by Anna Bright
I’d hardly allowed myself to contemplate what I’d do when I reached the top of the stairs. My hands shook, hovering over the dial.
I needed to hail the Beholder. I needed to reach out to my friends at Asgard and to Winchester. I needed to make contact with the resistance and plead for their aid.
My heart urged me to search first for Torden, and that decided it. But I didn’t know what frequency Asgard would use to communicate, if they were using radios at all.
I had to try. I switched the radio on and began slowly, slowly, to scroll.
Voices rolled past me like waves on the ocean. I closed my eyes and strained my ears, searching for the sounds of the Norsk words I wish I knew better.
I searched from one end of the spectrum to the other, and heard no trace of them.
I steeled myself and tried another tack. Fritz and Gretel had communicated via a channel not far from my godmother’s; I would search for them there. I turned the dial gradually, holding my breath.
But there was nothing.
I was entirely alone.
Hopelessness pooled in the pit of my stomach. Without knowing what channel England or Norge or the resistance used, I couldn’t reach them. The radio was useless to me as a tool to escape.
Slowly, I unbound my tangled hair, unbraided Torden’s ring from where it was hidden. I slid it on and off my finger for a few long moments, trying not to cry.
I dared remain only a few more minutes. Escape denied me, I chose comfort. I turned the dial one more time.
“Godmother Althea?” I asked the air. “Godmother, are you there?”
There was a sound like a snap and a creak, and I jumped. But Baba Yaga’s room was still quiet.
“Selah?”
I turned back to the radio, my blood surging. “Perrault?” I demanded, falling to my knees. I should have realized my own radio would still be tuned to the channel my godmother had chosen. “Perrault, is that you?”
“Oh, heaven,” Perrault blurted raggedly. “You’re alive.”
“Just barely.” My voice was grim. “Perrault, I don’t have long. Where are you?”
“We’re in Asgard.” His voice broke. “Selah, I feared you were dead.”
I couldn’t tell him I’d had to buy this time with blood.
“You made it?” I breathed.
“We repaired here after leaving Shvartsval’d. It seemed the safest place to be while we sorted out how to free you,” Perrault said. “We’re not in the fortress itself; Alfödr wouldn’t let us remain there. We’re at the outpost he’s building, a place called Flørli. He’s built a forge here, and a radio tower.”
The tower. Of course.
“Perrault, did you have any luck?” I asked. “Were you able to speak to Konge Alfödr and King Constantine about what happened?”
It felt shameful to beg. But Cobie was not fighting out beneath the full moon so I could cling to my pride.
I had sworn to myself that we would lose no more blood in this house. And tonight, I had failed at keeping that promise. I would not let it go unkept again.
Perrault cleared his throat. “I tried, Seneschal-elect. The English court has moved to London for the autumn; King Constantine did not look kindly on attempts to pull them into a war he wants no part of.”
The English king’s unwillingness to engage did not surprise me. So many months ago, Constantine and Bertilak and I had talked of Saint George and his dragon and the chasm between the old tale and the way they told it now. The Saint George of old had ridden abroad, searching for dragons to slay.
He had been a meddler. He had learned better.
The Saint George of Constantine’s England remained at home. He defended his own and did not trouble that which was not his. Of course he would not ride across a continent and invite trouble when none stood at his door.
“And Alfödr?” I asked.
“He’s not a trusting man.” Perrault’s voice wavered. “I’m trying, Selah.”
These were grand requests to tenuous contacts, in far-flung places—and most of them bore me little love.
My hope was a shallow little well.
“I know. I know. Thank you,” I said quickly. “How is Torden? Have you spoken to my godmother?”
Perrault took a long breath. “I’ve spoken to Sister Althea. She’ll be relieved to hear you’re not—that you’re well,” he corrected hastily. “She said nothing of your father, but I will ask for an account of his condition.”
“Yes, please. And my stepmother, and the baby. And—Torden?” I closed my eyes.
