by Jane Kindred
On the other side of the pool, someone stood watching us. I sat up against Vasily’s protests as he tried to pull me back. A naked woman with skin of palest blue was standing in a flurry of snow. When she saw I’d noticed her, she bowed her head and turned toward the passage beyond the colonnade, taking the swirl of falling snow with her.
“Snegurochka.”
“Sneg-what?” Vasily grasped for my hand as I stood and disentangled myself from the twining roses.
“A snow maiden. One of the winter syla.” I glanced around at the summery glade with its walls of living wood and moss. “I don’t understand. They only come at my birthday, at the solstice.”
“Lie down with me, Nazkia.” Vasily pulled on my hand, but I stumbled back.
“How long have we been here?” I tried to remember what had brought me, tried to remember when. There was something about the roses that made it difficult to think. “When did you come? I was looking for…” It hit me like a terrible, leaden weight as the enchantment of the garden hall dissolved. “Ola,” I gasped, and ran after the syla.
There were twelve of them, always twelve, no matter the season. The snegurochka sat in a silver chair beside her sisters in the Polnochnoi Sud when I caught up with her.
The chaise on the daïs sat empty and I avoided it. “Where are the autumn syla?”
“Autumn is no more,” she said. “Tonight is Longest Night.”
It was impossible. I’d been here only a day, or so it seemed. If she told the truth, this was my twentieth birthday, but I couldn’t have dallied so long, not while Ola was missing.
“But it can’t be. I’ve only just come here.”
“A day is as a thousand years. A thousand years is as a day.”
“How can you have kept me here?” I demanded. “I need to find my daughter.”
“The syla see Little Queen. She is surrounded by a sea of white.”
“And she takes the flower of the fern,” I snapped. “Yes, I know.”
The syla shook her head. “She takes ship in sky over sea of white.”
My mouth dropped open and I stared at the syla smiling placidly at me. The meaningless words they’d repeated like obscure prophetic ciphers were suddenly ordinary words, as if they’d simply been describing what they saw in literal terms all along. It wasn’t possible.
“You can’t mean the Beloe More?” I cried. “The White Sea? She can’t have been on Solovetsky!”
The syla nodded. “Surrounded by a sea of white. But now she leaves.”
“No.” I covered my mouth and whispered into my hands. “No, she can’t have been there.”
The syla continued to gaze at me serenely. I collapsed onto my knees and stared at the onyx floor in which the dawning comprehension of my folly was reflected. This was a cruel joke.
“Nazkia?” Vasily had finally come after me. He crouched beside me, putting an arm around my shoulders. “What’s happened? What does this mean?”
“It means I could have found her,” I said hopelessly. “I was there. I went to Solovetsky, and she was within yards of me. She must have been in the monastery. And I just left her there. I could have found her.”
He gripped my shoulders tightly and I thought he might hit me, but when he spoke, it wasn’t in anger. “You couldn’t have known,” he said, and I thought my heart would break at the despair in his voice. He looked up at the syla. “Tell us where she is now. Where did she go?”
“Little Queen sleeps in her bed in city of Archangel.”
“She’s home?” Tears of relief sprang to my eyes.
“Then that’s where we’re going.” Vasily pulled me to my feet. “Right now. We wish to leave. You can’t keep us here.”
“The syla do not keep.” She shook her head as if he weren’t very bright. “Those who come to Unseen World come by choice. Stay by choice. The syla provide what is needed.”
“We don’t need anything,” Vasily snapped. “We just need to leave. Where’s Belphagor?”
The syla looked at one another.
“What? What have you done with him?”
“The syla do not know if this one wishes to leave. Little Brother takes.”
“Little Brother?”
“Mikhail.”
“Misha.” He spat the name.
I looked from the syla to Vasily. “Who’s Misha?”
“He’s Yulya Volfovna’s son.” Vasily’s eyes had gone red with fury. “Where did he take him?”
