Yvgenie

4

Bang! went the thunder, and Ilyana waked with her ears ringing and her heart in mid-leap. Rain on the roof. That one had shaken the house, as if a bolt had landed right in the yard.

Missy positively hated storms.

“Babi?” She rolled from the side of the bed, touched a straw to the night-wick with shaking hands and lit the lamp.

No Babi. Babi had been curled up on the covers at her feet, but he had probably gone for the stable the minute the storm started, that being his proper venue. She wished the horses well and calm, wished the lightnings not to hit that close again, please! while she pulled on the pair of trousers she wore for rough work, and the old pair of boots and the sloppy shirt, beltless. She flew through the door to the kitchen and opened the front door on a rain-laden gust and a red glare. There was a fire on the hill, a huge fire.

Oh, god! “Papa! Uncle’s roof!”

Her father’s bedroom door banged open and he came running through the kitchen and past her—he had stopped to dress, too, pushing his arm into his shirt as he headed down the walk-up into the storm without a word what to do— whether to come help or stay out of the way. He ran faster than she had imagined anybody could run, banged through the outside gate while she was still clumping down the walk-up in too-large boots worn slick on the soles, and holding to the rail in quivery fright. She could wish there to be no more lightning bolts, and for her uncle to be all right and for his house not to burn—

Bang!

A horse screamed. Boards splintered. She thought of fire and broken boards and panicked horses, and splashed around the corner to be sure the stable had not been hit. It was still safe; Volkhi and Missy were in the pen, but Patches was out, running around the yard in panic.

“Patches!” she cried, and wanted her to come to her; but Patches dashed in panic right through her mother’s garden and charged right into the hedge—ran right through it, and the pickets, and fell outside.

“Patches!” she cried, running for the front gate, sure Patches had impaled herself on the pickets or the thorn-branches; but before she could even reach the fence Patches lurched up on her feet and bolted down the old road, toward the woods, where thickets and tangles could break her legs— her horse, her scared, stupid filly that papa had told her was absolutely her personal responsibility.

“Patches!” she cried, “stop, come back!” and, that working no more than the last, wanted her mother to know what was happening, wanted her to help papa and her uncle—wanted Missy—No— Volkhi; Volkhi was the fastest. She ran back to the stableyard, unlatched the gate and climbed the rails, wanting Volkhi against the fence, wishing him to stand still just long enough for her to slide onto his wet back and grab fistfuls of mane. Then she wished him, “Catch Patches!” and Volkhi leapt into a run, right through the garden, right for—

Oh, my god!

She dared not wish him stop: she held on as Volkhi left the ground, and did not know the other side of the hedge how she was still on his back, except her lip tasted of blood and they were headed full-tilt into the trees. Branches raked her hair and splintered on her shoulders. Lightning flashed and confused her eyes. She hung on with both hands and went with Volkhi the way her father had taught her—impossible to see all the branches coming at her: it was Volkhi’s sight she borrowed, different than hers, it was his body she felt moving, while she tried to remember where the bad spots were, to help him the best way she knew.

“Patches!” she yelled into the storm, what time she was not being Volkhi, insisting Patches come back; but if wishes were working right, Patches would have come to her in the first place, lightning would never have set her uncle’s house on fire, and her father would not be back there where she should be right now, saving her uncle—god, god, she had done the wrong thing again. She should not be out here, listening too much to Volkhi and losing her wits…

But now she was too far along and she could only lose Patches and be in grown-ups’ way where the fire was.

Be all right! she wished her father and her uncle; and wished her mother to do something—because her mother could, better than anyone.

Oh, god, mother, put out the fire, and everybody be all right!

“—Wake up, dammit! Wake up!”

Sasha’s face was waxen against the firelit grass, spattered with rain, the both of them sprawled in the yard as Pyetr slapped and shook at him. Then Sasha got a breath and objected to being hit in the face. Sasha rolled over and started coughing.

Pyetr coughed, too, leaning on his hands and fighting for breath. A burning house was no way for Sasha to die, god, Sasha had such a terror of fire: he only just realized the fear he had felt, seeing Sasha’s roof ablaze—when of a sudden Sasha scrambled up, headed back to the house.

“No, dammit!” He rolled and tripped Sasha by the ankle, then lost his hold as Sasha recovered his balance and dashed for the porch.

Flames were already gusting out the windows. “Stop!” Pyetr yelled, staggered up and ran after him, up to the smoke-seeping porch and through the door into a palpable wall of heat and light that seared the skin. Fire was already taking the stacks of papers, the air was thick with wind-borne cinders, too hot to breathe—but Sasha shoved two books at him and snatched an armload himself.

