Feo lifted the pup off Black’s head, where he was squeaking and getting his paws in Black’s eyes, and put him on her shoulder. “This,” she said, “will do.”
She struggled through the snow, looking for broken windows at floor level. She found none, so she smashed the compass bowl against the floor-to-ceiling window at the back, and Black followed her through. She took in a high-ceilinged hall with soot-blackened wallpaper and a blackened chandelier chain with no chandelier, but her eyes were aching. She half crawled up the marble staircase, turned into the first room, which turned out to be a study full of smoked books, and curled up on the floor.
“I won’t sleep for long, I promise,” she said to the pup. “Please don’t chew my shoes. Or—that’s difficult, I know—please don’t eat the walls. I think the soot would be bad for you.” The pup pawed at her chin. As gently as she could, Feo pushed him away. “I need to close my eyes, just for a second, lapushka.”
Feo woke to find her nose buried in someone’s fur. She had woken up like that several hundred times before, and for a moment there was just the peaceful smell of animal skin and firesides—and then, suddenly, the remembrance of the past few days came rushing down over her.
The voice inside that said “Mama!” woke up again.
Feo jumped to her feet, wincing at the recently defrosted feeling in her toes, and shook herself. White shook herself too, and stopped biting at her bandages. Feo laid a hand on her friend’s head, and together they began to explore the mansion.
The left side of it was gutted out, exactly as she had imagined fire working: Nothing much remained, except the stone carvings. But the right side, which seemed to be made mostly of a large library and the little study she had slept in, was more or less untouched, though empty of anything useful, like guns or chairs or clothes. The downstairs was similar: a ballroom on the right side, with smoke-smeared green and golden wallpaper that Feo was grudgingly forced to admire, and exquisite but charred velvet curtains. On the left of the staircase there was a burnt-out kitchen—that must have been where the fire started, she thought—and a charred room that might have been anything. A drawing room, perhaps, of the sort Black and White and Gray might have known in their early aristocratic days.
The thought of Gray rose up, and she pushed it down again.
There was a howling from the front hall. Black was trying to summon her.
“What is it?” Feo glanced around for a weapon. Everything movable seemed to have been taken away by the last owners.
“I’m coming!” She picked up one of the half-burnt books from the floor, hefted it in her hand, and stepped into the great marble hall. Black was standing at the smashed window. On the other side was a blond boy wrapped in a green cloak.
“Ilya!” She ran to him, her boots crunching in the glass, and threw her arms around him. He waited a moment, then gave a little shake, like a dog, and she released him.
“You hug hard!” he said, but he was grinning.
“Yes,” she said. “I know. I forgot. Sorry. I’m used to wolves. They hug with their teeth.”
“Well, don’t do that, either!”
“No, I won’t. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Feo, we found you!”
“Here, come in. Not that bit, though—here, where there’s no glass. Who’s we?”
For one giddy moment she thought he meant Gray, but that was impossible.
He was pirouetting around the hall. “Alexei said you’d be here! And I knew you’d be all right. People should listen to me more!”
“Ilya, I have to tell you something—”
But he shook his head. “I can’t stop! I’ve got to make sure the others don’t miss the castle!” He turned a somersault on the spot. He was obviously in a holiday, leapfrogging mood. “I said you’d be here!”
“What others?”
“Them!” He pushed her to the broken window and pointed.
Feo looked. There were only the fields, a few empty summer dachas, and the white humps of trees. But a noise came to her on the air—not wolves, she thought. Not wind. Not snow. Something else: Something she had never heard before.
Over the horizon came a snaking line of children—the children from the village—skiing, running on snowshoes, waving sticks and bats and hands, waving at her. Behind them she saw Alexei’s dark head, with Clara on his shoulders and an ax in his hand.
The children’s cloaks and coats—blue and green and red—cast colored light on the snow, bright as her paint box at home. The little ones were singing a marching song. Alexei conducted with his ax. Sergei whooped war cries and waved at the castle with both hands as he came.
