So they sat, Pyetr so sore he could hardly get up once he had sat down, Eveshka exhausted and himself finding bruises and sore spots he had no memory of getting, with no assurance of safety. Sasha dared not even take his attention off their prisoner for a moment, for fear of some trick on Chernevog’s part. Pyetr had no defense, except him and Eveshka; Eveshka he was afraid to trust, counting all the years she had been at least marginally
Chernevog’s, and he had no idea what to do, except hold on, stay awake, try to rest as much as he could.
But it seemed a good idea, as Eveshka had said, to search the house before dark, to be sure there was nothing left of Chernevog’s household—to find his heart, if they could, and keep it to be sure of him.
“If there ever was one,” Pyetr muttered.
There must have been, Sasha thought, but Draga had surely gotten it long ago; and Draga was dead, likely taking it with her—which might have ended all hope for Chernevog, who knew?
Still, he did not say that, nor try to influence Eveshka’s thoughts—though he waited in anguish where he had to wait during that search, watching over Chernevog, and wished very hard for their safety, especially Pyetr’s, while Pyetr and Eveshka searched as much of the house as they could reach. He wished to the best of his wisdom that they would find what answers existed and that the two of them would be safe in that maze of unstable, still-smoking timbers, but his heart jumped at every crash and fall of timber from the burned wing.
They only came back, at the very edge of dark, with smoke-smelling blankets, a very substantial basket of food, a bucket of clean water from the kitchens, which had been spared the fire, Eveshka said, and a bundle of clean, dry clothing, Pyetr already having washed and changed his, and Eveshka having pulled one of Chernevog’s tunics on over her gown. “At least there’s this,” Pyetr said, “if nothing else.”
It actually seemed a great deal, on a cold and desperate night. Sasha gratefully pulled a second blanket over him for modesty as well as for warmth and began to change his clothes, which were stiff with mud in patches, and still damp in the seams.
Meanwhile, in the deepening dark, with Chernevog still sleeping the other side of the fire, Pyetr matter-of-factly put water on to boil and made tea, while he took to shaving. Eveshka warmed up the bread they had found, and offered it to them with a little honey.
“He’s very well-stocked,” Pyetr said. “I doubt it’s wishes. Common banditry, most like.” Pyetr finished his chin, between bites of bread, and the tea Eveshka had poured him, then wiped the razor on his knee, held up a finger, gulped down the bit in his mouth and reached into a pocket, as if he had only then remembered something.
He pulled out a bauble on a chain, that glanced red and glittered gold in the firelight. He smiled, caught it in his hand again, then tossed it to Sasha.
“You shouldn’t—” Sasha said.
“What’s the difference—food or gold? A whole box of that stuff and not a heart to be had. Not a rat alive in there. Nor any domovoi or anything of the kind.”
“They’re too honest,” Eveshka said, and then said forlornly: “Where’s Babi gone? Have you seen him?”
Sasha shrugged uncomfortably, and tossed the bauble back to Pyetr, with the thought that Pyetr was probably very right, there was no difference and there was no reason not to take whatever they wanted—if there was any use for such things. “I don’t know,” he said to Eveshka. “I think he’s all right. I saw him yesterday, scared out of his wits. He’s probably home by now.” He hoped so, fervently, and cast a look at the firelit brush around them, wondering what Babi might have met, following Pyetr, or whether Pyetr had seen it.
“I don’t suppose you could wish us home,” Pyetr said, reaching—with a wince—after the vodka jug.
“One doesn’t—” Sasha began to explain, about nature and consequences, but Pyetr said:
“Or wish us the tsar’s horses.”
Pyetr was laughing at him. He was glad, he was very glad to see that, and told himself his anxiousness was exhaustion. “We’ll get there.”
“We’ll get there.” Pyetr motioned with the bottle toward him, offering him a cupful, but Sasha shook his head. Eveshka took a little, sipped it and shut her eyes with a weary sigh.
“Food and sleep,” she said, and then drew a little breath and frowned as if some dark thought had touched her, looking down at the cup in her hands as if she could quite as easily cry.
What’s wrong? Sasha wanted to know—distrusting such sudden shifts, here, in this place, with Chernevog asleep so close to them.
“It’s so good,” she said, aloud; but answered him, alone: I was remembering—what it felt like to need food and sleep—and being dead—
Forget, he wished her, perhaps too strongly; or perhaps nothing he could do was strong enough.
A frown had come to Pyetr’s face. He took another sip of the vodka, cast a second, worried glance at Eveshka, then said, “We’ve got to think about getting out of here.”
“It’s not that easy,” Sasha said.
“I know it’s not that easy! What do we do with him, in the meanwhile? Carry him back like that? Lock him in the shed? Stand him in the garden?”
Sasha cast his own worried glance at Eveshka, who sat with her elbow on her knee, sipping her cup and certainly thinking about what Pyetr was saying.
Stand him in the garden? Ignore Chernevog’s existence? Hope the spell lasts?
A frown knit Eveshka’s brow, fire shimmering in her eyes: a willful, self-centered girl, Uulamets’ memories said, unasked, offering the image of a sixteen-year-old slipping out of the house to meet with Chernevog; a ten-year-old sulking and stormy, insisting on her own way; a flaxen-haired, blue-eyed child, dancing down a summer road, so happy, so innocent one’s heart would ache—
She’s none of those things now, he thought; but she’s been all of them.
A wizard. Wanting Pyetr—wanting him to love her, wanting so much-Would he, without that? Would he forget about Kiev, and stay, without that?
God, how much of it is me holding him? And how much of it is me wanting her for his sake?
“What about Chernevog?” Pyetr asked again. “How long will he sleep? What do we do with him?”
So long as he lives, neither one of them is safe, nothing is safe, Chernevog’s the instability…
God, I’m not thinking straight; I can’t sleep, I daren’t sleep tonight—I haven’t the surety of anything.
Can he be waking?
Sasha dropped his head against his hands, thinking that, winning, they had not, after all, won. He could not justify Chernevog surviving, wicked as he was, he could not justify a mercy that endangered others, seeing what Chernevog had done, and in his exhaustion he could not see the river house again, nor staying with Pyetr and Eveshka, where he wanted to be, where he wanted dangerously much to be…
No.
Which meant leaving Pyetr to Eveshka, alone, trusting her to take proper care of him—when he at least had known unmagical folk, had lived with them as one of them, for the god’s sake, which Eveshka never had, and that was a terrible danger to him, hardly less than Chernevog.
But without killing Chernevog—without sleeping enough to have his wits about him—without the confidence to hold Chernevog while he got that rest—
God, he thought, and wanted Chernevog asleep, staying asleep—