She sat before her small fire with her hands clasped before her lips and listened to the laughter out of the dark.
She thought, Wishing is so dangerous. I’ve never, never nice the day I died, dared wish too much.
But tonight—
Kavi, if she can’t hear me, then, dammit, you listen—
Mouse, Eveshka, I don’t know if there is a way back from what I’ve done. Take your lesson from me, mouse, and forever be careful of your choices.
Uulamets himself told me—a wizard’s never more powerful than when he’s a child; I didn’t understand why that should be, but it seemed so, and now I know why: because it takes patience to see your wishes come true, and if in waiting for them you lose your belief, you can’t believe in your present ones the way you did the first.
And the day you make your first mistake—you doubt yourself.
But master Uulamets told me wrong. It’s not once lifetime that a wizard can work a spell like I worked on jug. It’s any moment you think you can. I might wish you back here. I think I could hold you—if I was sure it was right to do. It seems true too that no wizard can wish time; or if he can wish time, he can’t wish place; or if he can wish place, he can’t be sure of the event.
Only a child can be so absolute in all—
Sasha ripped a page, crumpled it and cast it into the fire short burst of fire and a curling sheet of ash. Babi hissed, Pyetr jerked back the cooking pan in startlement—
“What was that?” Pyetr asked.
Sasha looked as if something had hit him. Scared. Tern fied. That was not Sasha’s habit either.
“Sasha?” If there were ghosts or if there were more substantial things he knew how to deal with them. Babi did. But something to do with that book, that Sasha would risk his life for, writing which held things Sasha had to remember—and from which he had just cast a page into the fire— “Sasha? What in hell happened?”
“I wrote something. I wrote something I shouldn’t have written. Things changed.”
“What changed?” The hair on his nape prickled. There was a smell of scorched oil and burned paper beneath the trees and he found the presence of mind to rescue the cakes and set the pan aside. “Sasha, make sense, dammit.”
“You can tell when magic works. You can feel it.”
“You told me nothing can change what’s written. Can fire?”
Sasha shook his head and shut the book. “But it can keep another wizard from reading it.”
“Reading what?”
Sasha looked at him—terrified, he thought. Distraught. Sasha said faintly, “I—” and stopped.
“Don’t tell me,” he said, seeing it came hard. And he added, in the case it was something to do with him, “Sasha, I trust you.”
Sasha put his hand over his eyes and bowed against the book. It scared him more than anything Sasha had ever done—and he had no idea whether to move, to touch him, to say anything—he was used to ’Veshka’s fits, he had learned the lessons they taught; but one from Sasha scared him. He sat dead still, not moving until a tremor started that had nothing to do with cold.
If he could wish anything, he wished for Sasha’s peace of mind. If Sasha was hearing him he truly wanted that—
And he was deaf to whatever storms might be going on unless Sasha wanted him to hear, absolutely could not feel hem—Sasha should remember that, too.
Sasha lifted his head, with a fear-struck expression. “I wished—wished us to find her, Pyetr. If I wish her to find us, we could do us all harm.”
One asked—carefully—because it was useful to remember sometimes, such small things magic might make Sasha forget: “Is there that much difference? What is the difference?”
“It isn’t strength. It’s inevitability. It’s sliding down the slope of what is. She’s the one in motion. All things follow her.”
Nonsense, it sounded to be; but Sasha saw things Sasha could not describe in words. Sasha called them currents. Or drifts. Or whirlwinds.
“What—?” One ought to question—but one ought not to jostle upset wizards—no. One should keep one’s questions behind one’s teeth and tend to supper or something ordinary that might let Sasha climb back up off that slope himself, before someone slipped.
He carefully poured two cups of vodka from the jug. Looked for Babi to give him his, but there was no Babi. He took a sip and offered Sasha his cup. Sasha took it gently, steadily from his fingers, and Pyetr avoided his glance, not to disturb him.
Sasha nudged his arm with the cup, said faintly, “Don’t do that.”
He looked up—met Sasha’s eyes in the flickering of the firelight; honest brown, they were, dark flickering on the surface with firelight, but one could not see past that surface—could not now, could not for years past see past it, to what Sasha did not want him to know. Sasha was not the stableboy any longer, not the boy who had looked to him for advice
“But I do,” Sasha said. “I still do. I rely on it.”
“Then the god help us.” He had not meant his voice in shake. “I got us into this. I don’t know why in hell the leshys won’t answer us—”
“There’s reason.” Sasha’s eyes wandered to the firelit trees about them. “I’ve felt a change in the woods over the years. Misighi said—old wood and young. You rarely see the old ones now.”
“Trees we planted—all up and down the damn riverside. Even the young ones should know we aren’t any harm here.”
“Will the fawn? Or should it? Its rules are different, that’s all.” He glanced above them. “They never quite trust us, Pyetr. Maybe they shouldn’t.”
“What’s this, maybe they shouldn’t?”
“ ’Veshka’s in the woods tonight.”
“In the woods. Where in the woods? Does she know where Ilyana is? Can you talk to her?”
“I—don’t know. I don’t think I should right now.”
“Why?”
“I could change things. Maybe that’s not a good idea.”
“God. —Maybe your house was afire! Maybe you should have run for the damn door, Sasha! Remember the world, remember your uncle, remember the town gate, for the god’s sake! There are times you just make up your mind and do something!”
“This isn’t Vojvoda, Pyetr.”
Fool, he figured that meant. So he shut his mouth and shook his head, hoping—hoping his friend had some intention to move soon. Please.
“Pyetr—you’re all of the ordinary world I can understand. You’re not the only one I can hear. But you’re the only one run answer me. —And forgive me for eavesdropping just then. You’re not a fool, you’re absolutely not a fool.”
“Only twice a day.”
“Nor afraid of things. I envy that.”
“Not afraid of things. Damned right l’m scared. I’m scared of sitting here too long. I’m scared what else is wrong.”
“But not afraid of us. You never think I’d harm you.”
“No, I don’t think that. But the fact is, Sasha—I don’t care if you do.—And you know how I mean that. Stop worrying.”
Sasha’s lips trembled. “Dammit, Pyetr.”
“Don’t do that on me. God.” Wrong thing to have said. He knew nothing else to do. He grabbed Sasha the way he would ’Veshka and held him tight. Eventually Sasha held on to him.
He heard the horses give alarm, thought, For the god’s mike, Sasha, be sensible, don’t frighten Missy—