Twenty eight

Alexei Boyarov

After dropping Gregory off at his kindergarten at Court, a very large institution that took in any Dhampir and Moroi child until they were old enough to be sent away to school, Mirabel and I grabbed a table at a small breakfast diner. It was almost weirdly similar to the diners that you saw in American movies, with the tables by the window and the barstools by the counter. The whole place smelled deliciously of eggs, toast and coffee.

At 8 pm, several Moroi and Dhampirs had occupied the diner for a sitting or a take-away breakfast. Mirabel and I ordered our breakfast along with two big coffees and waited for the waitress to bring in our food.

"I got a new job", Mirabel said once the waitress had left and dug into her French toast.

I froze in my movement and the piece of egg I had on my fork slid back on the plate. "Really? I was not even aware of that you were looking for a new job. What kind of job is it?"

She finished chewing before she answered. "As an accountant for a company here at Court, I'm going to handle their bookkeeping."

"An accountant? Do you not need an education for that?" I asked the last line carefully. I didn't want her to misinterpret what I was saying and think that I was criticizing her education.

Mirabel's curvy lips twisted into a smirk and she looked triumphal at me. "You wouldn't say that if you knew that I've been taking enough courses in economy and critical reading over two years to earn me an associate degree."

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "When did you have time for that?"

She looked down on her plate and stabbed a piece of sausage on her fork. "While you were away."

"Why did you not tell me?"

"I wasn't sure if I would have the motivation to finish them all", she admitted. "I decided to tell everyone when I was done with my studies so that I wouldn't come out as a failure."

"You are never a failure", I assured her. "I'm proud of you, congratulations on the job."

She smiled softly at me, revealing two dimples that only came out when she smiled in a certain way. "Thank you."

Her phone began to vibrate in her purse in long signals and she rapidly dug it out. "Hi, Mom. How are you?"

She paused as her mother replied. "We're good too. Yeah, sure. We haven't finished our breakfast yet."

My head snapped up. Was she inviting her mother to dine with us? Not that I wanted to keep Mirabel from seeing her mother, but I wasn't too keen on chatting over a coffee considering what happened last time we met.

"Great, see you soon", Mirabel said and disconnected the call.

"You invited her here? Your mother and I do not have the best relationship", I said bitterly.

"It will be fine", Mirabel assured me and continued to eat her toast. "She promised to be nice."

I also continued to eat my food, dreading the hour that would follow.


Ariana Szelsky arrived less than 15 minutes later, dressed in a business suit and had a to-go coffee in her hand, despite that she knew that she was going to a breakfast diner. She greeted her daughter with a hug and looked as if she was about to give me one as well until she saw the look on my face.

"It's nice to meet you again", she said, giving me a smile that I think was supposed to be polite but came out nervously. It was surprisingly how many physical similarities she and Mirabel shared; same eyes, same shape of the nose and mouth. It was also surprisingly how I could resent her so much and love Mirabel so much.

I just nodded at her and focused on finishing my plate.

Mirabel immediately shrunk back from the tension that excited between me and her mother and grabbed her empty coffee-cup. "I'm going to get more coffee."

She left the table before I had any chance of objecting and left me with the woman responsible for four years of misery. Ariana twisted her paper cup on the table for a few hesitant seconds before opening her mouth.

"I want to apologize", she started. "For having you sent away."

I glanced up at her. "You can apologize anytime."

She sighed. "I haven't always been open-minded, quite the contrary actually. I was raised in a strict household and that leaves traces and opinions that are hard to change. I wanted Mirabel to be happy and have a normal life, I just didn't realize until it was too late that she was never as happy as when she was with you."

This time, I lifted my head to look her in the eyes. The sad look in her blue eyes was heartfelt. "Mirabel's relationship with me was not yours to interfere with in the first place", I snapped.

Ariana shook her head. "No, it wasn't. It cost me my influence and my position in the council, but that was a cheap price to pay compared to lose Mirabel's love for what I put her through."

"And me", I added.

"Compared to what I put you two through", she corrected herself. She looked down on her hands, rubbing her palms against each other. I hadn't expected to see her so vulnerable and ashamed. In my head, I had always thought of her as cold and arrogant, never bending her knee to anyone. However, I believed that her apology was sincere.

"Is Mirabel's father as sorry as you are?" I asked.

Ariana shook her head. "No… he stand by our decision of… having you sent away."

I nodded. "Well, I… I accept your apology."

She gave me a weak smile. "But you're not going to forgive me?"