“He isn’t here,” Perrault said. I could picture my sometime protocol officer, his head cocked to one side, his dark eyes probing. “Alfödr won’t disclose where he’s gone, but I suspect he’s made his way to Iceland. I heard the king speak of it one night just after we arrived.” Hodr, Torden’s youngest brother, was being kept in Iceland. Torden was a devoted brother; it made sense he would go.
“Thank you for being there, Perrault,” I said into the quiet. “Thank you for being there when I needed to speak to someone.”
“I keep the radio with me all the time. Just in case.” There was no charm or pride in his voice. “I helped her force you from home. So it’s my job to bring you back.”
“Your job?” I laughed. So many people were more to blame than Perrault for my present circumstances.
“He’s reeling, Selah,” Perrault said quietly, and I knew he meant Lang. “I didn’t know what his plans were before, but he didn’t expect them to go so badly wrong.”
I touched my mouth, thinking of Lang’s kiss goodbye, remembering how long it had been since I’d felt his eyes on me. Then something snapped in me.
Lang was reeling? I was the one who’d been carried off by the tsarytsya’s Wolves. I was the one hiding out while Cobie paid for my loss with her own blood.
I shook myself. I had no time for pettiness.
“One more thing, Perrault,” I said. “Speak to Fritz. He’ll be using a frequency not far from this one. See if he’s spoken to Gretel on our behalf—or perhaps you’ll reach Gretel herself. Tell them—” I swallowed, thinking hard.
Of the stolen children in their ranks down below. Of the murdered men and women we’d seen on the Gray Road and here in Baba Yaga’s house.
Escape would mean safety for my friends and me, but for no one else I’d seen suffering.
It felt too small a hope. I wanted more.
“Tell them that the city will be in chaos on the night of the eclipse. It’s some major event in four weeks. If you work with them, and any resources Alfödr will give you, we might have a chance.”
A chance of what, I didn’t say. My wants were too large, too high, too great.
“I will search for them,” Perrault vowed.
He would try. And I would try. I would plead with every friend I had, grasp at every chance I saw.
Baba Yaga had achieved her position by taking. And Alessandra had done the same: she had taken our mortal enemy and made of her a tool.
And I had been watching them. I had learned from the best, the most cunning, the most vicious: I would mimic them, and befriend everyone they had wronged, and make of us a force to be reckoned with.
I bid Perrault farewell and returned the radio to its original frequency and switched it off. When I’d bound up my hair and the ring again, I left the tower, the din inside its walls rising once more.
The soldiers on the stairs stared at me in curiosity or blood-drunk lechery as I left the tsarytsya’s rooms. I dipped my head, looking meek as a lamb, giving no hint of what I’d been up to.
But I was living among Wolves. And I was learning how to behave like a Wolf myself.
44
I could have worn a path in the kitchen floor with my pacing. When Cobie and Anya returned, I nearly lunged at them.
“Are you all right?” I blurted. I hovered over Cobie, taking in the blood and dirt on her shift, her scraped knees, the cut on her cheek.
“She’s
all right.” Anya guided Cobie to the hearth. “Just took a few knocks to the head.”
Cobie had told me she didn’t want me to see her fight, and I wondered if I should bite back my questions and spare Cobie their answers. But I couldn’t bear not to know. Not when tonight was my fault.
“Did you—did you have to kill anyone?” I asked gravely.
Cobie laughed, sounding dazed. “No. He wasn’t a very interesting fighter, and he didn’t expect me to be, either.”
I swallowed. “Did you win?”
The corner of Cobie’s mouth curved. “Yes.”
“Did he have a knife, too?” I asked.
“He had three,” Anya said.
I stared between them. We were lucky Aleksei had visited that afternoon.
“Did you get through to anyone?” Anya suddenly asked.
“Yes.” I nodded eagerly. “I spoke to Perrault.”