A timber crashed down. Shingles fell in a hail of embers. Pyetr held the books in one arm, grabbed Sasha and ran, knocked into the wall and found the door by accident or wishes. A blast of cold rain shocked his burns and Sasha slid and fell on the boards on the way down, but Pyetr dragged him clear all the same, pulled Sasha down and far out onto the slope before his legs gave out, and he sprawled into the wet, prickly weeds beside him.

“God,” he moaned. His chest was burning. Rain stung like fire on his back and on his face as he rolled off the armful of books and let the water wash the smoke out of his eyes. “For a handful of damned books—”

“Our lives,” Sasha gasped. “Ilyana’s—Oh my god, Ilyana—”

Ilyana had been behind him a while back; he was onto his knees and intending another trip into the house before Sasha made him believe Ilyana had not gone inside after them—

Oh, god, no, Ilyana was safe from the fire: she was out in the woods on a runaway horse, and Eveshka had cast off to sail home, through the storm—

He had that from Sasha, or from ’Veshka herself, he did not stop to ask. He scrambled up and ran headlong downhill for a horse. Patches might almost be fast enough, but she was young and fritter-brained in a crisis—Missy came trotting up out of the lightning-lit downpour before he reached the hedge: Sasha’s horse, no question who had brought her or how he was going to track Ilyana: he caught Missy’s mane and swung up to her broad, rain-drenched back.

Missy was the other side of too many years and too many apples, his sword was back in the house, he was soaked to the skin, blinded by rain, coatless and coughing so at times he could scarcely keep upright on Missy’s back. Damned poor hope for a rescue, he thought, and hoped for Sasha to make the mouse use sense—burned and shocked and coughing his gut out back at the house, as Sasha was, with no horse at all and no way to follow him: Patches was what Ilyana and Volkhi were chasing. If his own wishes were worth anything, he threw them in: Wish Volkhi to use his head, if my daughter won’t! What in hell’s she doing out there?

He thought he heard, then, faintly and full of pain: Pyetr, I don’t know, but I swear to you I’m trying!

There was Patches—Ilyana spied her through the brush, in the lightning flickers, with the roar of the rain-swollen brook in her ears. She was relieved to see Patches was on her feet, and terrified to see Patches had her hind feet almost in the flood: she had evidently fallen in, by the mud all down her side, and by luck or by a young lifetime of well-wishes, she must have gotten out again, if not all the way up the slippery bank. A heap of brush had partly dammed the brook there, and if Patches should step back and slip in now, Ilyana thought, that pile of brush could well trap her in the rush of water and drown her.

“Be calm,” she wished Volkhi, trying not to frighten Patches as they eased their way through the lightning-lit undergrowth. “Be calm. Easy.” She wanted Patches to pay sober attention to the water behind her, please, and use good sense and come on to them if she had the strength to climb the slippery bank. She had heard nothing from uncle Sasha or from her mother. The familiar woods had turned scary in the dark, with the water and the wind roaring and the lightning making the trees and Patches like ghosts of themselves. She would have hoped Babi at least would have come with her; but nothing was going right tonight, nothing she knew was working, her uncle must be hurt at the very least, and she wanted to get back to the house and know everybody had gotten out of the fire, please the god: the silence from her uncle was wrong, she could not understand what she had been thinking of, or understand why she was still out here chasing after a damned horse, any horse, to prove she was responsible, when her father and uncle Sasha were in danger. She had made a stupid choice, she had counted on hearing her uncle and knowing he was all right, and nothing was right, god—

But she was so close now—and Patches could still fall in and drown, right in front of her eyes, and if the damned horse would come on, it would only take a moment and she could ride back and leave the stupid filly in the woods until morning; she would be safe, just up the bank, just a few more steps up. “Come on. Patches, dammit! Oh, god—”

Lightning showed something caught in the brush pile, something the water had pushed there, not a log or even a dead animal. It looked like cloth. It looked like—

She made out a hand, a face profiled against the brush, above the white spray of the flood.

Oh, god, she thought, a drowned person, caught in the brush. She did not want to find someone dead—she wanted her uncle or her father, right now: grown-ups could deal with gruesome things—

But she was all there was, and if there was help she had to give it: she slid down from Volkhi’s drenched back and wanted him and Patches to stand very still while she worked down the bank beside Patches and had a look at this person to see if he was alive. Patches gave a nervous little whicker and proved she could move by easing over for her, but she did not want Patches to do that: she grabbed a handful of Patches’ black and white tail to help her footing on the mud. “Hey!” she yelled over the roar of the flood and the rain, hoping if the person was not dead he would hear and move and reach up a hand to her so she would not have to touch him to find out. But he did not move, so she leaned out over the rushing water, and grabbed a fistful of wet coat. “Move, Patches! Go on—dammit, no! Up!”

