They are to stop me hurting anyone,” he said. “So that I can go among people, to do my work and to find this young man, without my madness overtaking me.”

“It would be better if I could figure out what my grandmother did for you and do it again,” Lissa said.

“Yes.” He sat up again restlessly and worked his hand upon the fabric of his jeans, over and over, kneading the muscle of his thigh.

“Will eggs be enough to tide you over?”

He shook his head and scrubbed a hand through his sweaty hair. “I do not know.” He chuckled, mirthless and low. “I can feel it now,” he said, rising and pacing to the window. “Perhaps I should have another one before I go.”

She gave him two dozen; he cracked one in his hand and slurped it straight from the shell like an oyster. He grimaced, but the line of his shoulders slackened, and some of the tension in his face eased. At least they were doing something for him.

Lissa wrote her number on a blank card from Baba's recipe keeper. “Keep me posted. If you can't find him.”

She locked the door behind him and went upstairs to the shelf in the sewing room where Baba kept her grimoires.

MAY 10

  
NEW MOON

Nick met Jonathan at the coffee shop on Spadina, near the Graduate Students' Union building. The University of Toronto's downtown campus had seemed impenetrably huge and forbidding to Nick as a first-year, with its fifty-odd buildings sprawling over multiple city blocks linked by networks of footpaths traversing several different grassy commons. But five years in, the campus had shrunk, or Nick had grown, to the point where it felt like a pinching shoe, blistering him with its closeness.

“We can't stay here,” he said, glowering, grabbing at Jonathan's book bag and pulling him back when he tried to choose a table. “It's only been, like, two weeks. I'm still having PTSD about fucking Boyczuk's seminar of doom.”

“It's just convenient,” Jonathan said. “But we can go to the Starbucks on College if you'd rather.”

“It's too hot for coffee. I don't know why I agreed to this,” Nick said, but he pulled Jonathan with him, anyway, hustling him through the door.

“There's such a thing as iced coffee,” Jonathan said.

“Fuck coffee. I want a fucking beer.”

Jonathan looked like he was going to protest for a moment, but then he shrugged. “I could use a break, anyway. Maybe you were right to go with the lighter course load.”

“Summer vacation!” Nick exulted. “You wish you had one!”

“Maybe I would if I had a trust fund,” Jonathan said.

“It's not a trust fund, and anyway, it's going to run out in, like…” Nick paused to calculate.

“Is it going to run out before 6:00
P.M.
?” Jonathan said. “Because it's happy hour at the Palmerston tonight, and I think they have Great Lakes guest taps.”

Nick chortled in victory, tugged Jonathan's bag out of his hand and slung it over his own shoulder, and led the way toward the Palmerston in a quick, jerky stride.

“Slow down,” Jonathan said. “Let me just text Hannah—she gets out in half an hour.”

“No,” Nick blurted and then mentally kicked himself. “I mean, didn't she say she was having a girls' night tonight? You know, with Sue Park?”

“Did she?” Jonathan said. “Oh, Sue the violinist. Maybe? I don't remember.” But he put his phone back in his pocket and followed Nick down the sidewalk. “You still into Sue Park?” Jonathan went on, half-teasing, half-serious. “I remember you calling her on my phone like five times after that music department social.”

“That was years ago,” Nick protested. “And I only called her on your phone because mine was out of minutes.”

“Not because she started blocking your number, stalker?” Jonathan said, shoving him.

Nick laughed easily because it hadn't been like that at all, at all. He slung his arm around Jonathan's neck and tugged him in close for a second. “I forgot about Sue Park until today,” he said and added, leering, “But I'll bet she hasn't forgotten me.”

“Ugh, dude,” Jonathan said. “Let go of my head and stop being gross about Hannah's friends.”

“You were the one who said Sue Park had the most amazing rack you'd ever seen on an Asian chick,” Nick said.

Jonathan dragged himself out of Nick's headlock and shaded his eyes with one hand instead. “This is the problem with knowing someone for, like, ever,” he said. “You're always there to remind me of the stupid shit I've said and done.”

“And get you to do more of it,” Nick said.

“And that,” Jonathan agreed, but he didn't really look like he minded, so Nick bought the first round.

The Palmerston was only moderately full, happy hour on a Tuesday; they got a table in the corner. Nick stretched out his legs, crooked his arms behind his head, kicked at the legs of Jonathan's chair. Drained his first pint in a few easy swallows.

He had lapped Jonathan by the end of his second, Jonathan sipping slowly and yawning a little and surreptitiously checking his phone. Nick laid his palm over the screen and said, “Buddy. Jonathan. J. I'm right here, and Hannah's out, and there's literally no one else in your life, so put the fucking phone down and—”

“I do have a family,” Jonathan said mildly.