I leaned my elbows against the surface of the table, fastening my eyes on her. "You took three years of my son's life away from me. I missed his first steps, his first words and three of his birthdays. He only recognizes me because Mirabel showed him pictures of me. That's not something an apology is going to fix."

Ariana's facial expression fell, telling me that I had hit a weak spot and she slowly shrunk in her seat. Her voice was a whisper when she answered. "You're right. You're absolutely right."

Our conversation ended as Mirabel returned to the table with a steaming cup of coffee and a bagel in her hand.


"What did - - my mother - - about?" Mirabel asked. Through the frosted glass in the shower, I could see on her movements that she was taking her clothes off and throwing them into the laundry basket. I turned the water off in the shower, shivering a little as the warm water didn't warm me anymore.

"What?" I asked.

"What did you and my mother talk about?" she repeated.

"She apologizes for sending me away", I said.

"What did you say?"

"That I accepted her apology but it will take a while before I can forgive her."

Mirabel was quiet for a little while, occupied with brushing hair. "She started apologizing to me the day I married William. I started to believe her on Greg's second birthday."

"She told me that your father did not regret anything."

Mirabel sighed. "I know… I haven't been able to talk to him properly since Greg was born."

I shivered again in the cold and turned on the shower again. I had a feeling that I would bump heads with Mirabel's father more than once in the future. Ariana's apology had already made me feel less resentful towards her. It would take some time, but there was a chance that I might forgive her.

Mirabel had already gone to bed when I stepped out of the shower. She had crawled beneath the duvet, reading the second book in a series that she had recently discovered. Her hair was splayed out over her shoulders, looking almost bronze in the sharp light from the bedside lamp.

She looked up at me. "Are you coming to bed?"

"No, I planned on sleeping on a mattress in the kitchen."

Her head snapped up and she looked at me with puzzlement until she realized that I was joking. She rolled her eyes. "Very funny."

I chuckled and lifted the covers by her feet. "I know, I am hilarious."

She narrowed her eyebrows, looking oddly at me as I dived in beneath the sheet. She started to giggle as I crawled upwards and peeked out my head through the other end of the duvet. Mirabel glanced down at me, eyebrows slightly raised and her lips twisted into an amused smile, as I rested my cheek against her stomach. My feet were quickly starting to get chilly as they peeped out over the end of the bed, unprotected by the warmth of the duvet.

"Are you using me as a pillow tonight?"

"It is comfortable", I said, pushing my hands in between her back and the pillow she rested her back against, hugging her tightly. Mirabel placed a bookmark in her book and put it away on the nightstand. She started to gently stroke my hair by running her fingers through it.

"You're even worse than your son sometimes", she smiled. "When he wants to cuddle, he clings to me like a monkey whenever I try to put him to bed."

"Do you think that he's lonely?"

She laughed. "Hardly, he spends all his days with other kids at kindergarten and he's with us all the time when he comes home."

"Will we be lonely here when he leaves for school?"

Mirabel silenced, probably realizing that it was a little more than two years before Gregory would have to attend school to be a guardian.

"What are you saying?" she asked, looking down at me. "Of course it will be lonelier when he leaves for school but we'll find a way to enterta- -"

She trailed off and I lifted my head to look at her. "What?"

"Are you trying to say that it will be too lonely here when Gregory leaves? And that we should... fill that silence?"

I barely dared to move, fearing that whatever I said or did could be right or very wrong. Mirabel abruptly sat up and pushed me away a little so that she could look me in the eyes. "Do you know what you're saying?"

I nodded. "I have given it some thought. I am not saying now or even when Gregory goes to school, but I like to think that I have a chance to be involved from the beginning."

Tears began to form in her eyes, but her lips stretched into a smile. She dried away the small drops that escaped. "With my new job and the fact that you just came back, I'm not sure that having another kid is the right thing for us now. But… I definitely want Gregory to have a sibling sometime."

I felt my face lit up. "Really?"

She nodded. "Really. But can we just take some time to focus on us, okay? I want you to myself for a little while."

I glanced at the clock on her bedside table. "I can spare an hour before I need to sleep."

Mirabel chuckled and rolled her eyes. "That's not really what I meant, but I gladly spend seven minutes in heaven with you before you need to sleep."

Perhaps that was a reference that I didn't understand, because she laughed when I said that I could keep her pleased for more than seven minutes.


I don't have much to say, except that there's only one more chapter and an epilogue left :( I can't believe that it's soon over... It was a big step for me to post something I wrote on this site and I'm so happy that all you guys have reviewed! It has really kept me going, thank you!

Have a good weekend!

Love, Zeraphime