Patches gave a sudden jump and pulled so hard that both her arms were like to break. She held on until she had the body most of the way out of the water and that was all she could do: she let go of Patches’ tail and fell on her knees in the mud, hauling on the coat and the arms and trying to get the body where it would not fall back in.

The lightning showed her a handsome young face—in which the eyes were partly open and the mouth was working to breathe. He coughed up water, choked, and she quickly rolled him over on his side so he could spit it out. Awful water, full of mud, he had been in; and carried the god only knew how far in it and under the flood. He coughed and coughed and finally caught a bubbling breath.

She shook at him then. “Come on, get your legs out of the water! My uncle’s house is on fire and I’ve got to get home! Come on! Please, try!”

He tried: he got a knee under him, and slid immediately back toward the stream.

She grabbed him and pulled his limp body up against her, both of them sliding until she dug a heel into the mud. He weighed more than she did; he had fainted and she could pull him no further without chancing going in herself.

“Wake up!” She shook at him, he moved, and she shouted into his ear, “Get higher, get something to hold on to!”

Suddenly a Thing popped up right in their faces with a hiss and an appalling row of white teeth: the boy yelled and flinched back against her.

Babi, thank the god. Missy was beyond the screen of brush, her lather was jumping down and running to reach her—

The breath went out of her. Her arms were numb, the leg that was bracing both of them began to tremble. She was soaked through, and cold, but all at once she could hear her uncle wanting her to answer him, and he could hear her, telling him she was safe, everybody was safe, her father was here with Missy and Babi, and she had found a half-drowned boy…

Her mother said, without warning, Oh, god—

Her mother—

—wanting this boy to slip back in—

“No!” she cried, wanting her mother not! not! to think of killing.

The feeling stopped. Her father had her arm, pulled her by that and the boy by the collar and said, in a voice as shaky as she felt, “It’s all right, mouse, steady, I’ve got you both.”

The boy certainly explained something, magic not working, Sasha’s house burning, everything going wrong at once. Pyetr did not like this, he wanted Sasha to know, if Sasha was listening.

Sasha was not. Sasha was busy or Sasha was not doing, well, or magic had failed again, for some reason, none of I which possibilities made him feel any better at all.

“Your uncle’s not answering me,” he said to Ilyana, and Ilyana:

“He’s probably holding mother off. She’s—oh, god, papa, she wants—wants to kill him—”

He got the gist of that, grabbed her and hugged the breath out of the mouse, trusting Babi to go for the boy’s throat if he made a single hostile move. Ilyana was soaked, cold, exhausted, he was no better; and getting her back to the house was all he cared about at the moment. A man could never count on winning with magic running wild like this— wishes stacked up like so much old pottery, Sasha described it, a whole place heavy with an unstable stack of wishes, all waiting for some reasonable thing to satisfy the impossible condition—

Like a girl desperately wanting a boy. A wizard desperately wanting someone—

Damned right Eveshka was upset. He was upset, and he could not feel magic happening around him.

Ilyana said, against his shoulder, “Did uncle’s house all burn?”

“I’m afraid there’s not much left of it. At least the sparks are all drowned.” The rain was pouring down again, soaking them to the skin. “Who is he?”

“I don’t know.” She let go of him to kneel and look at the boy—handsome lad, Pyetr saw. Damn the luck. Older than Ilyana, maybe by several years. And that collar under the sodden coat glittered very expensively.

No farmer lad, that was sure. He dropped to one knee and gently slapped the boy’s cold face. “Who are you, lad? Do you have a name?”

Eyes slitted open while he thought uncomfortably of shape-shifters.

Lips said, faintly, “Yvgenie. Yvgenie Pavlovitch.”

“Where are you from?”

“Kiev.”

“You’re rather far from Kiev. The river washed you backwards, did it? Spat you out upriver. How did you get here?”

The eyes rolled, showed white. The boy had fainted away.

Didn’t at all like that question, did it?

“We’ve got to build a fire,” Ilyana said, through chattering teeth. “We’ve got to get him dry, he’s freezing.”

He thought—Hell if I want us alone out here with him. Get him to Sasha, is what we’ve got to do, and the faster, the better.

