"Magic? What frigging magic?" Volya sputtered. "I thought it was a science experiment that went all wrong. Like in 'Professor's Dowell's Head'."

"Whose head?" Anabelle asked, tilting her head to one shoulder. She had just hit Volya between the eyes with a revelation of a century, but was ready to switch the topic on a drop of a pin.

He wasn't.

"Doesn't matter whose head, okay?" Volya said. 

Liam looked at him curiously, but Volya just scoffed. Nobody in America would know the story, and Volya didn't fancy enlightening them. Liam and him grew up reading different stuff, and that was that.

"Can we please rewind back to that magic exists bit?" Volya pleaded.

"What, you don't believe in magic, Volya?" Anabelle whispered, her eyes staring at him in absolute fascination. "From all people, you should."

Who was he, Harry-frigging-Potter? He wondered if there was any point to closing his mouth. His jaw dangled every second in this company. Million of the follow-up questions swarmed in his mind, but they'd run out of the secluded trail. The main house lumbered before them across the meadow and the parking lot.

They couldn't loiter either, because the chief mad scientist daSilva stood outside the wide-flung doors to the corner room, the same room where Volya had found Liam playing his heart out just an hour ago. DaSilva shaded his eyes against the sun with one hand. The other one waved for them to hurry up. They sped up their steps.

To Volya's chagrin, the inside now buzzed with lights and activity, rather than Liam's turbulent music. People moved around the huge table, loading breakfast plates from the steaming trays brought out by a white-aproned house-keeper.

In addition to daSilva, Volya picked out Lydia's willowy figure, then Damir. The man splayed in his chair, as far from Marina as possible.

Also present in the room were two other women, and one other man. Those three didn't come out to greet Liam and company the previous night, so Volya hadn't met them before.

Presided by Lydia, the gathering seemed to be engaged into a companionable conversation, with good-natured jabs, eye-rolls and shrugs between chewing pastries and sipping coffee. They totally looked like a team from some Marvel movie, about to pull a maybe-scientific, maybe-magic breakthrough out of a hat.

While Volya gawked at the scientists from the parking lot, Anabelle went up the ramp leading to the doors, leaving Liam and him alone for a second. Volya grabbed Liam's wrist. The last surge of hope swelled in his heart: please, let it be some prank that these eccentric rich people set up. Some elaborate cosplay. He wouldn't even care if he was their entertainment, though if the Americans had to import random Russian teens to prank them, the future didn't look too bright.

"Liam, please, is this some sort of a prank?" he inquired via the translating app.

"No," Liam said at the same time as Volya's inner voice stirred from its slumber to also say, This is real. They know who you are.

Well, that made... ah... Volya did a quick head count. That made nine of them. Ten, if he included the obnoxious incorporeal voice in his head. Because he still didn't have a clue what this centaur-and-academic mix had to do with him.

"Liam, what does this have to do with me?"

Everything, the voice gloated. Everything. Volya couldn't believe he'd actually missed the incorporeal pest.

Liam glanced quickly at Marina and tucked his phone away. He wasn't as fearless as Volya had imagined him, only practical. Not that Volya could blame him. Marina could teach classes on chewing men out and she had expressly forbidden using the translation app. She'd probably wanted them to talk in signs and grunts until he soaked up enough English.

Slowly, searching Volya's face, Liam said in English, "We believe that you can find a way to turn Anabelle back. To normal."

Volya nodded, like I can understand you. Then he realized that his nod could be interpreted as, no problem, I turn centaurs into girls daily. It's a little hobby of mine.

He shook his head like a dog with a wasp in its ear. "I can't!"

"Not yet," Liam said.

Things clicked in place in Volya's head. "Wait. I'm the breakthrough? My genes?"

Seeing Volya freeze to one spot, goggling and processing, Liam patted his shoulder. "Please, keep your mind open."

"I will," Volya promised God knows in which tongue, and God knows why. Liam pushed him to do strangest things. He didn't know how to express himself in words, so he hoped that his building out eyes and strangled noises did the job of conveying his sentiments. I will keep my mind open, but this is crazy, Liam. Totally crazy.

Liam smiled after taking in his pantomime. Then he followed his half-sister's progress into the den with an adoring gaze, tinged by sadness. There was no two ways about it--the siblings obviously bickered 24/7, but they were devoted to one another.

"Let's go, Volya," he said and followed Anabelle.

About half-way up the ramp Liam stopped and beaconed Volya, who still shuffled from foot to foot at the parking lot. "Don't be afraid."

"I'm not afraid." Volya straightened and lifted his chin. Looked up, so he'd meet every glance that would stop at him squarely. He walked to Liam, waiting for him in the doorways, on the balls of his feet. He was not afraid.

However, he stopped again at the threshold of the room.

Anabelle settled at the head of the huge table, between Lydia and another woman. She tucked her four long legs under smartly, like she had been doing it for years. To Volya's eyes, she looked no different from a teen girl sitting on a chair. What did he expect? That her loving mother and brother would keep her as a pet or abandon her to run wild? That wasn't how their family operated... unlike his.

