by Anna Bright
“Some papers in her room. What are the numbers?” I blurted. “Did we translate the words right?”
“More or less. I think—” Aleksei frowned, pushing a hand through his black hair. “But it doesn’t make any sense.” Quickly, we explained the route we’d taken from Yotne to Deutsch via the dictionary, then from Deutsch to English with Cobie’s help.
“And where did you get the—” He froze, seeing the volume in my hand. “Did you get the dictionary from her room, as well?”
I nodded, and he let out a slow breath.
“I need to think. Do some investigation of my own. But the tsarytsya will certainly know the book is missing,” he said. “You can’t be found with it, and you can’t risk returning it. You have to destroy it.”
Everything in me revolted at the idea. “What? No!”
Cobie and Anya exchanged a glance. “Selah, maybe we should,” Anya said tentatively.
“You cannot be found with this in your possession,” Aleksei said forcefully. “It is illegal property, and it is proof that the tsarytsya ignores her own law. She would put you to death without a second thought, regardless of whatever game she’s playing with you.”
My hands shook as they ran over its cover, an unfortunate mustard yellow, water-stained and spotted with age. But it was the only book I’d held in months. Just having it near had given me strength and comfort.
“I can’t even read it.” Tears sprang into my eyes. “But it felt like an advantage. Like a little bit of power to wield against all of hers.”
“That’s why she’s banned them.” Aleksei’s voice was dark. “If you have knowledge, you feel powerful, and you are powerful.”
“It made me think of another world,” I said, dragging my wrist across my eyes. “A place apart from her. That’s what’s anathema to her.”
No God but her. No story but the one she chose to tell. No world but the one she had built. And the poor little volume in my hand undermined it all.
Aleksei squeezed my elbow but didn’t speak. His mouth was a thin line in his bone-white, bone-thin face.
I thrust the book at him. “Here. I—can’t,” I said. “I know I should, but I can’t.”
Aleksei gave me a grim look, took the dictionary, and tossed it into the oven’s flames.
I wept silently as I watched it burn.
Anya hugged my head to her shoulder. “Don’t look, kultaseni. Don’t look at it.”
Kultaseni. She’d used the word before. She’d told us it meant “sweetheart” or “dear” in Suomi. Not quite elskede—“my love,” in Norsk.
Torden had called me that. Elskede.
The word had warmed me then. But it was a fire inside me now. I drew near it to keep from freezing.
O! Mo laoch mo ghile mear;
O! Mo ghaodhal, mo ghile mear;
Aon t-suan chum séin ní bh-fuaras féin;
Ó chuaidh a g-céin mo ghile mear!
My hero brave, mo ghile, mear,
My kindred love, mo ghile, mear;
What wringing woes my bosom knows,
Since cross’d the seas mo ghile, mear!
—John O’Tuomy
46
We trudged out of the basement heavy as the gray skies and the gray walls around us. A week had come and gone since I’d spoken with Perrault; most of Cobie’s scrapes and bruises had healed.
I’d slept poorly, dreaming of Potomac aflame and swallowed by Grandmother Wolf.
I followed the girls up the stairs, preparing myself to ignore the soldiers. The day before, Ivan had whistled and fanned himself as Anya walked past. The other soldiers had snickered and called out to her, and Anya’s smile had been furious, for anyone who looked and actually cared to see.
Today, I wouldn’t spare them even a glance. But when Anya dropped her breakfast tray, eyes on Ivan’s post, I was startled out of my resolve.
I blinked once. Twice. My heart began to beat like thunder, even as my breath hung in suspense.
Most of the guards at the door were the regulars—Ivan among them.
Torden Asgard was new to their number.
His beard was shaved. His hair was cut close to his skull and dyed a few shades lighter, and his tattoos were hidden beneath the hideous gray uniform he must have stolen off an Imperiya soldier’s back. But he was Torden.
My Torden. Elskede. My beloved, standing not ten feet away, here in Baba Yaga’s house.
