"Are you sure it's a good idea to go now, in the middle of the night?" Stas asked as we got into the car.
Despite the height of summer, the temperature often dropped to seventeen degrees by evening. The unheated interior felt cool and damp, sending an unpleasant chill along my arms, even through my hoodie.
"I don't think I'd be able to sleep tonight anyway," I said, tugging the sleeves down over my hands, trying to trap what little warmth I could. After the conversation with Kaandor, a bitter sense of inevitability lingered in my chest. All this time, we had been misreading events, mistaking them for something they were never meant to be. I had been so consumed by my own drama, my own pain, that it never occurred to me there might be something far greater at stake than the troubles of a single person—me. The questions had always circled within the narrow confines of my personal misery, while something truly terrifying was unfolding right under our noses.
"I doubt any of us will sleep peacefully tonight," Stas said, fastening his seatbelt and sliding the key into the ignition. "Diana's probably waking poor Arthur right now to tell him everything that happened."
I shook my head.
"I asked her not to. Arthur's exhausted after dealing with Dasha's memory issues. Let him sleep, at least tonight. He can't help us right now anyway."
The car rolled forward, and Stas slowly turned toward the exit. Warm streetlights lined the grounds of the Edelweiss Garden in neat rows, casting soft pools of light along the road. Some might have found the place beautiful. The tires whispered over smooth asphalt as we passed small brick-faced cottages. Under the lamps, the bricks looked dark lilac, almost violet, lending the night unfamiliar shades.
We left the hotel in silence. Both of us had too much to think about. Most likely, Stas was thinking about his father—about the madness he had failed to notice within his own home, just as he had once failed to suspect the doctor's experiments on others "for the greater good." I wondered whether he had ever sensed something wrong in Vladimir, or whether he had turned away every time a glimpse of his father's true nature threatened to surface. When you live beside someone, changes are the hardest thing to see.
I wanted to believe Stas wasn't drowning in regret—wasn't replaying missed chances to stop all this, blaming himself for not noticing sooner. The good news was that there was still time to try and find a solution, to fix what could be fixed.
But when I told myself the same thing, it didn't make the weight in my chest any lighter.
"How are you holding up?" I asked carefully as the car sped through the forest, trees blurring into dark streaks beyond the windshield.
Stas stared ahead at the road, one hand resting loosely at the top of the steering wheel.
"I don't know," he said at last, then flicked a glance in my direction. "And you?"
"Same. I still can't wrap my head around how something so small was hiding an entire chain of events. Everything was right there—we just didn't know how to read it."
"How could we have guessed?" he replied. "We never stood a chance of learning about the Darkness, let alone its plans. Sure, we're different from ordinary people—but how much, really? What can any one of us actually influence? What do we matter to the world at large?"
"Just small people, living small lives that barely register on the scale of the universe," I said, echoing his usual tone.
Stas raised his eyebrows in surprise, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
"Wow. Is that really what I sound like?"
"More or less. Yours comes out a bit more dramatic—like you're not eighteen, but a hundred and eighteen."
He took his hand off the gearshift and opened his palm toward me. I laced my fingers through his. Beneath my fingertips I felt the familiar map of his skin, traced the lines of his veins, and those simple sensations brought a fragile calm to my chest—one that almost immediately sharpened into a painful awareness.
"I thought it would be college that pulled us apart," I said quietly. "Now I don't even know what to think."
"Has anything really changed?" Stas asked. "We'll survive university, adapt—it's not forever. I'll come visit you. You'll come visit me. Phones still exist."
"I can't picture a long-distance relationship. Not yet."
"Neither can I," he said, guiding my hand back to the gearshift, covering it with his own. "But that doesn't mean it's doomed."
"But what if there's nothing at all?" I pressed. "What if we never find the Supreme? What if her family really did leave, and my mom doesn't know where they went, and the Darkness just… swallows our lives whole?"
He frowned, as if I were missing something obvious.
"Isn't your dad a police officer? Surely he has the resources to track down a person—especially someone who isn't a criminal. The Supreme is probably our age, give or take."
"You're probably right," I admitted. "He managed to find my mom and me in Rostov, after all."
"Exactly." Stas's hand slid along the steering wheel as he switched on the turn signal. "Still, maybe you should call your parents before we just show up?"
"That's a bad idea. They'll start worrying ahead of time. It's better to explain everything once we're there. Besides, Kaandor can take part in the conversation."
"You wish," the spirit cut in, and I turned at once. The dark entity sat in the back seat, blending into the shadows of the cabin. "Maria and I are far from friends, after everything that happened."
I didn't answer. Kaandor had every right to be angry with my mother. She wasn't just the reason for our long separation—she was also responsible for the irreversible changes that had made him different from the others. The irony was bitter: a witch meant to uphold balance had shattered it for selfish reasons, convinced she knew better what fate her daughter deserved. In the end, everyone pays the debts life assigns for their sins. Perhaps it was time for my mother to face the consequences and try to make things right.
If nothing else, our circle would gain another person close to magic. Or, at the very least, Stas and I would finally learn who the Supreme was—and where to look for her.