Anya’s brow creased. “Perrault? Not—”
“No.” I cut her off, my cheeks flaming. I tried to imagine Lang contacting Bear for help, or Torden’s brothers, and found I couldn’t.
Quickly, I related what Perrault and I had discussed—King Constantine’s reticence, Perrault’s pleading our case to Konge Alfödr and Fritz. “They’re with your father,” I finished, nodding to Anya. “I made the best use of the quiet that I could.” I paused. “And speaking of making use of the quiet—”
I slipped into the laundry and pried the loose stone from the floor. When I returned, I spread over the hearth the paper we’d copied and cradled the book in my hands, feeling the cloth of the spine, the foil smooth beneath my fingers. My throat tightened; it had been so long.
The book felt like strength in my palms.
“All right,” I said. “Anya, you couldn’t read the numbers—but can you write the alphabet?”
Anya frowned. “I think so.” She took the pencil we’d stolen and copied the letters out, slow and careful.
When she was done, I set to work.
The first line on the paper read Верхній Північний. I didn’t even know what sounds the word would make, and some of the letters looked nearly alike. But I found first one letter in Anya’s alphabet, and then another, and then I began to flip through the book in my hands, sifting through the symbols one at a time.
I ran my finger over the translation. “This word”—I pointed to Верхній—“in Yotne translates to ober in Deutsch.”
Cobie stared at me. “You found a dictionary.”
I nodded. “A translation dictionary. There wasn’t one that translated Yotne to English, but there was one for Yotne and Deutsch. If you know these Deutsch words, we can use it to translate this column.”
“Upper,” Cobie said, nodding, surprised and eager. “Ober means ‘upper,’ or ‘high.’”
Elation buzzed in my veins. “Okay.” I flipped tentatively through the pages again, my eyes cutting back and forth between the alphabet and the column of words and the dictionary. Північний translated to nördlichen in Deutsch—“northern.”
“Upper Northern!” Anya proclaimed, triumphant.
One line in the column. One line after another.
Even racing against time in Baba Yaga’s room, Anya had copied the report carefully. But though we were able to translate most of the words, we still didn’t know what the document meant. My euphoria began to evaporate, leaving disappointment in its wake.
Upper Northern 18,693
13,483
11,161
Northwestern 6,294
3,449
2,978
Far Western 5,922
1,121
Near Western 3,292
2,254
Southwestern 1,985
1,144
898
Mediterranean 2,439
1,080
Eastern 1,548
828
653
Far Eastern 1,025
825
Central 1,850
1,203
858
“Well, we’ve established it’s probably not money. Could they be . . . distances? Between . . .” I racked my brain. “Between military outposts?”
Cobie chewed her lip. “The Imperiya Yotne stretches west of old Deutschland and well into the Ranneniy Shenok—almost to Alyaska. It could be.”
“And the words were scattered more or less evenly across the map,” I added. “The way you’d space garrisons.”
But Anya shook her head. “Still, it’s too few. Nine fortresses in the whole Imperiya?”
I sat back, dispirited.
Were we just pretending to be spies? Pretending that anything we could learn here would matter?
Something dark and doubtful whispered it was far likelier we would live in the tsarytsya’s kitchens until someone Perrault contacted deigned to rescue us. Or until we were forced to fight in her ring again, and our luck ran out.
We got ready for bed a little diminished, washing Cobie’s cuts and scrapes with lye and water and binding them up. Then we climbed onto the hearth, utterly exhausted, poured out like water as we were every other day.
Someone entered the kitchen as we lay down.
I shot up, and Anya behind me.
Aleksei lifted his pale face. It was streaked with tears. “You were right,” he said, crossing the threshold. “You were all right.”
45
I stiffened, fearing Anya would do as she had done the first time she saw him at the tsarytsya’s table. Run at him, claws out, snarling.
But she took one look at Aleksei’s face, streaked with tears, pale with horror, and rushed to his side. “What’s wrong?” Her hand was tense on his arm.