Aloud, he said, “In this rain, mouse? A horse’s back is the warmest place we can put him; and your uncle needs our help. Let’s just bundle him up and get him on a horse. You ride Missy back, you’re lightest.” He got his arms around whatever-it-was and pulled him up against him, the most dangerous position he could think of to be in with something magical, but he aimed him for Volkhi, as, after Missy, the most mannered horse they had.

In the small chance that this was truly the only shape young Yvgenie Pavlovitch owned.

Eveshka shoved at the tiller and the boat’s sail slatted and thundered above the rain. Way fell off immediately, and the boat began to toss as she brought the bow on about, holding with both arms and all her strength against the jolt as the sail came over. The boat reeled at the deepest slack to a sudden, violent gust, and only a wish and the ferry’s good trim kept her from rolling over in that instant before the wind slammed into the sail on a new tack and the tiller bucked against her arms. She hated the dark water, she hated the storm; she fought the river and the weather for her life and safely damned what could feel no possible danger from her.

She could not think now. She should not think now. Rain and tears blurred the shoreline as old River tried to take her a second time. The cold water wanted her back, and the deadliest thought of all was that for everyone she loved it might be the best answer.

Sasha insisted: The river’s not the way, ’Veshka! You can’t leave us. You couldn’t leave your daughter or Pyetr if you died, and you know that—you know what you’d become!

Do you hear me, ’Veshka?

She had heard. She knew. They feared her: Sasha did, Ilyana did—even Pyetr would not trust her help or her opinions.

She completed the turn and the wind sank. Having done its best to capsize her, the storm settled down to a cold, drenching rain.

Sasha shoved logs into the bathhouse furnace, slogged back out in the rain to the woodpile and carried his next armload of wood up to the porch and into the house, never minding the mud on Eveshka’s floors. Pyetr and Ilyana were coming in with the boy, all of them half-frozen and covered with mud: he had water for washing, he had a stack of towels, clean clothes, dry boots, blankets, water was boiling in the house and in the bathhouse—

He had hidden all the books in the cellar with the domovoi, the safest and driest place he could think of under the circumstances, and he hoped to the god to be mistaken about what Pyetr and the mouse were bringing home.

Thorns. Thorns and golden leaves and blood—

Owl dying—

No magery. Memory. His mind conjured him that nightmare of Chernevog, the warning dreams—the dreadful stone—

Pyetr lying in the brush, in the dark, white shirt—dark branches—

He shuddered at that one. It had come true. Everything had come true, fifteen years ago. It was over with and he did not want to see those things again, or remember their so-thought bannik—

Not tonight.

Himself on a white horse, something clinging to his back—

But that had only been Missy. Missy had saved his life and saved all of them, thank the god. That dream had come true, and nothing but good had issued from it—

Patches had come of it. The mouse had. All these things. Chernevog was buried however restless his ghost. No bannik had ever come to the bathhouse to replace that strayed fragment of Chernevog’s soul. And if all of it should have strayed back tonight—

—in whatever form—

But by the sounds of horses coming along the hedge outside, there was an answer forthcoming, very quickly now.

He changed to a dry coat at the door (one of Pyetr’s old coats, as happened, a little long in the sleeves for him) figuring he was about to do a great deal more trekking about in the rain before he saw any rest tonight. He took down Ilyana’s coat from the pegs, picked up a bundle of blankets and opened the door just as the front gate banged, and he spied Pyetr afoot, holding the yard gate open for three very tired, very sore horses.

“The stable gate’s open,” Sasha shouted, on his way down. “Just let them go.”

Ilyana was riding Missy, and they had the boy slung over Volkhi’s back, with Volkhi walking free. Patches broke into a jog for the stable, and Pyetr called out, “Stop Volkhi, for the god’s sake, before he dumps the boy on his head.”

Sasha wanted Volkhi to head sedately for the bathhouse while he was about it, and met them in the yard. “Warm water inside, mouse, once you’ve rubbed the horses down. Pyetr, here, two blankets. I’ve got Ilyana’s coat. The bath house is fired up and ready for the boy.”

“Good,” Pyetr said, and trudged after Volkhi, wrapping one blanket about his shoulders as he went. He called back: “Ilyana, warm water for their legs, and a rubbing down. I’ll help you as soon as I can. Don’t over-water or over-feed, mind, a quarter measure of the grain, no more than that.”

A very tired, very sore mouse slid down as Missy walked for the stableyard gate. Sasha caught her arms and steadied her, and flung her coat around her as Babi ran off after Missy “Sorry,” he said, then, on his own way to the bathhouse “Help you when we can, there’s a good girl.”

“I’m all right,” she panted, and overtook him, struggling in the mud, trying the while to put the coat on. “Is the house all gone, uncle?”

