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.