Page 117 of Violent Possession

Still, I ask.

“What the hell do you mean by that?”

“Myr.”

In slow motion, the scenes fit together: the nights Seraphim would disappear, always with the excuse of handling “things”. The money, which appeared in old paper envelopes, without any markings, spontaneously materialized from the wall. The new clothes he would wear for one night and then burn. And the wayhe would wash himself afterward: he would take hours in the shower, scraping his skin until it bled.

“Fuck,” I whisper. The taste of bile rises, prodding my throat, acidic and bitter.

Cain shakes his head, not even savoring the victory. “We have an ideology, Myrddin. But you can’t buy medicine with ideology. You can’t pay for a safe rent with ideology. You can’t survive without money. There’s no way.”

The image of it is soprofane, so absolutely wrong, that I have to look away.

“He forbade me to talk about it,” Cain continues. “I wasn’t even supposed to know. I found out by accident.”

“And Vasily?” I try to swallow the poison in the name, but I can’t. “If he owes loyalty to no one, was it just the money? Just that?”

Cain laughs again, louder, and now, yes, he draws glances from half the refectory. “You say that as if money is just one thing, Myrddin. But look at you. Look at me. We’re made of debt. You think the new arm fell from the sky? Over time, we armed ourselves with other things—it gets easier with a network of contacts. Forgery, information. But it all comes down to the same principle, doesn’t it? Vasily is just doing what has always been done to him.”

Cain stares at me. There’s no more hope, no accusation. There’s just a desire for me to finally see what he has always seen.

The anger I felt, the righteous hatred for my lost arm... it all dissolves into a heavy, cold nausea.

“Cain,” I call out, and my own voice surprises me. It’s no longer sharp. I take a deep breath, and the question that comes out is the one I’ve been burying for a decade, the one I was most afraid to ask. “Is he... is he okay?”

Cain remains silent for a long moment. When he finally speaks, his voice has also lost its hardness.

“He’s focused.”

I close my eyes. I know exactly what that means. ThefocusedSeraphim was the Seraphim on the edge of the precipice, ready to jump and take the world with him.

“He can’t go against Alexei Malakov,” I whisper. “Being with Vasily is a collision course. He’s going to get hurt, Cain.”

Cain processes. He sees that I’m not bluffing.

“What do you want?” he asks, finally.

“I won’t betray him,” I say, and the promise is as much for him as it is for myself. “Not again. But I didn’t go through a fucking amputation to watch him die. Give him a message for me.”

Cain waits.

“He told me Vasily is digging into me.Alexeiis digging intohim. He’s going to find him. The next time we see each other, it can’t be an accident.”

Cain studies me for what feels like a lifetime.

“He won’t negotiate withAlexei Malakov,” he says, and the name comes out with disgust.

“But he negotiated withVasily. Tell him to stop treating Alexei as an enemy and start treating him as what he really is,” I reply. “The fucking chessboard in person. And if you don’t play his game, youlose.”

Cain nods slowly, not in agreement, but in understanding. He understands the gravity of the warning.

“I’ll tell him,” Cain says, finally. “But don’t expect an answer.”

He gets up.

I watch him leave, blend into the crowd of faceless ghosts, and I’m left alone with my own realization that I’ve just placed myself right in the center of the fucking collision course to try to keep Seraphim unscathed.

Because, if he goes against Alexei, I know I won’t have the strength to go to Seraphim’s side.