She desperately wanted him to be all right and not to sad about his things. The truth was, and he let her know weak-kneed though he was from the scare and with his hand burned and his chest hurting from the smoke, his books were safe and the rest of it was actually a relief: there were no stacks of clutter in his house anymore. “Spring cleaning” he said, and coughed. “Finally got around to it.”

The mouse grinned, the flash of a sidelong glance in tin light from the shutters. He tousled her wet hair as their ways parted at the stable gate. “Brave mouse. Watch yourself. Magic’s certainly loose tonight.”

At the bathhouse, Pyetr had pulled the unconscious boy off Volkhi and hauled him in a trailing tangle of blankets for the door. “Go on,” Sasha told Volkhi, slapping him on It side. “Good fellow, Volkhi. Warm rags and a rub in the stable.” He followed Pyetr into warmth and light, in time to pull the door to behind them.

“She seems all right,” he said to Pyetr, as he took the boy’s feet and helped lay him on his back on the bench.

“Thank the god for that.” Pyetr unfastened the boy’s sodden coat. “Patches brought her right to this boy. I wish we had another place to put him.”

Gold thread. Silk. Sasha whistled softly, helping Pyetr rid the boy of his sleeves. “No farmer and no fisher, whoever he was.”

“You think he’s dead?”

“Not quite sure. He’s certainly breathing.” He picked up a chill white hand, and laid it on the boy’s middle, put his hand on the side of the boy’s neck and felt the beat. “Cold as last winter, though. There’s hot water and towels over by the fire. He’s already soaked to the skin. I’d say just pile them on him and let him and the towels and all dry in the heat. The fire’s good till morning.”

“Good enough.” Pyetr went and soaked the towels while Sasha pulled the boy’s boots off. He came back with an armful and began spreading them over the boy.

The boy opened his eyes, lifted his head and promptly fell back with a thump on the bench. Pyetr slipped a hand under his neck and shoved a hot towel under his hair. Dark hair, it was. Pale blue eyes that wandered this way and that in confusion. “This is a bathhouse.”

“Our bathhouse,” Pyetr said, setting his foot on the end of the bench and resting his arms against his knee. “As happens. He’s Sasha, I’m Pyetr, and you’re Yvgenie Pavlovitch, the last I heard, who swam all the way up from Kiev to drown in our woods.”

“I rode a horse,” the boy said, faintly, “from Kiev. I—”

There was a complete muddle in the boy’s thoughts: running afoot through the woods, the rain coming down—

Someone or something chasing him, something to do with his father.

A fabulous palace, gold and gilt everywhere, a gray-haired, frowning man, not happy with him, no: his father would beat him, and kill the men who had lost him if they did not him back.

Sasha put a hand on the boy’s forehead, wished him calm and the wish fluttered this way and that of an anxious heart. He looked through the boy’s eyes and saw two sooted, wild-haired strangers hovering over him, who might intend to rob him or worse. His thoughts leapt around like a landed fish: death, and a demand for ransom, which his father might well pay—if only to have him in his hands.

Impossible to say whether he was what he seemed. A shapeshifter believed what it was and would not seem otherwise until one managed to find its single essential flaw.

He said, gently, “Yvgenie Pavlovitch, you’re in safe hands if you’re what you look to be. But this forest is full of tricks and tricksters. We don’t dare ourselves trust everything to be what it seems.”

Yvgenie said, “There was a girl—”

“My daughter,” Pyetr said. “She pulled you out of the water: What were you doing in the woods?”

“I—don’t—don’t remember.”

“Where did you come from?”

The boy thought (Sasha eavesdropped shamelessly): How did I get to this place? Aloud, he said, “Kiev.” But there were black pits everywhere in his remembering.

“What’s your father’s name?”

“Pavel…” The father’s features ran like wax, eluding the boy’s recollection, and the thoughts began jumping again. Dark places multiplied.

“He doesn’t remember,” Sasha said, laying his hand on Yvgenie’s chest, the better to gather up stray thoughts or hostile intentions. He wished the boy’s body well, at least: wished it warmth and ease of the aches and bruises it had suffered.

“Is that better?” he asked.

Wizard, the boy thought in sudden fright, fearing what he felt happening to him, and not daring protest it.

“Yes,” Sasha said, “I am what you’re thinking—which is a good thing for you. Pyetr, put some water on the stones. He’s cold through.”

