Eveshka said to him then, so clear it seemed to ring in winter air, Pyetr, I’m on my way home. I want you to let go of the boy, I want you not to touch him, not to think about him, I want you to go to the house immediately and take care of our daughter, do you hear me? Now!
So many wants. An ordinary man had no choice without a wizard’s help. As it was, he had trouble letting the boy down gently and standing up.
He said, “ ’Veshka—”
But she was not listening. She refused to hear him, and speech damned up in his throat. So he thought, instead, about the heart he had held for her, about its terrible selfishness, that weighed a lost boy’s life so little against its wants and its opinions, and thought, I’m safer from him than from you, ’Veshka. He could only threaten what I love. You are what I love. What can I do against that?
He saw Sasha take a breath. He found one of his own.
“God,” Sasha breathed then. And: “Mouse!”
The door banged open. His daughter was standing there in the sunlight. She looked at the boy on the floor, she looked at them, and said, faintly.
“Mother’s coming home.”
Pyetr crossed the floor to reach her, but she fled the doorway, out into the blinding sun, and ran across the yard before she so much as stopped to look back at him, not wanting them to touch her, no.
“Mouse, we need your help!”
“I don’t want to help you!” she cried, and turned and bolted along the side of the house, braids flying, running like someone in pain.
“Oh, god,” he said, and took out after her, fearing she might head for the river, or loose some foolish wish. He heard Volkhi protest something, a loud and clear challenge, he heard Ilyana running up to the porch before he rounded the corner of the house, and she looked down at him from that vantage. She was crying.
“Mouse, I’ve got quite enough with your mother right now. Are you going to wish me in the river? Or are you going to listen to me first?”
“No one ever listens! I told you he wasn’t any harm!”
“But he is, mouse! He may be your friend, but he’s killed that boy, mouse, he’s wished your uncle’s house burned, he nearly killed your uncle—do you call that no harm?”
She set her hands on the rail and bit her lip. Maybe she was listening. Or maybe his daughter was wishing him in the river, he had no idea. He heard the horses snorting and stamping about behind him, but he kept his eyes on his daughter and his jaw set as he advanced as far as the walk-up.
“Your mother is on her way back here,” he said, setting his hand on the rail. “She’s not in a good mood, mouse, and I’m trying to reason with her. But it’s not easy.”
“She’d better look out, then. She’s not going to kill him, papa! Nobody’s going to kill him!”
“I’ve talked to your friend. He’s here to see you, mouse-mouse, dammit—”
But his daughter had gone inside, and the door slammed.
He started up to the porch. He lost his conviction halfway up, that he truly wanted to go into the house, or talk to his daughter. He looked aside in frustration and saw—god, a strange white horse with its nose across the hedge, a horse bridled and saddled, holding discussion with their three horses in the stableyard.
Damn! he thought. He did not like this. It took no wizardry for a lost horse to smell out the only other horses in these woods, and Yvgenie had lost one in the flood. It was the sudden accumulation of coincidences that set his nape hairs on end—that and the storm feeling hanging over the house.
That was from his daughter—who might or might not be responsible for the horse, which, dammit, was at least an indication that wizardry was lending them more trouble, and might have something to say about someone needing to get somewhere; or might mean only that Ilyana thought the boy should have his horse back. He set his jaw and doggedly did what he did not want at all to do, walked up to the porch, banged the door open and said, before he had realized it, in his own father’s most angry voice:
“Mouse?”
She was in her room: the door was shut.
He knocked. He softened his voice. “Mouse, this is no time for tantrums. I need you, your uncle needs you and there’s a visitor at the fence. Dry your eyes and come out here.”
She said, through the door, “I don’t know why anybody asks me when they never believe what I say. I’m sure the horse is my fault. Everything else is!”
“No one’s saying anything’s your fault, mouse, don’t put words in my mouth. Come out here and be reasonable.”
A long silence.
“Mouse?”
“I don’t know what’s happening,” a small voice came back. “Papa, mother’s going to do something awful to him. She’s coming back and she’s going to kill him.”
“She’s not going to kill him, mouse. She may even think she will, but she hasn’t seen him. He seems a nice lad, other visitors aside—I’m sure he owns the horse out there, and it’s not at all remarkable it came calling. Horses’ noses work very well without magic. But Chernevog is involved in his being here, and you won’t get your way slamming doors, mouse. Certainly not with your mother. We didn’t hurt the boy, I swear to you we didn’t. We need to talk about this.”
Another long silence.
“Mouse, we’re all very tired. Your uncle’s at his wits’ end and so am I, please don’t cry.”
“I won’t let mother kill anybody and I won’t let her make you do it!”
“Neither will I, mouse. That’s a promise. But I want you to listen to me. Please. I want you to be ever so good and reasonable, and please don’t scare your mother, for the god’s sake, mouse.”
“She wants you to kill that boy!”
“It’s not her fault. It was a mistake and she knew it. And I’m not easy to wish. Do you mind if I open the door?”
“No! Don’t!”
He dropped his hand from the latch without thinking about it. He said, patiently, reasonably, “Ilyana, we’re going to help him.”
“How? By wishing him dead? Why not? All my friends are dead. I don’t have any living ones.”
His own vinegar was in that remark.
“All right,” he said to the door, “mouse, I suppose I’ll have to do without your help. And I could truly use it right now.”
“What do you want me to do?”
He pushed the door open. She was sitting in the middle of the bed. Babi was in her arms. Babi growled at him. Babi was not wont to do that. But he was not wont to fight with his daughter either.
He said, quietly, “There’s a strange horse out there. That’s one thing. And there’s the house and the mud. I don’t want your mother to have anything to complain about when she gets here.”
“I did that, papa, you haven’t even looked. I even scrubbed the floors.”
He had not noticed. Not a bit. He looked at the floor, looked up at his daughter’s reddened eyes.
“I’m terribly sorry, mouse. I really am.”
“You’re being awful to that boy, papa. You’re scaring him, I can hear it!”
“Chernevog deserves it. The boy doesn’t, not by anything I see. But in all truth, mouse, I’m afraid there’s very little of the boy left. Rusalki do that kind of thing. Between Chernevog and your mother, I don’t know where we stand—but the boy hasn’t a chance in hell if certain people don’t use their heads right now. If you and Sasha can agree about the boy, the two of you might have a chance of convincing your mother. I don’t know about Chernevog—but if you do have any influence, reasoning with him wouldn’t be a bad idea, either.”