Ivan stepped forward, helping Anya pick up the broken plates and scattered loaves of bread. He smiled and spoke to her in Yotne, and Anya didn’t avoid brushing against him as she gathered herself and rose.
I couldn’t stop staring at Torden. Whatever else about him was different, his brown eyes were unchanged.
He was here. He had come for me.
Everything in me strained toward him. But Cobie pinched me, and I dropped my eyes to the samovar in my shaking hands.
Tray in hand again, Anya cocked her head to one side, looking flirtatious and pretty and foolish as the day was long. But I saw the gears working behind her eyes.
She leaned close to Ivan and bit her lip. I caught only one word—vécherom.
It sounded like vechirnya. It meant “tonight.”
Ivan’s face lit up like a candle. He answered eagerly, nodding at his fellow soldiers and gesturing beyond the door, looking hopeful enough to float off the ground.
I risked another glance at Torden, and one of the soldiers nudged him and nodded at me. And when Torden crossed his arms and eyed me top to toe and grinned a long, slow grin, there was nothing pretended about my foolish smile or the heat that swept me from neck to hairline.
“Vécherom,” Anya said to them again. I nodded and followed my friends back to the kitchens, my heart pounding.
We would see them—we would see Torden—that night.
“He’s here. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe he’s here,” I babbled as we wiped off the bread loaves and replaced the broken plates.
Vasylysa headed toward the stairs with a broom to sweep up the smashed dishes. “Good news?” she asked shyly.
I grinned broadly. “Good news,” I agreed.
Wash just barely swallowed her smile when she saw we’d merely brushed off the dropped loaves. “Go,” she ordered us.
We did as we were told, and I hardly felt the weight of the samovar. Anya winked at Ivan again and they traded comments as we rounded past the front door.
My heart hammered and I looked like a fool, staring at Torden, but I didn’t care.
Torden. Torden was here.
As we reached the dining room, I squeezed the handles of the samovar, forcing myself to focus. “There you are,” barked Polunoshchna. She sat at the center of the table, next to Vechirnya, Baba Yaga, and Aleksei, with the court all around.
They were playing Tooth and Claw again. This time, with an audience.
We said nothing. Anya, Cobie, and I served breakfast and poured tea in silence, slowly rounding the table, not interfering with the game.
We came to Aleksei last. He glanced up at me as we served him, scratching the wolf tattoo at the back of his neck as though it itched. I tried not to look at him.
The story I’d read as a child said that a Wolf always knew other Wolves. That Baba Yaga could smell her enemies.
I wondered if the tsarytsya could sense a change in Aleksei. If she could tell, merely from the way he looked at the three of us, the shift in his loyalties from the week before.
Cobie set down a bowl of apples, and Sunset mimed peeling one, asking her a question in Yotne. When Cobie shook her head, Sunset switched to English. “Knife?”
But Cobie only shook her head again.
There had certainly been a knife on her tray. I kept my face blank and poured more tea. The tsarytsya took a bright red apple and set it on her little plate, rolling it around contemplatively as she studied the game board.
Anya, Cobie, and I made for the door, preparing to wait in the kitchen until it was time to clear away. �
��Stop,” said General Midnight. I turned.
She nodded at me. “You. I want you to watch. The others can go.”
Anya and Cobie hesitated.
“Go,” Aleksei ordered them. His tone was ugly; it made my stomach clench. Had he already forgotten his remorse?
No, I told myself sternly. He had to behave this way in front of the tsarytsya. My friends left the dining room.
I took the place General Midnight indicated behind her chair. And then I studied the board.
Polunoshchna’s black claws were scattered, once again. She had laid claim to the places General Sunset had staked out during our previous match, as if trying to mimic her strategy.
She had also laid claim to much of the New World, as if copying mine.
Sunset had begun this time in Australia and was slowly and patiently deposing Polunoshchna wherever she met her armies. Aleksei seemed to have no particular plan.
Baba Yaga had laid claim to the Imperiya and Ranneniy Shenok. But she was moving now toward Alyaska, on Ranneniy Shenok’s border.