Pyetr dipped up water and flung it onto the hot stones. The water hissed, fire-shadows jumped, and wind whirled curtains of steam and shadow about the walls. The lad at least could not suffer chill in here—fainting now from the heat, perhaps. Sasha wiped the hair out of the boy’s face and slapped his cheek gently to bring him back, but the boy’s eyes kept going shut, and his breath was rattling.

Not good, not at all good.

“Come on, boy,” he said, and put his hands on either side of the boy’s face, wishing warmth and well-being and easy breath, thinking only about that, and not his doubts of the boy’s nature. “Listen to me, Yvgenie Pavlovitch, you’re not to die, do you hear me?”

“No,” Yvgenie Pavlovitch whispered, with his eyes shut, looking, Pyetr thought, very young, and very handsome, and very rich in his gold collar and his red silk shirt—which meant at least the opportunity to grow up a scoundrel, Pyetr knew it from his own youthful associations.

But a very ill and almost dead young scoundrel, for all that, and for the first time Pyetr found himself seriously wondering whether he might have been too rough with what might after all be an innocent boy. He listened to Sasha’s mumbling over the lad, heard the breath rattling in the boy’s chest in a most disturbing congestion, and truly, he did want the boy lo live—

And be on his way to Kiev or wherever, without having the least to do with his daughter.

But Ilyana had already seen him, and the mouse was inevitably curious and most damnably, reprehensibly stubborn—which first trait was his and the latter one she had gotten fairly from both sides. Present the mouse a mystery, tell her no, and absolutely there was no stopping her.

And might this boy be, he wondered distractedly, the answer they had wished for, to win Ilyana’s heart away from a most dangerous ghost?

Or might he be (as he most acutely feared) Chernevog’s chosen way back from the grave?

Why should Sasha’s house burn, except to keep Sasha busy while wishes came unhinged and this boy found his way to Ilyana’s heart? Lightning had burned Chernevog’s house to its foundations, and one could never say Kavi Chernevog lacked a sense of humor, even in his darker moments.

Their own looming shadows did occasional battle with clouds of steam, jumped as Sasha worked, with a good deal of muttering and an occasional puff of pungent smoke from the fire, firelight glistening gold on his frowning face. Sasha did not look happy, no; and the thought gnawed him the while Sasha did whatever he was doing, that somewhere in the outcome of this night, he might well be losing Ilyana from his life—not, he prayed the god, in the direction of Kavi Chernevog; but at least in her growing up and away from him, now that this boy had come into the question—this Yvgenie Pavlovitch, who, by that silk and gold he wore, might make his daughter very unhappy.

He prayed if there was a rich father and a palace somewhere involved, that neither should ever involve his daughter, who could have no patience for the scoundrels who went thick as flies about such places—and a young man who lived in such places could not help but entertain scoundrels among his associates, even granted his own impeccable good character.

—No, surely this can’t be our answer. This can’t be the boy our mouse will marry. He’s something altogether other— thoroughly dead, by the look of him. Damned if it isn’t Chernevog! Damn, damn, and damn the scoundrel!

He paced. He watched. He asked Sasha quietly, coming to lean over his shoulder, against one of the posts that held the roof: “If he is a boy, do you think you possibly wished him up? Or did the mouse?”

“I truly don’t know,” Sasha said, moping sweat from his face. “I can say he’s stronger now than he was, but whether that’s good or bad for Yvgenie Pavlovitch I honestly don’t know.”

He did not like the sound of that at all. He muttered, “Where’s Chernevog’s heart right now, that’s what I’d like to know.”

And Sasha said: “I can’t answer that. I do think we should take a very quick bath, get the mouse inside, and wish her a sound sleep tonight.”

Yvgenie lay listening, watching sometimes from slitted eyes while water splashed and the wizard and the fair-haired man washed and talked in low voices that rang strangely through his ears. The heat made him dizzy. They spoke names that stirred no memory in him. He thought, What’s my father’s name? Pavel, of course. But what’s the rest of it? What am I doing here and what do they want from me?

He stole glances at Pyetr, whose features recalled so strongly the girl who had rescued him—who had rescued him and held him when the river had tried to drag him away—she had protested, he remembered her voice, clear above the rain and the rush of water, Papa, please, not head down like that, he’ll have a headache—

He had thought so too—but he had been too far gone to protest being slung over a horse’s back like a bale of rags. And he was sure on those grounds he ought not to like or trust this Pyetr, but his heart wanted to—he desperately wanted Pyetr to trust him, and not to frown at him and wish him dead, and most of all, please the god, to stand between him and Sasha the wizard—who might have helped him so far; but whose ultimate intentions he dreaded more than he dreaded Pyetr’s scowls.

