Page 83 of Cashmere Ruin

Everything that makes me lo?—

“It’s just this contest. I won’t win, so don’t worry. Actually, I’m not even sure I’ll turn in a piece after all.”

“Show me.”

April blinks. In the moonlight, her skin looks grayscale, almost like a statue. The kind of marble that can be made to look soft,but only after years of painstaking work. One stroke of the chisel at a time.

“Okay,” she says finally. Then she leads me to a mannequin. Her fingers hesitate over the drape. “It’s unfinished.”

“I know.”

“There’s still much to do.”

“April. Just show me.”

The drape comes down.

I’m not an appreciator of fine arts. Frankly, I never had the time. And fashion—I don’t understand it at all. I just buy whatever’s expensive enough, anonymous enough, to get me through a day of pretending to be someone I’m not: a respectable CEO, a self-made billionaire. Sheep’s clothing for the wolf within.

But even I can’t ignore this. “It’s…”

“It’s bad, right?” She shakes her head. “You’ve probably seen hundreds of dresses that look like this. I don’t know what I was thinking, I’ll?—”

“April.”

I put one hand on her shoulder, the other arm still cradling May. Like this, it’s even clearer: she’s ours. It’s in her jet-black curly hair, in the line of her nose and the shape of her chin, in dark freckles and snow-blue eyes. Pieces of me and pieces of April, sewn together into something new.

April looks up at me, lost. “Yes?”

“I’ve never seen a dress like this before.”

It’s the truth. I say it plainly, without the awe it deserves, but I do say it. I’m too much of a heathen to sing praises—to even understand what praises should be sung. And it’s never been my style to flatter, anyway.

But lately, I’ve been leaving too many of the right things unsaid. And I’m tired of only saying the wrong ones. I’m?—

Aren’t you tired of holding a grudge against the whole world?

Yes, Petra. Yes, I fucking am.

April smiles in response. But it’s a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, too weak to go anywhere. “Thanks.”

I try to kiss her, but she slips by. Like a ghost, or water, or a midnight mix of both.

All throughout dinner, she doesn’t glance at May once.

“Sir?”

I keep seeing it in my mind: April’s weak smile, her empty eyes.

“Sir…?”

It’s worse than a gaping wound; worse than a bleeding bullet hole. At least then, I’d know how to handle it. But how do I handlethis?

“Pakhan, are you listening…?”

How do I handle an evil I can’t see?

“Matvey.”