Two syla went before us, a constant dusting of snow powder swirling around them as if kicked up by their feet, though there was none of it beneath them. In a long corridor lined with mirrors etched with intricate, intertwining symbols and bordered by elaborate silver frames, the syla stopped as one before a mirror that looked the same to me as all the others.
“Little Brother is here.” Our guide held up a pale blue hand as Vasily reached to push open the mirrored panel. “Little Brother is leshi. Leshi are not like syla.”
“So?” His brow knitted with irritation.
“Leshi are…” She turned to her sisters. “How is said?” She nodded at some silent communication. “Leshi like mischief.”
Vasily glared and thrust his palm against the panel, pushing it wide. Inside was a marble terrace that looked out over a placid amber sea colored by the golden orb of sun sinking behind it.
Reclining on a luxuriously draped couch, a young man with hair like vines and skin like palest turquoise held Belphagor, asleep and completely naked, in his arms. The leshi regarded us with brilliant green eyes that seemed to light the terrace. He was bare from the waist up, and his unnatural hue covered muscles of such fine definition that I nearly blushed to look on him.
Vasily could barely control his rage. “What have you done to him?”
Misha smiled. “I hardly think you want to hear about that, my friend. The question you should ask is what you have done to him. I’m sure you’ll find your answer lacking the color of mine.”
Before Vasily could attack the leshi, I put my hand on his arm and stepped forward. “Why doesn’t he wake? Have you enchanted him?”
“Why, hello, Anazakia.” He gave me a friendlier smile. “I’m glad to see you looking well. Your rest has done you good.”
I paused, puzzled. “Have we met?”
“You were fevering. At Mother’s. I put you into an ice bath.”
“Oh.” I felt peculiar knowing he’d been by my side with Yulya, tending to me, though I hadn’t been aware of him. I’d woken stripped down to my underwear. I blushed and looked away.
Misha answered my question. “He’s not enchanted. He’s exhausted. I can wake him if you like.”
An angry heat radiated off Vasily behind me, and his voice became more gravelly than usual. “Why is he exhausted?”
Misha laughed. “Your mind does go to the most depraved places at the most innocent words.”
I blocked Vasily with my outstretched arm.
“He is exhausted from worry and guilt—and shame that should not even belong to him.” Misha brushed his fingers through the dark hair that lay across Belphagor’s forehead. “Have you even touched him since his celestial ordeal, Vasily? He seemed starved for it.”
Vasily emitted a low growl. “You son of a bitch.”
The leshi frowned. “I don’t think Mother would appreciate that.”
“We need to wake him,” I interrupted. “We need to go. The syla have seen my daughter.”
“Ah, that’s right. Your daughter. The one you conceived by his lover while he was recovering from gang rape in the Kresty infirmary.”
I stepped back and bumped into Vasily, shaking my head as if my disbelief would make it untrue. Vasily had hinted that Belphagor had been vulnerable in the earthly prison because of the tattoos that marked him, but Belphagor had never spoken of the time he’d spent there.
Vasily wrapped an arm around me as if for his own comfort. “Did he tell you that?” His voice was quiet and had lost its gritty edge.
&nbs
p; Misha gave him an accusatory look. “Belyi did not have to tell me. I can feel it in his skin. Didn’t you feel it?” He raised a woody eyebrow. “Oh, that’s right. You don’t touch him.”
“I’m not the one not touching him! He won’t touch me!” Vasily swore and let go of me, pacing to control his temper. “Why am I telling you this, you little shit? This has nothing to do with you! And don’t you dare call him Beli!”
Misha kissed Belphagor’s forehead and Vasily actually hissed. “That is the name he gave when he first came to us. He drank to dull his misery and whispered of you as he took me to his bed. I didn’t care because he was beautiful and sad and he took me with such passion. Though why he felt such grief over the loss of you, I can’t imagine.”
Vasily was beyond words, whether from rage or shock, I couldn’t tell.
“And now he’s sad again.” Misha smoothed Belphagor’s hair. “Sadder. Because he’s lost his little girl. Only he’s not allowed to call her that because you treat him as something intrusive and outside, as if a child were a possession or a trophy of conquest, even though all he has done is love her since the moment he first saw her. He hides his sadness because you feel he has no right to it. Sadness is only for birth parents, apparently.”