What will he want of me? he wondered, recalling (so he did remember some things) an old woman saying that wizards drank from dead men’s skulls and stirred their potions with children’s finger-bones; wizards bargained very sharply, wizards could bind people helplessly to do their bidding, most probably lost young men who came into their debt, souls who became birds at night and flitted about the woods looking for their suppers.

Their shadows and their footsteps came toward him, making a cool space in the heat from the fire. He kept his eyes shut, while his heart pounded, trying not to let them know he felt the hand that rested first on his brow, and lightly then against his cheek and his shoulder.

“Rest easy,” the wizard said, and it would have been very easy to slip right down then—they tried to take even his fear away, and that was the last defense he had. He fought that urge, held on to his doubts, and after a moment their shadows went away and left him in the light and the breathless heat. The door opened and closed with a single gust of chill from that direction, after which he dared open his eyes and look up at the shadows shifting among the rafters. He was at the first breath relieved that they had gone, and then not glad at all: he began to have the most terrible conviction that not everyone who had been with them had left the bathhouse, that there was someone standing just out of sight in the shadows behind the fire.

Perhaps Pyetr had stayed—perhaps they had only been trying to trick him into opening his eyes. But it did not feel at all like Pyetr’s shadow—it had no feeling of a man at all. Perhaps he should call out to the wizard and his friend before they got too far to hear and beg their help—but like a child in the dark, he dreaded to cry out, first for fear they might not believe him, and might desert him here with an angrier, more wakeful spirit—and then for fear he had already hesitated too long. They were surely out of hearing now.

It might be a bannik—surely that was it: he was in a bathhouse, after all, a wizard’s bathhouse, to boot, and an Old Man of the Bath was not necessarily a hostile or a baneful creature to strangers, just peevish and difficult and probably wondering what he was doing here, a prisoner in its domain.

He thought desperately—that if he could just gather the little strength that had come back to him, he would gladly oblige the bannik and make a fast run for the door, escape across the yard to the horses, wherever they were. He might ride out of this place, and reach—

But he had no idea where he had been going. Not home. Not back to his father, never, never—

A log fell, making his heart jump, with whatever-it-was creeping closer and closer. He felt it on his right, he felt it almost on him, and he leapt for his feet in a tangle of wet towels—fell and scrambled on his knees toward the door. He pushed it and pulled it and it no more than rattled to his efforts while the presence loomed over him. He flung himself around with his shoulders pressed to the door, his senses reeling with the heat and the light. The shadows of beams and posts and rafters gyrated in a gust of wind from the smoke hole.

Whatever-it-was cast no shadow itself, but he felt its chill between him and the fire. He reached back and gripped the solid wood of a beam, hauled himself up sitting against the door and waited for it.

A bannik? A Bath-thing, in a bad mood? They had long, long fingernails that they used when they were angry—always—from behind you. He knew that from somewhere—they would always come at you from behind.

Which this one could not do, while he had his back against (he door—so long as he could keep his eyes open, and keep from fainting in the heat.

Hot tea and blankets. Ilyana had never been so sore or so tired in her life. There were scratches all over her arms, her father and her uncle had had their baths, but that had only helped the mud and the soot: they both had deep burns and scratches she wanted well, dammit, right now: it was the one point on which her thoughts were not scattering tonight, and she wanted that fixed.

“Thank you, mouse,” her uncle said, with that strange, distant feeling he had had since he started talking to her again, and she did not know how to fix that. She only nodded unhappily, having her mouth full, and wondered if her uncle was finally angry at her—not fair, if that was the case, though she had deserved it a hundred times before this, and supposed it was due on other accounts. Or on the other hand her uncle might be upset about the fire and just not trusting himself close to people. She did not want him to be upset, please the god: her mother being upset was enough to be wrong with the world. She needed her uncle to have his wits about him, please.

“Thank you for that, too, mouse—and, no, it’s quite all right. There’s just enough gone on today, and I’m very tired. Nothing’s your fault.”

“Everything’s my fault. I didn’t need to go after Patches, I could have wished her out, if—”

“None of us had choices,” her uncle said. “That’s why I tell you don’t ever wish for generalities. You didn’t chance to wish up a young man, did you?”

Her face went hot. “Certainly not to drown one!”

“Of course not,” uncle said. “But if he is an ordinary young man, you above all mustn’t make wishes about or at him. It wouldn’t at all be fair.”

“I want him to get well!”

“Of course you do.” Her father, next to her on the bench, poured Babi’s waiting mouth a dash of vodka, poured his own cup, and then poured a large dose into her tea. She had just taken another bite meanwhile, and she needed a drink even to protest her father’s recklessness. She washed down her mouthful of bread with a gulp of the only liquid she had and gasped, her eyes watering.