“Don’t,” he groaned, pulling away. “I don’t deserve it.”
“Aleksei?” Cobie sat up, voice cautious. “What happened?”
Anya’s brother wiped his eyes on his sleeve. I could hear his teeth grinding in his mouth. “The little pestykk—the children,” he said. “What happened tonight—”
“You mean forcing children to beat one another senseless?” Cobie said sharply. “That’s your job, Rankovyy. You were so proud of it before.”
“I wasn’t,” Aleksei said, shaking his head. His eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed, as if he’d been drinking or crying, or perhaps both. Aleksei convulsed, then dashed for the scraps bucket in the corner, evacuating his stomach in low, choking gasps.
He was a horrible sight.
Anya bit her lip as he sat beside her on the hearth. “Why, Aleksei? Why did you take the position?”
“To prove I belonged here,” he said. “Because if I don’t belong here, I don’t belong anywhere.”
Aleksei had set out, as I had, unwanted at home, as I had been. He had thought he knew what to expect at Stupka-Zamok, as I had.
We’d both had our expectations set afire before our eyes.
“It wasn’t your idea to make the children fight, was it?” Anya began, uncertain. “If you didn’t propose it, then it’s not your—”
“No.” Aleksei cut her off swiftly. “I didn’t. But don’t make excuses for me, Anya. I’m guilty. I’m sick to death at myself.” He passed a hand over his dark hair, tugging the white band off his brow and looking as if he wished to toss it into the flames.
“You chose which children would fight,” I said. I tried to keep the accusation from my voice, but we had witnessed a horror.
Aleksei nodded, eyes on the bricks. “She had told me I had to. I tried—” He broke off, and I feared he’d retch again. “I hoped it’d be like sparring at home. I chose two friends. I hoped they’d be gentler with each other. Fairer. But this place ruins everything.”
“You tried,” Anya whispered.
It was strange to see Anya so changed in the space of a few hours. But if the Asgard siblings fought hard, they forgave quickly—especially if one of them was in pain.
But Aleksei refused to be comforted. “No. I knew. I knew it wouldn’t be like home,” he said, wincing at some
invisible pain. “You tried to tell me what this place would be like. What kind of childhood Pappa spared me. What I’d be joining, if I joined them. And I could’ve stood up to her. I could have said no.”
Home. Pappa.
His heart was in Asgard again, as mine had been all along.
“So leave,” I said in a low voice. “Leave this place. You aren’t a prisoner. You can go home if you want.”
Aleksei smiled pityingly. “Ever the hopeful one, Selah.”
“Now is not the time to feel sorry for yourself,” Cobie snapped. Then she closed her eyes, softening ever so slightly. “I’m sorry. But you have freedom here. You can walk around unquestioned. You can get word to your father. You can get us out of here.”
“Pappa will take you back,” Anya urged him. “He’ll just be glad to have you home.”
“At the very least, he’ll take your information,” Cobie added. “You speak Yotne. I’m sure you’ve learned things here worth bargaining with.”
Aleksei raised his eyebrows, wry. “And, Cobie, ever the whimsical optimist.”
Yotne. My mind worked slowly, then stilled. “You speak Yotne!”
I dashed away to the laundry, hearing Aleksei’s question and Anya’s murmured explanation as I scrabbled for our dictionary and paper. But once I laid hands on them, I paused.
Could we really trust Aleksei?
He mourned the events of the night; that, I believed. But would he get over his tears tomorrow? Would he change his mind as abruptly as he had so many times before?
Would we come to regret putting our faith in Torden’s most unpredictable brother?
I forced the thoughts away. We had few enough allies here. We couldn’t afford to question each other.
When I returned with the paper, Aleksei was waiting.
“Tell me what you make of this,” I said.
Aleksei studied our translation, squinting once or twice at Anya’s rendering, pale fingers a little shaky around the paper. “Where did you get this?” he asked, tone bare with shock.