I’d never seen Vasily at such a loss for words. He looked at me to refute what Misha said, but I couldn’t. Vasily recoiled from my silence as if I’d slapped him.
“Shall I wake him, then? Let’s find out if he wants to go with you and face your daily blame and scorn or stay with me and be cherished.” He bent and kissed Belphagor on the lips and breathed against his ear. “Wake up, Belyi.”
Belphagor stirred, snuggling against the leshi’s chest, and opened his eyes. He blinked at us for a moment before he sat up swiftly, his face blazing red as he realized how we’d found him. He pulled a blanket over his lap and Misha smiled as if to say it was far too late for such modesty.
I ignored the leshi and the awkwardness. “Belphagor, it’s time to go. The syla have seen Ola being taken back to the dacha, and we’ve lost so much time here. We can’t delay.”
“Ola’s safe?” The relief in his eyes was like a drowning man reaching shore, but as Misha slowly stroked his arm with the tips of his fingers, Belphagor made no attempt to get up. “Thank Heaven you’ve found her.”
“Aren’t you coming?”
“Perhaps I should catch up with you later. I’d only be in the way. You need some time with Ola.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not in the way. Vasily, tell him.”
Vasily growled like a bear behind me. “Belphagor seems to have made up his mind to stay.”
“Dammit, Vasily. Do you want him to stay?” I was tired of his pouting and his constant assumption that everyone’s intentions were the worst. “Tell him how you feel!”
“How I feel?” He threw me a smoldering look. “How I feel about the fact that he’d rather stay in the kingdom of the Unseen than come with me?” He turned his hot gaze on Belphagor. “Or how I feel about the fact that he’d fuck a green forest troll before he’d fuck me!”
“I take exception to that,” said Misha, but Vasily spoke over him.
“And that he’d do it while Ola is missing!”
“I didn’t fuck him,” Belphagor said quietly.
“Like I care what specific acts you’ve been engaged in!”
“I fellated him,” said the leshi.
“For God’s sake, Misha!” Belphagor jumped up with the drape about his waist, but Misha was sitting on the edge of it and it nearly slipped off entirely.
“That’s an interesting imprecation for a celestial.” Misha smirked as Belphagor yanked the drape from under him. Before Belphagor could say another word, Vasily turned and left.
I whirled on Belphagor. “If you’re too much of a fool to come for Vasily, come for Ola. You’ll break her heart if you’re not there.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Fair? Of course it’s not fair. None of this is fair! Now quit feeling sorry for yourself and put your clothes on!”
He reddened and reached for the pile at his feet.
Misha let out a wistful sigh. “Ah, Belyi. Your sadism I can always count on, but I’ve underestimated your masochistic streak.”
Belphagor gave him a rueful smile. “You’re not the first.”
While he dressed, I returned to the Midnight Court with my snegurochki escort, anxious to be on our way. Now that I knew Ola was so close, every moment away from her seemed interminable. As we passed through layers of majestic halls and galleries dusted by their snowy aura, I remembered belatedly why they had brought me here.
“Your autumn sisters spoke of a circle of ice and fire where I would stop the Seraphim. Do you know what they meant?”
One of the ice-blue syla shrugged. “We see no more than they. All syla see together. But fire angels fear the ice. That is why they do not come for snegurochki, but they will come again when spring sisters take our place. The fire angels slay when syla walk in world of Man.”
“Can’t you all stay here? I thought the Seraphim couldn’t enter your world.”
“Is not in the nature of syla to stay within Unseen World. Syla must breathe the air beyond. Syla must dance under the moon.”
“What about your brothers? Can’t the leshi defend you?”
“Brothers have no wish to make enemies. Leshi did not hide flower.”
We had arrived at the Hall of Echoes, where Vasily paced, almost literally fuming. Belphagor appeared, stepping through the colonnade with his head down and his hands in his pockets. Only one syla remained to see us out.