“The adults didn’t want them to come, so I made a diversion—I danced, actually. I think they thought it was a bit odd, because they were eating, but they watched—and we got away! We’ve come to get your mother back! I told them the whole—” Ilya broke off. He stared.
Feo—the wolf witch the other soldiers had talked about in awe, who had not cried when her mother was snatched away and who had only scowled at snowstorms and guns and ice-cold nights—was shaking.
“Feo?”
Feo shook her head; she couldn’t speak. The moments in which the world turns suddenly kind can feel like a punctured lung. She stood in the marble hall and cried until tears flooded down her nose and chin and dropped onto the heads of the two bloodstained wolves at her feet.
It took hours to get everyone inside and to let them explore, and to dust the soot off the little ones—hours, too, for Ilya to stop shaking and repeating, “He shot her? He shot Gray?”
The two of them walked through the house, avoiding the others, swapping ideas for what they would do to Rakov when they saw him.
At last they marshaled the little ones and herded them into the ballroom. There was a small gang of little ones, made of two well-wrapped-up seven-year-old boys, Gregor and Yaniv, and two sisters, Vasilisa and Zoya, huge-eyed and dressed like snow elves in white coats. Sergei shepherded them into place, supremely superior at eight years old—together with Bogdan, still sniffing, Clara and Yana, and Irena, a girl of about fourteen with wary eyes. Ilya produced black bread from his sack, and some piroshki, buns stuffed with roast pork. There was quite a lot of grabbing and stamping, and then suddenly everyone was sitting on the floor of the ballroom, staring up at Ilya and Feo and Alexei, chewing and listening.
“I vote we storm the city,” said Alexei. “The adults are still debating about what to do: They might be weeks. We’re going to do it now—or, at least, soon.”
“But what about Feo’s mama?” said Yana. “It’s her we’ve come to rescue!”
Alexei looked as though he’d forgotten about that for a moment. Then he recovered his poise. “Exactly! We’re doing both at once: We’re going to make enough noise and mess and chaos to give Feo time to break into Kresty Prison.”
“We’re going to bite the guards!” said Sergei, baring his gums. “Like the wolves, only harder.”
“I was thinking of something a bit more sophisticated than that,” said Alexei. “Not that biting isn’t very much the right kind of thinking.”
He had been leaning against the doorway, and now he pulled himself up on the door frame and swung his legs, as if kicking an invisible soldier. “It’s not just us out in the country who hate Rakov and his men. He’s sent his requisitioners into the city. There are people waiting for a reason to fight. We could give them one.”
“What, though?” Feo sat on one of the windowsills of the ballroom, the pup in her lap, the wolves at her feet. White was chewing on a half-burnt curtain. “Is Mama the reason to fight?”
“Sort of. But I meant you and the wolves. Picture it, Feo! You, standing on a pillar—there’s bound to be a pillar somewhere—telling what you did to him! A ski straight in the face! And then you lead the little ones in, like an army, march through the streets, with the wolves running ahead. Other kids will join us!”
“Do they know how to march?” said Ilya. He was s
itting with his chin on his knees, still giving the occasional post-crying hiccup, but his voice came out firm. “It takes time. I should know.”
“We’ll train them!” said Alexei. He punched the air as he spoke, and his enthusiasm swept over them. “Wait until I’ve taught Vasilisa and Zoya to bite! We can be fierce! You’ll see—and we’ll start first thing tomorrow.”
“I need to go soon, though,” said Feo. “It’s Monday.”
“The little ones are too tired,” said Yana. “Tomorrow.”
Feo thought about saying, “I’ll go alone,” but the remembrance of the woods last night was still too bitter. “All right,” she said. “Tomorrow. We’ll take the wolves. They might help in the jail.”
“They won’t let a pack of wild wolves into the center of the city.”
“Half wild,” said Feo.
“They might not let any of us into the city,” said Yana. “They’re stopping people at the gates. Rakov’s nervous. They’re stopping anyone who looks like they might be an agitator: which means anyone who isn’t a duke or a soldier.”