“Father! That’s more than I’ve ever had!”

“This once,” her father said.

She took a more cautious sip. It was strong, but she could taste the tea this time, and the fumy vodka eased her throat and her eyes the way the tea had not. She sipped it slowly, thinking how her mother would say, Pyetr! Don’t give her that much. But her mother was not here. Her father had the only say-so, and his rules were not so strict, about anything. The whole world seemed wider and more dangerous, with her father in charge, and he was treating her like a grownup.

Her uncle said, “I think we should get some rest while we can. Our friend’s asleep out there. I’ve seen to that.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” her father said. “Ilyana, your uncle’s put the old tub in your bedroom; I’m afraid the bathhouse is rather well taken tonight.”

“I don’t know why you can’t bring him up here tonight. The kitchen’s more comfortable than the bathhouse. What if he needs help?”

“Your uncle’s already sleeping here, remember? He’s having to share a bed with me tonight, and I’m certainly not having any stranger bedded down next to the kitchen cutlery.”

“He doesn’t dress like a bandit. I think his father must be a boyar at least.”

“That’s no recommendation. I’ve dealt with boyars’ sons, and there’s not a one I’d trust outside your door.”

Her face went warm a second time. She took a drink to cover what she was sure was a blush, forgetting about the vodka until she found herself with an entire mouthful of tea. There was nothing to do but swallow it. Her eyes watered and she felt hot all over—dizzy, too. “Father, I—”

“ He stays in the bathhouse.”

“I don’t think he’s any—” The room was stiflingly close of a sudden. Her head spun. She felt of her forehead to be sure where it was. Or where her fingers were. “Oh, dear, papa.”

“Mmmm. Never mind the sheets, baby mouse. I think I’d better go straight on to bed.”

“Papa—”

Dirty trick. Yes. Her father stepped over the bench, took her arms and helped her step over. She caught her foot on the bench. He swept her right up in his arms like a baby and the whole room went around and around as she found the ceiling in front of her eyes. It had been years since he had carried her at all, and she grabbed at his neck for fear of falling. But he got her safely through her bedroom door and let her down gently on her bed.

“The mud,” she objected.

“That’s all right.” He tugged at the covers under her. “Sheets will wash. You’ve had one near-drowning tonight. You don’t need another, in the tub. Tuck your feet up.”

Sleep settled around her, soft and deep as the covers her father pulled over her. He leaned down, kissed her on the forehead, and pulled a snag from her hair.

“Good night, mouse. Shut your eyes.”

Silly wish: she already had.

The house was quiet, even the anxious domovoi having settled. Pyetr lay on his back in bed beside Sasha, with just the embers from the fireplace giving them light, wondering what ’Veshka was thinking tonight, and where she was, and whether she was warm and safe. Distracting Sasha with that question did not seem a good idea right now.

He asked Sasha instead, “What in hell are we going to do with the boy? We can’t leave him in the bathhouse till the snowfalls.”

“I think we should get some sleep. In the morning we’ll think of something.”

“No guarantee we even have a guest at this point.” The latch on the outside of the bathhouse door was new, Sasha’s handiwork, the hour Sasha had learned they were bringing company this evening, but a latch might only keep a helpless boy inside. For other things the smoke hole was enough. So was the crack under the door quite enough for a shapeshifter, not mentioning that certain magical creatures could be anywhere they wanted to be without any cracks and crevices at all to slip through. Certain unpleasant things could pop into the room with them right now, except the domovoi’s and Babi’s watching.

“Babi hasn’t objected to him,” Sasha said, “and if it isn’t a real boy, it certainly took a great deal of trouble getting here, only to leave now.”

That much was true: Babi had curled up on the quilts at Ilyana’s feet in quite his ordinary fashion, with no evident interest in the bathhouse. Babi hated shapeshifters: he would chase them so long as he could smell the least trace of them—once he could tell what they were.

“Go to sleep,” Sasha wished him. So Sasha believed that they were safe to do that now, no matter that Sasha’s house was cinders and someone’s wishes other than his had made havoc of this night.

“No,” he tried to object—might have objected: an ordinary man could be more stubborn than a wish, but proximity made a difference with magic, and tired as he was, close as he was to Sasha, he had not a chance: he was already slipping down into dark.

—at the same moment he thought he heard ’Veshka say, out of the dark and the faint patter of rain on the roof: “Pyetr, care of her. For the god’s sake don’t let that boy near her.”