I pressed her cool, dainty hand. “I still don’t really understand, but I promise to do what I can to stop them. You have my word.” Whatever it was I must do, at least I had until the equinox to find out.
The syla smiled and held her hand out toward Vasily. “To leave together, you must touch.”
Vasily took my hand as she brought it to his, while Belphagor gave him a wide and careful berth as he came around to my other side. The syla began to murmur in her language, indecipherable words that sounded vaguely like Russian. In a moment, the amber walls were shimmering, wavering in their solidity.
My feet grew cold and a chilly wind began to blow as the walls became permeable. We were standing in several inches of snow, the leafless trees of the Alexander Park now surrounding us like graceful skeletons, and the path that had been strewn with leaves of bronze and copper was now sparkling white, fit for a sleigh. Even the clothes I’d arrived in would have been inadequate, but I’d forgotten them. I was barefoot and dressed only in a light gown of silk that left my shoulders bare.
Vasily and Belphagor both removed their coats at once as they saw me shivering, and I took Vasily’s before the hatred in his eyes began to encompass me as well. The hall had disappeared completely as we broke the chain of our hands, but the lone syla still stood with us.
She bowed to me. “The syla are grateful to Padshaya Koroleva for what she will do.” She kissed my hand, a tear of ice on her cheek. “We know to shed blood of one so close will cause you pain.”
I stared at her, shocked that she would say this in front of Vasily and Belphagor.
“They cannot see or hear syla outside of Unseen World.” The syla smiled. “They are not queensdaughters.” A whirlwind of snow spun up around her pale blue body and she disappeared into the leaden color of the winter afternoon.
Belphagor watched me with a wrinkled brow. “Are you all right?”
“Of course she’s not all right,” snapped Vasily. “She’s freezing to death.” He nearly took my breath away as he whisked me off my feet into his arms.
Clenching my teeth to keep them from chattering, I huddled against his firespirit-warm chest and couldn’t resist a little smugness. “I suppose you believe me now about the syla.”
By the time we reached Yulya Volfovna’s flat three blocks away, I truly was freezing. She welcomed us as if she’d only seen us yester
day—which was true enough for us, though not for her—and bustled me into the bedroom to dress me in warmer clothing. Plying us with hot tea and biscuits, she asked politely about our visit to “the parks” without making any mention of the Unseen World. Belphagor pointedly avoided the topic of her son and she didn’t ask. Vasily barely uttered a word.
Once we’d warmed a bit, Yulya provided us with ample outerwear before we departed for the train station. She blinked back tears as we waved good-bye, as if genuinely sad to see us go, and a tug of regret pulled at me. In such a short time, she had been as much a comfort to me as I had once thought Helga to be.
On the train to St. Petersburg, Belphagor tried to reach Dmitri on his phone but discovered it had no power. I gave him the one I’d brought to Yulya’s and he chided me for forgetting to turn it on.
I watched the gloomy landscape through the window as the train passed alongside suburban roads heavy with snow and sleet. The drivers of the cars on the roads seemed undaunted, speeding ahead with almost alarming nonchalance, though a few cars appeared stranded in the deep drifts on the shoulders. It was early afternoon, but with the snow clouds looming overhead and the low angle of the Russian winter sun, it was like traveling through a timeless void.
Though it seemed to take far too long, every revolution of the train’s wheels was bringing me closer to Ola. I might be with her tomorrow. Beside me, Vasily seemed to be thinking the same, and he took my hand. Though the tension between him and Belphagor was terrible, he and I had gained some peace between us during our rest in the grassy hall of the Unseen World. Once we were home with Ola, I was sure Vasily would forget his anger at Belphagor.
Seated behind us, Belphagor closed the phone and leaned over the back of the seat, causing Vasily to flinch and let go of my hand. “Dmitri says they know where Ola’s been and she’s truly on her way home.” His voice expressed the release of the dark burden we all seemed to feel, as if we’d been holding our breath, afraid this would be taken from us. “He’s been working with an anonymous contact who provided the information for the promise of asylum.”