“We could climb the walls!” said Sergei, kicking the wall for good measure.
“You can’t even climb the old oak, Sergei,” said Yana. “Anyway, they’d shoot anyone climbing in, wouldn’t they, Alexei?”
Feo had ducked behind her hair to think better. Now she emerged. “I think I’ve got an idea.” The idea fizzed in her stomach and ran, tingling, down to her fingertips. “Can anybody sew?”
There was a flurry of “Whats” and “Whys.”
“You’re going to sew at Rakov?” said Alexei. “That’s not really a classic attack strategy, Feo.”
“Truly, I promise! This is the best idea I’ve ever had.”
Eyebrows were raised.
“I know how to get into the city! Some of us, at least. You said they don’t let in agitators; they don’t let in people who look ragged. But we all know only aristocrats can afford wolves. So—what if we pretend to be rich? What if I use the wolves as camouflage?”
Ilya was staring at her, and his stare was not impressed. “Don’t panic, all right, at what I’m about to tell you: Feo, you’ve gone mad.”
But Alexei strode forward, slapped Feo on the back, and laughed his whooping laugh. Black and White growled, warningly, but it only made him laugh harder.
“Do you hear that? That,” he said, “is what a real idea sounds like. That is the sound of Rakov falling.”
THIRTEEN
A lot of people, it turned out, could sew, or at least claimed they could. The next morning Yana, Bogdan, and the two little sisters, Vasilisa and Zoya, pulled down the curtains, borrowed Feo’s knife and the pin from the compass—“It works as a needle,” said Yana, “if you don’t mind big stitches”—and fell to work.
“It doesn’t need to be perfect, remember,” said Feo. “Most of it will be under my cloak.” Then she was pulled away again; that whole day, wherever she went, hands were tugging at her arms, ankles, cloak. It gave her an unexpected flicker of warmth in her chest and hands.
Sergei was asking for permission to lead a party outside, toward the outhouse, to search for weapons.
“But don’t kill each other,” said Feo, “all right? Not even as practice.”
Irena rapped on the wall for attention. “You know what’s more important than a dress? Shoes. You can’t wear boots. Not if you’re supposed to be a countess.”
“Yes, I can! Nobody will see!”
“But if they did.”
Everyone looked at Feo’s boots. They were charred at the toe and they smelled odd, of wolf pee and blood. They were not the shoes of somebody who flicked caviar at wolves in golden drawing rooms.
“If they did see them, you’d be done for.”
“Can anyone swap with me, then?” But everyone else had shoes as bad, or worse.
“Could we make her some boots?” said Yana.
“What from? I’ll just risk it,” said Feo.
“Wait!” said Ilya. He was glittering with sudden excitement. “Now I’ve got an idea! Ballet shoes!”
“Whose, though?” said Feo.
“The Imperial Ballet School!” He began to hop from foot to foot. “Two miles outside the gates!”
“How do you know that?”
He was split-leaping around the room. “I used to watch through the windows every night! That’s how I learned to dance! They throw shoes away sometimes: A real ballerina gets through more than one pair a week. I used to find them.” He turned a cartwheel. “I’ll go now! They know me, sort of—at least, not really, but the servants are used to seeing me outside. It won’t take long!”
“How will you get there?”
“I’ll borrow Bogdan’s snowshoes.”
“Oh, will you?” said Bogdan. But one look from Alexei and he nodded. “All right.”
“Shall I come too?” said Feo.
“No,” said Yana. “We’ll need you to try on your dress. But someone else should go to look after him.”
“I don’t need looking after!” said Ilya.
“Alexei could go,” said Feo. “He’s the eldest.”
Ilya pinkened. His face wrestled with a very badly hidden smile, and he led Alexei down the path, gesturing in the direction of the city. Feo watched them clamber over the gate.
Yana came up behind her. “Who’s going with you? Aristocrats your age don’t travel alone.”
