What little myortva there was in the mouse’s body was rapidly spoiling.

It wouldn’t have mattered either way. He wasn’t focused. His face was screwed up entirely, and his hand was squeezing the mouse so hard I expected to see blood start leaking out between his knuckles.

“You should go,” I said after a while. “You’re too wound up. I’ll stay here; you go find your father.”

“No.”

“If you’re worried I’m gonna do something, I’ll just go sit with Fedya.”

He wound up and threw his fist forward.

I winced as the mouse flew over my shoulder and hit the wall behind me. Its little body tumbled to the ground with barely a thump. “Where is it?”

“Where’s what?”

“I don’t feel it! The energy you’re talking about. You’re fucking with me! You’re trying to make me feel stupid.”

I leaned back, trying to get out of range of the spit flying from his mouth.

“You already drained it, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t.”

“If you didn’t then you’re dumber than a box of rocks and I don’t need help from idiots.”

“I guess I’m dumb, then.”

“Don’t fuck with me. Just show me what you can do. What can you do with that mouse, huh?”

“I—”

“Come on.” He grabbed my wrist. “I want to see it.”

“Get your hands off me.” I wrested my arm back from him.

“Just do it.” He pushed me in the chest.

“I don’t have any,” I said, struggling to keep my tone even.

“Well go, then.” He jabbed his finger over my shoulder. “It’s right over there. Show me how it’s done.”

I really wanted to. I didn’t want to do it because he told me to, but I really wanted to do it.

We stared at each other for a moment, unblinking. I got up, slowly, sure he was going to hit me as soon as I turned around—not that he needed to wait; he’d pretty thoroughly proven he could overpower me without the aid of dirty tricks—but he didn’t move. Didn’t make a sound. The floorboards sounded like they were screaming as I walked to the wall and stooped down to pick up the tiny, battered body. Its energy was so weak now it made me sad, just a little fluttering force struggling to maintain itself, to free itself.

I let it in. A little cold stream like mice feet scampering up my arm, curling in my chest. It was happy to have found a home, I thought. Almost a shame to force it back into the lonely world so soon.

But when I turned back to Anton Pavlovich, the baleful look was gone from his face, the coiled-up posture was shaking.

I let my arm hang down at my side, and the husk that had been a mouse fell from my hand. I couldn’t just punch him in the nose with dead mouse energy when he was sitting there crying.

“Well?” he said, voice breaking. “Are you gonna do it or not?”

I shook my head.

“Cause there’s not any left! Cause you already took it, and you just wanted to make me look like a fool.”

I put my arm out to my side and pushed half the energy out, tossing the chair Pavel Viktorovich always sat in across the room. It clattered against the opposite wall.

“Fuck you!” he spat.

I went and lay down on the bed. If he wanted to throw a tantrum, he could. I didn’t have to be his perfect audience.

I listened to him breathing raggedly for a while. Then, finally, he said, “He's always out there.”

I didn’t know what I was supposed to say to that, so I just rolled over.

“He’s out there, and I don’t know what Grisha’s telling him or what he’s going to do this time.”

“So go out there,” I muttered, face half-buried in the mattress.

“It doesn’t make any difference. Even if I know what he’s doing, it’s not like I can do anything about it. He’ll go out and do what he’s gonna do, and every single time, I think he’s never gonna come back.”

“I thought you believed in it, too.”

“I do, but that doesn’t mean I want my dad to die! And with you volshebniks involved, there’s no way we’re not gonna die. Any day now. All of us, eventually. And I can’t do a fucking thing about it. I can’t protect my family. That’s what all of this is about, do you understand that, Iyu Aksanevich? It’s about protecting families, but I’m fucking useless, we’re all fucking useless when you get right down to it, as long as there are people like you around. My dad thought this was the only way to get any attention, to get anything done. He said the only way you’ll listen is if we have something you want. But you’re not going to listen, you’re just going to kill us. And he says you can’t kill all of us, so he keeps going out to evangelize, and I don’t know if he’s lying or he’s stupid because of course you can kill all of us.”

I had sat up at some point in the middle of this speech, and when he turned to me, his hair was stuck to his face. His eyes were red but dry.

“I shouldn't even say this to you; what the fuck do you care? You don’t understand. My dad thinks you can cause you didn’t grow up like the rest of them. He thinks you can understand what it’s like to be in our position, but how can you know what this feels like?” He put his fingers in his chest, and from across the room, I could feel his knuckles digging in. “To be so completely helpless.”

“I can,” I said.

“We never had a choice. For generations and generations and generations. Nothing has ever been our choice. My father says even if we all die it’s been worth it because at least we chose this. The funny thing is, if we die, then we become more power for you, don’t we? More dead energy. Why? Who made life like this; if we were born to be lesser than you, who would have made us capable of desire, who would’ve made us want more, who would’ve made us capable of suffering? If we’re capable of all this, we must be capable of more. We don’t feel any less than you do; I know we don’t; you would go insane if you felt any more than this; I feel so much it’s like my mind is on fire all the time. I can barely breathe, every day, I can barely breathe. So I know I am as human as you are; I know I am capable of everything you are, and I know I can learn. I have to learn. I have to do this. I have to make this worth it. I have to prove it.”

When he was done talking, he shuddered, and then sat up straight and closed his eyes. I knew without asking he was trying again. Emptying.

“And what are you going to do if it works?” I asked.

“Protect my family. Teach others,” he said without opening his eyes, and suddenly I remembered the feeling of a cold tendril wrapping around my neck, something heavy lodged in my palm, my own living, electric energy leaving me. I could feel it as it entered Sanya. For a second, I was still connected to it. For a second, I was a part of him, we were the same. For a second, it was like I was more than one person, that I could be more than my own worries, my own narrow life.

What more could we do, if we only tried?

I got up off the bed. Antosha didn’t move as I sat down opposite him.