I wasn’t allowed to enjoy breakfast. As soon as Rizor Cirkul and I signed the most ridiculous contract of my life, the room was flooded with doctors. The screens were removed, allowing the sunlight to touch my skin, and it turned out that the president’s son was sleeping in the next bed.

As I was tactfully informed, our lives are now linked. If I’m killed, the bomb goes off, Cirkul Jr. dies. If he’s killed, I’ll have to carry his corpse around all the time until it decomposes, and eventually the bomb will detonate anyway when Grant’s tissue rots.

So we had to wait for the great military scientists of Unica to find a safe way to remove the collar from my neck.

Meanwhile, they examined me thoroughly, pulled up my medical records, and read my medical history. I appeared to be the healthiest I had ever been, and the president breathed a sigh of relief, as though he feared that I had a bunch of contagious diseases that I might pass on to his son.

But, finally, the annoying people in white coats got away from me. There was peace and quiet in the room again. Rizor walked over to Grant’s bed, crouched on the edge, ran his hand over the boy’s forehead, and there was so much fatherly love in that gesture and gaze that I felt envious.

I turned aside, as my own soul strings were unable to bear the touching picture. In my mind, the president was supposed to remain a ruthless tyrant, whom I would have gladly killed, thinking myself a hero-liberator. I didn’t need the extra points on my conscience account that would then prevent me from dying in peace.

“Grant, come back.”

The air reeked of magic, and I wanted to run away, but for obvious reasons, every step brought me closer to death. So I froze in place, squeezing my eyes shut, trying to survive the wave of fear that came over me when I realized the president’s magic. There had long been rumors about the head of the country’s unusual powers, but I could not believe that they were true. Until now.

Now I understood why our president was Rizor Cirkul. It so happened that the scarier the magic flowed in the blood of aristocrats, the higher positions they held in society. The magic of Oblivion was told to children in a way that made even the adults stammer.

But to witness the president use the power on his own son was beyond me. Such a thing was seldom seen in the most elaborate fantasies of horror writers. The spell of Oblivion was impossible to suppress, impossible to remove, and the only person who could get rid of it was the one who had cast it. But the slightest change, a disruption in the magical currents, turned the person under the spell into a monster, a creature that few could manage to kill.

And I wondered why, with all the commotion in the room when I was being examined, the black-haired guy slept as if he’d been deaf from birth. Now I had even more reason to send Rizor Cirkul to the afterlife. He himself had sent his son to the Fringe, from which one rarely returns.

“Father?” a sleepy voice called out. “How much did I sleep?”

“Twenty-seven hours, Grant. I’m glad you’re all right.”

The president stood up, grabbed a pile of papers that were on the nightstand, and already at the exit he stopped for a few seconds. “Get ready. Both of you. We’re leaving in twenty minutes.”

“Where to?” the young guy raised himself on his elbows.

“To the Clyde Estuary.”

Only when the door closed did Grant lean back on the bed with a groan and cover his eyes with his hand.

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“I don’t want to interrupt you from doing nothing, but I need clothes...”

The guy looked at me with a disgruntled look. “What’s your name?”

“You can call me Siri.”

“Grant.”

“If I said it was a pleasure to meet you, I’d be shamelessly lying.”

He showed me a venomous smile in return. “Likewise. It’s very unpleasant for me to meet you, too.”

“So, what? Should I go in my hospital pajamas?”

The guy shrugged his shoulders, but still reluctantly got out of bed and walked to the door, asking the bodyguard for clothes, which were very quickly brought.

I eagerly pulled a black dress and tights out of the paper bag. I wanted to get rid of the uncomfortable hospital gown and shorts as soon as possible. But I wasn’t happy with the color. It looked like a funeral outfit.

I was already reaching for the buttons, but came to my senses just in time. “Why don’t you leave the room?”

I turned around as I didn’t hear the answer, and caught Grant Cirkul’s curious gaze. The guy let out a chuckle when he met my glance, but I quickly shifted my attention from his laughing black eyes to the clothes in my hand.

He raised his head to the ceiling and asked, “What haven’t I seen there?”

“Still, go away! And don’t peek. I am not feeling at ease.”

I turned away and walked to the window. Grant laughed mockingly at me. “Mind you, the windows in the room don’t open. And yes, you have two minutes.”

“I’m not going to repeat myself, there are many other ways to death!” His tone infuriated me, so I didn’t hold back, but the end of my tirade was already blurred with the sound of the closing door.

Yet this Grant Cirkul... is handsome like an angel, but his character is nasty as hell.

I changed quickly, the only problem was the zipper, which didn’t want to go all the way up. The dress was a little tight in the chest, but it hung baggy on my hips. I put my hair in a more or less normal state, braided it, and looked at my feet – they didn’t give me shoes, so I had to stay in my hospital light green flip-flops.

The door opened again, the president’s son looked me over from top to bottom once more, and then held out the metal chain with a smile, “It’s exactly ten meters.”

I stared in horror at the thread of tiny links gleaming in the sunlight, and backed away to the window. “I’m not wearing this.”

“You’ll have to,” said the guy with an anticipatory smile and caught my glance, forcing every cell of my body to calm down and obey.

I tried to throw off the magical hypnosis, but after a couple of seconds it became so unimportant that I slowed down, watching apathetically as the young man was approaching to me.

My back thumped against the cool wall. There was nowhere else to go, and I seemed to have forgotten why I was running away. With a contented look, Grant hooked my collar and held the carabiner up to the ring that was attached to the leather rim of my ‘garrotte’. The lock clicked, and the cold metal of the links burned the skin of my collarbone.

The guy let go of the chain on the floor, leaving only the end, which he clipped to the bracelet on his wrist.

“See? To keep things fair,” he raised his palm in front of my face to show off.

“Where’s the fairness in that? Why can’t I have a bracelet like yours?”

“For you to know your place,” uttered he, glaring at me contemptuously.

I clenched my hands into fists, calming and trying to contain myself. It wasn’t news that the golden young aristocrats, born with a silver spoon, thought of the rest of the people as servants and slaves. They had been brought up that way, instilled with the idea of their importance and superiority from birth, which meant they were hardly guilty of anything – the cost of upbringing and ignorance.

But I was all cringing with disgust at the platinum son as he was wrapping the chain around his fingers, shortening the potential distance between us.

“Let’s go,” he yanked the ‘leash’ lightly, causing me to bow my neck and run a few steps.

But nope... my vanished rage returned with reinforcements.

I stood up like a stone statue, resisting the pressure.

“I am a free person and my own mistress. I won’t listen to your orders.”

“Well, what do you want?” he asked tiredly.

“A normal attitude.”

Grant furrowed his brow, but immediately regained his placid mood and said with feigned politeness, “Dear Siri, please come with me to the elevator. If my father doesn’t see us soon, he’ll strangle you himself for your sluggishness.”

“I don’t think so,” I grinned softly, taking the boy by the elbow and rushing to the door, happy to have been heard.

I rejoiced deep in my soul, savoring with anticipation the future in which I kill the president and fulfill my revenge. Tomorrow didn’t seem so bad.

But only until my gaze lingered on the calendar hanging over the front desk. My heart skipped a beat when I recalled the recent sad events. It had been precisely three days since the president’s memorable speech about the closing of Virtul.