“Me too, but I don't take selfies at the bar for them,” Nick said. “Turn it off and get the next round.”

Jonathan put the phone away and obeyed, out of long habit. Nick watched from his chair as Jonathan ordered: more polite than he would have been a couple of years ago, eyes not straying below the bartender's chin even though she was wearing a Maple Leafs T-shirt with the neckline cut out to show a hint of royal-blue lace.

Jonathan was working as a teaching assistant now in addition to his own studies, and he seemed to think it required him to be a bit more formal, khakis and oxfords and a short-sleeved button-down, even though Nick knew for a fact he'd seen TAs in shorts and T-shirts before. It made Jonathan look older, or maybe he just
was
older; Nick didn't always look at him very closely, seeing instead the familiar blur of a dozen years of friendship, and now he wasn't sure when Jonathan had tidied up his haircut or when he'd switched his electric-blue steel hoop earring for a quieter silver stud.

Nick kicked out of his chair and joined Jonathan at the bar, scrubbing his fist into Jonathan's hair.

Jonathan twisted away, annoyed. “Give it a rest; I'm trying to buy you a drink.”

“Arm wrestle,” Nick said, grabbing at Jonathan's hand. “If you win, I'll help you mark that fuckton of papers you have in your bag. If I win, you're doing shots with me.”

“I don't know what's with your new arm wrestling thing, but I am not going there. No way.”

Nick ignored him, braced his elbow on the bar, centered his weight.

Jonathan only yawned and paid for their pints. “Nick, you're being such a freak. All this goddamned energy. Don't you ever just, like, relax anymore?”

“Not when there's arm wrestling to be had,” Nick said. He pointed to a beefy guy at the bar and crooked his finger.

“That dude is a foreman,” Jonathan said. “Meaning he's in charge of a bunch of construction workers. Know how he got to be in charge of them? Because he's the biggest motherfucker, Nick. They're like animals, you know: there's a hierarchy, and they fight their way up it. He's the king gorilla, Nick. Listen to me: didn't you practically break your head like two weeks ago? Do you really need a broken arm too?”

Nick stood up and crossed the bar. Jonathan followed a moment later, carrying both of their pints.

The foreman looked at Nick with pity and humor. “Okay,” he said. “You've got something to prove. I get it.”

“Go easy on him,” Jonathan mouthed, beside Nick.

“I saw that, asshole,” Nick said to him. “Just shut up and hold my drink.”

He placed his elbow on the bar, clasped hands with the foreman.

“Count,” he said to Jonathan.

“I thought I was supposed to shut up and hold your drink. Never mind. Fine. One … two …
three.
”

The foreman's powerful wrist cocked forward, veins standing out along the tendon. Nick's much slimmer arm, in the same posture, held ground. Both men clenched their teeth and sweated for a half minute or so.

“Jesus,” said the foreman. “Not bad for a little guy.”

“Not bad yourself. Everyone else I've been up against lately has gone down by now.”

“I pump a lot of iron,” said the foreman. “Sorry, guy.” He stepped up the pressure, forcing Nick's arm back, five degrees, ten degrees.

“No,
I'm
sorry.” Nick paused. What kind of a confession could he make?
I think I'm turning into a superhero. I think I'm possessed.

“I know kung fu,” he said. He shrugged his other shoulder and cranked down until the back of the foreman's hand touched the bar.

“You know kung fu?” Jonathan said, baffled. “Since when?”

“It was a joke,” Nick said. “Never mind. Hand me my pint back, okay? Let's get one for this guy too; he looks like he could use one. Or a rematch?”

The foreman said flatly, “No, thanks; I think I'm done here.” And he walked out.

Nick said to Jonathan, “Is it just me, or was that guy kind of a sore loser?”

Jonathan was still staring. “That was kind of incredible, dude. I've never seen you do that before.”

Nick shrugged and took the pint Jonathan passed back to him. He couldn't think of another wisecrack just yet, and right now, it felt like the gaps between jokes were deep and dark, and he needed Jonathan to fill them with something normal, something comfortable and familiar.

Jonathan waited for a long moment, though, and then he turned away, back to their table, leaving Nick standing by the bar with the sweat still running on him and condensation dripping from the pint in his hand.

Nick wiped his face on the hem of his T-shirt and drained the glass and ordered another. He would follow Jonathan back to their seats; he would have a great, normal night out with his best friend. He would. He just needed a bit of help to get his head back in it.

MAY 11

  
WAXING CRESCENT