I did not like the sight of her gray claws and teeth approaching the New World. It was too close to my dreams of her in Potomac.
“You’ll forgive us for not inviting you to play today, Zolushka,” Polunoshchna sneered at me over her shoulder.
“I didn’t ask to join you the first time,” I said evenly.
I felt Baba Yaga watching me, felt Polunoshchna waiting for me to show some emotion. But I would not be baited.
Polunoshchna’s expression soured as Vechirnya swept away a few of her black armies and replaced them with her red ones.
The board was extremely red. I hoped General Sunset was less talented as a real-life commander than she was at Tooth and Claw.
“Any suggestions?” Midnight scowled at me.
“No, my General Midnight.”
I kept my tone quiet and servile. I didn’t want to anger her. I didn’t care about her at all.
She arched her eyebrows at me.
Then she turned back to the game board, picked it up by the edge, and flicked her wrists. Claws of all colors scattered across the table and into the air.
Aleksei and Sunset exclaimed in Yotne, both scooting back a little from the table and from the flying claws and teeth.
Baba Yaga said nothing. She toyed with the apple on her little plate, spinning and studying it as if she could see the entire world in its sphere.
Midnight turned in her chair to face me. “Since you couldn’t offer me any advice, allow me to offer you some.” Her eyes were narrow and dark as pits. “It doesn’t matter what you do. It doesn’t matter if you think you know how to win. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, how young you are, how bright are the stars in your eyes.” She stood up and stepped closer to me.
“I am General Midnight. I am Polunoshchna, a queen among Wolves, head of the tsarytsya’s secret police, and you are alone. I can always, always take whatever you think you’ve built, and upend it with the slightest brush of my fingers.” She was breathing heavily, her eyes almost black with anger. “You understand, don’t you?”
I understood nothing. She would beat nothing out of me. I would cease to believe nothing.
Torden, my Torden, was downstairs, because he had come for me. And the Beholder was on its way. They would be here the night of the eclipse, ready to rescue us all—perhaps more.
I was not alone. Midnight was wrong.
I bent to begin picking up the mess she had made.
“Polunoshchna,” Baba Yaga said mildly. “You’ve upended our game.”
“Yes, moya tsarytsya,” she said.
I remained crouched, gathering teeth and claws into my apron.
“I think Selah will take your place next time,” Baba Yaga said evenly.
I stood and nearly dropped all that I’d tidied up. “What?”
“What?” Midnight demanded.
The tsarytsya rose, and with her, her breakfast guests. “In three days, Selah.” Baba Yaga crossed behind Polunoshchna and laid a bony hand on her shoulder, her tone cold as ice. “I have no children of my own. That choice was deliberate. I have no desire to play with them.”
She swept from the dining room and took her courtiers with her. Sunset stepped over a little heap of black claws that had fallen on the floor and followed.
“Clean that up,” the tsarytsya called over her shoulder.
I bent and carried on tidying up claws. My hands were shaking.
Only Aleksei and Midnight remained.
Aleksei poured himself another glass of tea from the samovar, warming his palms around it, gazing idly out of the smoky-quartz tower windows. His gray uniform fitted him perfectly.
“Why so tense, Polunoshchna?” Aleksei asked without turning.
“I’m not tense,” Midnight bit out, three sharp syllables as dark as her hair. “I do not know what’s come over nasha tsarytsya.”
I didn’t know if she was looking at me. I kept tidying up.
“Doubtless she’s out of sorts because of—well. You know,” Aleksei said meaningfully.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Midnight was sullen.
“But of course you do.” Aleksei’s tone was agreeable. “Polunoshchna, why is Vechirnya home at all?”
“Rankovyy! We can’t—” She cut a glance at me, nostrils flaring in anger, and bit out a long reproach in Yotne.
But Aleksei merely scoffed, and carried on in English. “She’s a child, and a fool. She fell head over heels for my stupidest brother, then lost him helping my sister run away for love.”
“Former brother,” Midnight corrected him coolly.