Liam, who progressed a few steps into the room, backtracked. "Volya?"

"Keep my mind open. Okay. I can do that," he muttered. "I can do that."

Liam's palm pressed on Volya's shoulder, warm and real, urging him to go inside and mix with the team. "That's all I ask."

"My mind is so open, it's practically empty."

They stepped over the threshold together, but Marina took charge of introductions in her usual efficient manner, separating him from Liam.

The woman next to Anabelle answered to June, providing she could be torn away from her cellphone and the shoulder of her neighbor, Dr. Shanti Sangha.

Whenever June looked up, her dark eyes, upturned at the corners, wandered absently, and her bow-lips moved to some inner thoughts. Or counting seconds until she could dip her head again to hide under the thick midnight-black bangs.

Other than the bangs, June's haircut was boyish, bristling behind the ears and at the nape of her neck. June was the tech whiz of the company, and completely immune to the lunacy of the rest.

June's wife, Dr. Sangha, was the testimony to the old adage that the opposites attract. Her voice was nasal and supportive, and her charm was warm, zeroing without fail on whoever stood in front of her.

She studied Volya head to toe, apologizing for overt professional interest she had in him. Her laughter was throaty, starting deep in her matronly chest. Something about her reminded him of the cook at the orphanage, Baba Masha.

"I wear a few hats, my dear, just like everyone on our team. We're too small to specialize too much," Sangha said.

He nodded, not knowing what else to do, though the room seemed plenty crowded to him.

"I'm a psychologist and a physician when necessary. Renato seduced me with biophysics and the neural interface construction for this project. You'll see, you'll see."

"Yeah, for sure," Volya said, like he was a specialist in neural interfaces and couldn't wait to dive into biophysics.

Next, Sangha apologized for her inane curiosity, but promptly succumbed to it. She walked him to the window to check his eyes—sensational, she had called them, simply sensational. Marina faithfully trotted along to translate, because God forbid Volya had missed out on a single drop of embarrassment.

"Fascinating, fascinating," Sangha murmured and Marina translated, while Volya fidgeted. "Renato, you snooze, you lose! Come and see this color."

Volya's throat made a little croak, but he couldn't escape without plowing through Sangha's matronly form.

So daSilva came over, took a peek into Volya's eyes and scratched his close-cropped beard. That done, the pair thankfully drifted away, arguing about spontaneous gene editing and living organisms' mutations.

Volya shook his head in dismay, but Marina didn't let him stay in his out-of-the-way spot by the window. She pushed him in front of the sinewy Asian man, the one who Volya hadn't met yet. He was so tall that he stooped and he sported an eclectic combination of crisp white shirt and glossy track pants. This Fashion-n-Function icon carried on about something to Damir.

Marina coughed to get his attention. "Volya, meet Dr. Vincent Young, archeologist and ethnographer."

"Oh, cool!" Volya said and lifted his brow at Damir.

Marina sighed. "Damir Abdarahimov is Dr. Young's research assistant."

The introductions were made in Russian, but Young smiled politely anyway after each remark.

"You're not a Doctor?" Volya asked Damir stupidly (and in Russian), after smiling back at Young and shaking hands with him. The question just popped out of his mouth. He would have regretted his rudeness, if the man didn't laugh heartily in response.

"I'm a late bloomer, my young friend," Damir replied, also in Russian. "But if you find yourself woefully short on Doctors, here is two-in-one for you." Damir pointed at Marina. "Dr. Marina Nesterova, comparative linguistics. Her second Doctorate is in archaeology, so she makes up for my shortcomings."

"Damir, enough," Marina waved her glossy manicure through the air. When someone mentions your graduate degrees, bite their head off. It's a totally proportional response. He'd do just that when he has his Ph.D.

Damir backpedaled to the table, grabbed a plate that was only slightly smaller than a wagon wheel and attacked the mountains of food. It was too bad. The guy seemed refreshingly sane and straightforward, he spoke Russian, so Volya wished he could pump him for information.

Alas, Volya got seated between Liam and Marina. His only consolation was that Liam found his hand under the table and covered it comfortingly. Volya didn't take his hand away, no matter how awkward it felt. So what if he had to lean low over his plate to shovel food into his mouth? He needed that warm touch to not lose his mind.

Liam limited himself to a cup of coffee, which he drank in tiny, infrequent sips. Whenever he put it down, his hand stroked Volya's. First time, Toshka's eyes swam up in Volya's memory and he'd nearly dropped his fork. Second time the tingling sensation spread over his skin and the twinge of shame couldn't overpower how much he enjoyed it. It's like guilt and lust lit up two fires under his ass, and he couldn't move without roasting over one or another.

Gradually, the conversation died down. The utensils came to rest on the napkins or empty plates. Fragrant steam curled over the frequently refilled cups of tea or coffee.

All the gazes turned on Volya. He shifted in his chair. Liam squeezed his fingers under the tablecloth.

Here it came, at long last, his explanation. And he couldn't stop it. Didn't want to, not really... yet his heart went weightless in his chest like a cosmonaut inside the space station.