Max stared at Kaandor with wide, frozen eyes. In that moment, he looked so much like his father that a chill ran through me. Assessing the situation, I stepped forward sharply and grabbed his forearm in a tight grip.
"Don't even think about running," I said flatly.
Max stiffened even more.
"How did you know?" he swallowed hard, as if disgusted with himself.
"You just reminded me too much of Vladimir."
Max gave a weak smile, taking the mention of the doctor as a compliment. If only he knew how deeply I despised—and feared—that man. In Max's eyes, Vladimir had been different: a mentor who helped him unlock his potential and guided him in his search for answers. To Vladimir, I was certain, Max had been nothing more than a lab animal—useful, encouraged, and easily manipulated into performing the right tricks.
"All right. All right," Max sighed. "Kaandor's right. This isn't my first encounter with the Darkness. During our research, Vladimir and I called it exactly that. Most of what Kaandor has told us is new to me too—but I have my own observations. The Darkness is a source of insane power. Power capable of changing the very nature of vampires and werewolves. It's a true solution to the thirst—and in your case," he glanced at me, "to the transformations. I tried to offer myself as its vessel. I just never imagined it would reach out to Viola by mistake."
"I swear, I didn't summon it today. The Darkness hasn't answered my call in ages."
"You offered yourself to it?"
"Yes. I even bear a mark, much like this one," he said, rubbing his shoulder almost absentmindedly. "But I'm not what the Darkness wants. I've never seen anything like what you described, never been inside it. All Vladimir and I managed was to draw a little energy during the summoning."
"For what purpose?"
Max glanced around the room, his eyes betraying a pain he tried to hide.
"I shouldn't say," he murmured.
"Max," Stas cut in, his tone firm. "Enough of that. Speak. No more family secrets."
Diana had completely shed the cheerful, easygoing friend I once knew. The corners of her mouth drooped sorrowfully, and with every new revelation from her beloved, it was as if invisible cracks snaked through her heart, leaving her raw and fractured. Max looked at her, and before speaking again, whispered with barely moving lips: "I'm sorry."
"Our father," he began gently, as gently as he could manage, "he's sliding slowly—like any weak-blooded one—into madness."
"Pfft, nonsense!" Stas snapped, cutting him off. "He's been around for centuries, and nothing—no signs of anything like that."
I could have argued with that.
"You haven't seen what I've seen. Seriously, he's bad, Stas. His mind slips away sometimes, but the episodes keep getting longer. One day, his essence will cross the line and won't be able to turn back without receiving blood from his creator."
"But he's never had the source at hand. Look how long Vladimir lasted without it! Things can't just suddenly change like that."
"They can. Vladimir has attacked me multiple times, not recognizing me. It was especially hard to hide his state from everyone in the fall. I missed a lot of classes, staying close, trying to help with magic. Some spells and potions helped, if only temporarily, but nothing lasted. Then came all this with Asya. Vladimir really tried to help her, attempting to neutralize the werewolf side with antidotes—but nothing worked. Even though you reached the Darkness, it didn't leave a mark on your skin. All the dark energy was absorbed by the curse someone—by accident or intent—placed on you. The Darkness touched the curse instead and began feeding it with its own energy. Having gorged itself, the curse gained real, physical form and began to grow."
"And it turned into a neon-pink snake that tried to tear me apart from the inside," I reminded them of the less-than-pleasant episode from my life.
Max snapped his fingers.
"Exactly. I still have no idea what the curse was before it met the Darkness—it changed too much under its power. Studying this entity is what led Vladimir and me to realize that the energy inside was unusual. Unnatural, if you believe Father. I tried to control it, to summon the Darkness to myself, but it was useless. Then Vladimir decided to be the test subject himself, trying the substance we carefully extracted on himself."
"And that didn't work either?" I asked when Max fell silent. I couldn't let him pause—I feared he was only revealing the tip of the iceberg. No matter how he viewed Father, I was searching for the deeper truth. It had to exist, with Vladimir involved in all this.
"Why not?" Max lowered his gaze. "It did work. But not in the way we expected. Father's thirst did recede, his mind began to return to clarity, but… he seems no longer himself, you see?"
Stas cleared his throat.
"He rewrote the house to me," he said.
The room froze, all eyes on him, and I couldn't blame them. Strange, when the "family nest" quietly passes to just one ward.
"That's a very, very bad sign," Max said aloud. Diana finally found her voice, thin but clear:
"No, Vladimir hasn't changed. I would have noticed."
Cold, domineering, and just as frightening as ever.
"You're simply his punching bag," Viola interjected sharply, showing her sister no mercy whatsoever. "As long as you let Father treat you like that and never bare your teeth, this will keep happening."
"This isn't about me," Diana said quietly. "It's about him."
I agreed with Diana. She didn't deserve to be treated that way. More than once, I'd unwillingly witnessed their interactions, and each time my stomach twisted into knots, filling me with dread—and, by contrast, making me doubly grateful to Kostya for being a wonderful father. In the conventional sense, Vladimir didn't love his children. He saw something important in them, something of value to himself, but even after nearly a year with this strange family, I still couldn't understand what it was.
"Please, don't start fighting over Father again, measuring who's tougher and who dominates whom," Stas said, rolling his eyes. To be honest, I didn't like how indifferent he sounded about Diana's problem. If she were my sister, I would have protected every single hair on her head and never agreed that her pain wasn't worth discussing.
"You shouldn't dismiss your sister's problems like that," I snapped, unable to hold back any longer. "Father constantly humiliates her, and you don't even want to listen to Diana?"
I knew that if I didn't address this now, I'd never truly be able to trust Stas. Sometimes, to understand what kind of person stands before you, it's enough to see how they treat their family. And if Stas didn't care about Diana's suffering—someone he'd known almost since birth—what could I expect for myself in the future? Yes, he was taciturn and supported me in his own way every time. But what if he simply devalued any emotional pain?
"I'm not dismissing anything," he replied quickly. "When I can, I stand up for her and talk to Vladimir one-on-one. The problem is that now isn't the time or place to revisit it—especially when the culprit isn't even here, and we have far more serious matters at hand."
His answer was reasonable enough for that small stone of doubt to finally slip from my chest.