“Of course,” Aleksei agreed.
I stole a glance up at him, and my heart kicked in my chest.
Aleksei’s natural state was eager, alert, witty, morbidly curious. But at the moment, every line of his lanky form was relaxed, draped casually against the window ledge.
This was Aleksei’s scheming face.
I bit back a grin and kept cleaning furiously.
“Old habits die hard,” he said indolently. “Trusting people, for example, even when it’s become clear they’re failing. Clinging to old allegiances when it’s obviously time for new ones.”
Midnight spat. Aleksei’s smile curled.
“So I was right,” he said. She made a face, and Aleksei’s grin widened. “Oh, my dear Polunoshchna, you may live and work and do the unspeakable by dark, but the dawn is my time. Seeing clearly into the future is my job.”
“I have my suspicions.” Midnight poured herself another glass of tea and spooned kisel into it, eyes narrowing. “Why should I share them with you, Rankovyy?”
“Because it’s dull to keep secrets.” Aleksei’s smile grew lazy. “And because nasha tsarytsya and Vechirnya aren’t confiding in you. Why should you not cultivate a confidant?” He laughed, easy as could be. “Besides, it’s not treason to tell me if you’ve had to work out the truth yourself.”
At this, Midnight laughed, too. She didn’t look young in the gray dawn, as Aleksei did. But the wrinkles on her forehead and the gray in her hair only made her more formidable.
They spoke of wisdom. Of experience. Those things made her dangerous.
“Our numbers are shrinking,” Midnight finally said to Aleksei, taking a long slug of her tea and looking as if she wished it were something stronger. “Our little pestykk are growing and refilling our ranks more slowly than ever, and desertion is on the rise. And somehow, Vechirnya’s position still remains safe.” Her mouth curled in a snarl. “She is home to discuss nasha tsarytsya’s new plan.”
My head swam at her words. Somehow, Aleksei didn’t react.
“And yet they punish you,” he said, his tone all wonder. “She sends all her zuby, all her men, to the Upper North, preserves none for the rest of her Imperiya, wonders why things are falling apart, and still—Sunset is the one who can do no wrong.”
“I’m on the outside today, but I’ll be back.” Midnight came to stand over
me and flashed a surly smile. I stared up the length of her gray uniform, hands trembling, clutching the game pieces I’d collected. “Just remember this, Zolushka: Her favor is fickle. You may have it now, but it will not last.”
Polunoshchna crouched at my side and slapped a few claws out of my grasp before grinding them beneath her boot.
“You are her toy today,” she said in a cruel whisper. “And you will be broken and forgotten tomorrow.”
47
Desertion. The tsarytsya’s armies were deserting her.
I passed Torden standing guard twice more, wishing every moment that I could rush to him and kiss him and tell him everything I’d heard. I hated waiting. I hated feeling the eyes of the soldiers on me.
With beautiful Anya always at my side, the guards had hardly noticed me before. But by the end of the morning, Torden and I were their favorite joke.
I’d instructed myself sternly not to stare or smile like a fool. But I tripped over my own feet twice and ran bodily into Anya once while gawking at him, and midmorning, his fellow guards had to try four times to get his attention before Torden noticed, because he was watching me descend the stairs.
That had been the second time I tripped over my own feet.
“You’re going to give us away,” Cobie hissed at me, not ungently.
The guards were merciless. Torden flushed bright red, tongue-tied as he tried to defend himself. It only made me want to close the distance between us more.
My disappointment was bitter when the door guard changed at three that afternoon; I couldn’t chase the hours away quickly enough, scrubbing linens and serving meals into the early evening.
Finally, an hour after sundown, Ivan met us at the castle’s front doors. My insides quivered as we passed over the threshold and into the night.
We hadn’t stepped beyond the castle doors in nearly a month. But Ivan was our ticket through the town, over slate-paved streets and through rubbish-lined alleys, past a hundred private fortresses to a tavern halfway between the tsarytsya’s house and the town’s skull-topped walls. A red setting sun was painted over the tavern’s front door.
