As we wandered through the maze of shelves—stacked high with every imaginable kind of grain, household goods, and candy—in search of the hair dye display, my mind kept circling back to Vladimir's unexpected gift to Stas. It struck me as just as odd: that an immortal, whose children would soon scatter to the winds, could so easily, without a single plea or condition, let go of such a symbolic place in Xerton.
Vladimir never did anything without a reason. And the news had set off a shrill alarm in my head, a voice not my own screaming for me to brace for trouble. But what kind of trouble? And could we even prevent it if we tried? No answer came.
"You know," I said at last, "you're Vladimir's first son."
"So what?" Stas crouched down, scanning the chips on the bottom shelf.
"Maybe he signed it over to you as his heir. You know—the one who'll have to shoulder the protection of Xerton after he's gone."
Stas turned to me with a look that said I'd just said something ridiculous.
"Convenient, isn't it, if you spin it that way? Even gives it a touch of honor." He gave a dry little laugh and flicked his shoulder, as though brushing off the image my words had conjured. "The prodigal son, off to study in another city, must be made to feel guilty—crushed under the weight of expectations he never asked for and failed to meet."
"Vladimir was upset when he heard your plans, wasn't he?"
"I'd say he didn't react at all. He just listened, patted my shoulder, and said he had to get to the hospital." Stas straightened up, taking with him a bright neon-green bag of chips. "You know, lately he's been avoiding all of us. Except Max, of course."
"Max is still running errands for him?" we moved along to the next aisle.
"I wouldn't say that. What happened to you seems to have changed the way Max feels about our father's business. He feels guilty, you know."
"Max? Why on earth? He's the one who helped me, unlike your father. I don't even want to think what would've happened if he hadn't lifted Kaandor's curse."
"The snake one, right?"
I nodded, trying to keep my eyes on the shelves instead of my memories. It would be smart to pick up a few things for the spa complex, but on an empty stomach it was hard to focus—the endless rows of goods blurred together. I wanted a little of everything, but I knew perfectly well I wouldn't eat half of it. Still, Arthur was always willing to help me out.
"Mother still doesn't understand what he is," I murmured.
"And what does Kaandor say about it?"
I exhaled sharply. Why did everyone treat Kaandor as though he were some kindly uncle with an explanation for every mystery and a pocketful of caramels to hand out whenever you got sad? If they could see him as I did, they'd know exactly what kind of creature I dealt with every day. And there was no hiding from him. No running. He was always with me, whether I wanted him or not.
"Without you, there would be no me," hissed the spirit right in my ear.
I startled so hard my elbow clipped a bottle of soda. It tipped, wobbling on the edge of the shelf—then fell. Stas caught it a second before it hit the floor.
"Let me guess," he said. "Kaandor again?"
"How did you know?"
"It's not hard. You always drift off, forget what anyone's just asked, whenever his name comes up."
"He shows up more often than you think."
I spotted my dark companion a few aisles over, tossing an apple lazily into the air with obvious boredom. I could only hope it wasn't real, plucked from some display; otherwise, I pitied the poor customers seeing a piece of fruit floating midair. Glancing around, I saw everything was calm—no one fainting or clutching their chest. Good. Sometimes it was nearly impossible to tell reality from illusion when your life was what other people considered a fantasy.
"You know," I said softly, "I like to think Vladimir just sees you as Olga's legacy. He loved her, even if his way of showing it seemed strange."
"So strange he agreed to let her die," Stas muttered bitterly, speaking more to his own thoughts than to me, as if daring me to contradict him.
At the mention of his mother—even if she'd been adoptive—he seemed to fold in on himself, and I instantly regretted my words. What I'd meant as comfort had only reopened his grief.
I had never been able to understand Olga's choice: to wish to become human when five children stood behind her, leaning on her for a parent's endless support. The Smirnov family's stability had turned out to be an illusion. They'd lost the one person they'd believed no one could ever take from them.
How comforting it must be to believe that, century after century, someone close to you will always remain by your side. To live without noticing how your parents slowly grow old, how their health begins to falter. No silver threads weaving themselves into their hair, no new creases lining their foreheads, and with them—no endless visits to doctors, sitting stiffly on an uncomfortable chair, waiting for a verdict, praying it won't turn into a point of no return. It must be terrifying to realize that your body is quietly betraying you, erasing every plan, crushing every dream.
Yet what could be worse than when it is not the body that gives way first, but the mind? When an illness gently takes a still-young person by the arm and leads them, by trickery, deep into a labyrinth. Days blur together, and the dearest of faces become unfamiliar. Suspicion takes root, growing unbearable, until every glance seems hostile, every presence threatening. Slowly, inexorably, the person sinks into the abyss of madness, while the inner voice—once insistent that all will be well—fades into silence, too weary to reassure.
That was what frightened me most about growing old. And yet Olga, who had lived among people for so long and surely knew far more than I about the countless possible outcomes, chose to take that risk. To what degree must someone born a vampire yearn to know what it is to be human, if she was willing to pay such an unthinkable price for what may well be the darkest burdens of mortal life—burdens even the most advanced medicine cannot cure?
"Look," Stas tapped my shoulder, pulling me out of my thoughts. "That's the shelf we need."
I glanced where he pointed and spotted the edge of the display stacked with rows of hair dye boxes. Above them were, judging from the pictures, lightening agents—the kind Dasha must have used to spark today's disaster. Stepping closer, I began searching for the right shade, trying to imagine which would suit her best. Stas lingered silently at my side, careful not to disturb my deliberations.
"I think this one will do," I said at last, pulling a box from the shelf. After another pause, a worry struck me—that one box might not be enough to cover Dasha's hair properly. I grabbed a second, just in case.
Clutching our prize to my chest, I returned to where Stas was absently turning over an intricate hair clip in his hands.
"It's pretty," I remarked as I came closer.
"What do you think?" He held it out, twisting it this way and that so the light caught the metal. "Should we get it for Dasha? You know, just to cheer her up a little."
"I doubt anything could cheer her up right now. But still… why not? She'd like it."
Stas nodded, slipped the clip in with the rest of our purchases, and for the first time I looked at him differently. As if seeing him anew. Stas's talent for compassion revealed itself in these small, unassuming gestures: carrying what you couldn't manage on your own, offering a ride and a cup of cocoa when you were chilled to the bone and heavy-hearted.
In an instant, I recalled every time he had tried to help me, to look after me—and how I had answered with barbed words, not even sure what I was trying to prove, or to whom. I had grown so weary of Kosta's suffocating guardianship that, somewhere along the way, I must have decided to bare my teeth at any extended hand, even the ones reaching out only to comfort. Shame rose hot in my chest—for everything. For every time I had snapped back, for every petty battle I'd picked, though Stas had never once wronged me.
We headed to the register and laid our things on the moving belt. I couldn't help smiling when I saw he'd added a bunch of bananas and a couple of drinkable yogurts. When the cashier read out the total, Stas turned toward me, held out his card as though asking permission, and—perhaps for the first time in my life—I didn't resist. I simply said, "Thank you."