“Ilya, obviously. Alexei.”
“But what will they wear?” asked Yana.
“Ilya’s uniform will do for him,” said Feo. “It’s dirty, but you can’t tell unless you look hard. Alexei can wear my mother’s green cloak—nobody will see if he’s not elegant underneath it.”
Yana said, “Good. If anyone asks, you can say he’s your big brother.”
“Second cousin,” said Feo. “He looks nothing like me.” It was a shame, she thought. It wouldn’t be such a bad thing to look like Alexei did: a bit like sun encased in skin. But she had scars on her hands from when Gray was a half-wild pup, and she wouldn’t swap them for anything in the world.
A few hours later Sergei and his gang came cascading in from the castle grounds, bubbling and sniffing with excitement.
“Come and see! Come and see.”
“What am I seeing?”
“It’s a surprise! Where are Alexei and Ilya?”
“Not back yet,” said Feo.
But there was a clanging at the gate as two lanky bodies dropped down into the drive and came running. Ilya was waving something in his hands.
“We got some! At least”—he hesitated—“Alexei did.”
“Ilya heard music. He got . . . distracted.”
Ilya, Feo now saw, was blushing under the snow on his cheeks. “Just a bit. I wanted to watch the dancers.”
Feo looked from one to the other. “What happened? Sergei, you go ahead, we’ll be right there.” And then, urgently: “Ilya—did something go wrong?”
“He was dancing,” said Alexei, “in full view! Outside the ground-floor window! He was copying them—those dancers—in plain sight!”
“Did anyone see?” said Feo.
“One person,” said Ilya. His cheeks and nose were turning red. “Only one.”
“Ilya! You could have been caught!”
“I wasn’t, though! A man—one of the teachers, I think—he chased us. But it did create a diversion.” Ilya’s voice had a pleading note. “Alexei found these in the rubbish.” The shoes were white, a little large for Feo—but that, she thought, would leave room for socks.
“They’re a bit worn out, but quite clean. They might have a tiny bit of blood inside, but all ballet shoes do.”
Sergei came running around the house and sent a snowball at them. “Come on, then! You come too! Everyone has to come!”
“What is it?” said Feo.
Zoya said, “It’s a secret. We made a secret for you!”
One of the little boys began, “It’s an old—” But Sergei slapped a ha
nd over his mouth. “Shh! That’s not how you do secrets!”
Feo was seized by small hands and pulled around the corner of the castle, the little ones wading through the snow, Alexei carrying Clara on one shoulder. Sergei pointed to a space where the snow had been trampled by several small feet.
“There!”
It was a dogsled. Feo had never seen one so lovely: It was made of silvery metal, and the children had polished it with sleeves and rags until it shone. The runners had been oiled and a lantern hung on the handle.
The lantern was painted red.
“Did you do all this?” asked Feo.
“Yes!” said Sergei. “Well, Yana helped a bit.”
Yana mouthed over his head, “A lot.”
“We thought, you can’t ride the wolves,” said Bogdan. “Tell her, Sergei.”
Sergei nodded. “People don’t. I’ve been to the city, and people don’t ride wolves.”
“Yes,” said Feo. She wanted to kiss Sergei; his face was so serious, and so dirty. “I guessed that.”
“But you might need to go fast. It’s a big city. And the wolves could pull the sled.”
“Wonderful!” said Feo. “Thank you.”
“Don’t hug me!” said Sergei. “Ilya says you hug like a wolf!”
Feo flushed, but forced herself to grin. She made a rush toward him; the little ones squealed, deliriously gleeful, and disappeared round the corner of the castle, followed by Yana.
She stroked the sled. “That’s quite something,” she said. “Look—look at the handles. They shine. That must have taken them hours—and out here in the snow.”
At that moment Yana leaned out the ballroom window.
“Feo,” she called. “Come and try the dress on!”
Feo’s stomach gave a swoop: If the dress was finished, it was nearly time to go.
The Wolf Wilder Page 12
