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where to find him,” Maksim admitted, covering his face with his hands. He emerged a moment later to add, “And I am out of practice. At managing myself. I do not feel it coming in time to rein myself in, as you do. If I go about unleashed, I am afraid of what else I might do.”
    â€œCome on. I do stupid shit all the time, at least when I’m sober. And I’m half your age, anyway; it hasn’t hit me as much yet. But leaving that aside…” Gus said. “I want to know why you finally broke your streak. Why now. Why him, this fellow, and why can’t you find him?”
    â€œ Koldun’ia Iadviga died, and her enchantment was undone,” Maksim said. “Ill fate came upon me immediately. I think it has been waiting for me, ever since—”
    â€œEver since the thing you never talk about,” Gus said, crossing her arms over her chest and squeezing her elbows.
    â€œYes.” And for a moment, the memory roared over Maksim as it had not done in years: the red of it, the heat, the taste of gunmetal. He nearly gagged.
    Gus laid her hands carefully on the tabletop, where Maksim could see them. He wondered if he’d made a motion or a sound.
    â€œTake a sip,” she said. “Good. Another. Don’t worry, I won’t press you. We’ve gone this long without talking about it, haven’t we?”
    Maksim shook his head, pressed his lips against the glass.
    â€œWhatever it was,” Gus said, “it drove you to take the spell. Didn’t it? By the time I caught up with you that year, you were different. You were all bottled up. And now you’re not, and that should be good, only you don’t think so. Am I warm?”
    Maksim nodded.
    â€œTake another drink,” Gus said. “This would be so much easier if it were last century, wouldn’t it? We’d just get on a boat and go somewhere else for a while.”
    â€œNo boats,” Maksim said, hand tightening on his pint.
    â€œEasy. Easy. I already used up our glass quota here. No boats.”
    Maksim gulped back the contents of the glass and set it down hard. Gus slid it out of reach across the table. “This is weird for me,” she said. “You’re always the one who knows what to do.”
    Maksim shrugged one shoulder, hand twisting at the collar of his T-shirt.
    Gus blew out a breath and shrugged in turn. “One thing at a time, okay? Tell me about my brother.”
    Maksim drew a breath, felt it catch in his tight throat. He began, “I was running…”
    But that wasn’t right. That wasn’t the beginning. He had been running when he came across the young man, but he’d been running for a while by then, ceaseless and demanding. When had he left the house?
    He picked his way further through the slow backwash of his thoughts and said, “I was at my gym. Slavo—one of my students … we were working on his footwork. I thought he hit me. In the face. Lights flickered behind my eyes.” Maksim paused. Even as he said the words, he thought they were not right. Not lights but a burst of brilliant darkness. It had been similar to getting hit, but he had been hit many times in his long life, and he should have known the difference. He shook his head and went on, “I was angry with Slavo. My own fault, but I wanted to punish him. I sent him away instead. Made him leave without his shower. I went some rounds on the bag, but … I needed air. You remember how I used to run?”
    Gus nodded. She had seen him head out into the early mornings of three different continents and come back hours later, sweat-soaked and limping, all his temper bled right out of him. She had helped him bind his blistered feet now and then or ice his burning calves.
    Since coming to Toronto, Maksim had not needed it the same way, but he had kept it up nevertheless, if not as desperate or driven as before. He usually ran as if he were training for a