Then he heard the rising of a wind in the woods. Or not a wind.
He thought—Misighi?—because it might be leshys—they had a sound like that, when the great old ones were traveling.
One of the horses thundered away. The other followed.
His thoughts started scattering like the sparks from the lire, going out in the wind, one by one, and he fought it, thinking—I can’t go out, I can’t—dammit, no…
9
Wolves came on his trail, soft-footed, golden-eyed, and there was no escaping them or the memory of the house, and of Draga. There was no breath left to run, except in short, desperate bursts of failing strength, and the woods closed in among winding bramble hedges, high walls of leaves and hidden thorns.
The green maze branched. The left-hand corridor looked lightest and longest, and he took it, but it rapidly became more ominous than the last, shadowed and leafless and wild. He thought, This is foolish. I should never have taken this path, I should go back now—it leads nowhere I want to go— I might get back before they find the entry to this path—
Shadow fell between him and the light, shadow of a face, and something touched his arm. Ilyana said he should wake, they should go on now, where they were, and that helped him to the light. He struggled up on his elbows and to his knees, in a world gray and faint, shadowed with cloud like his dream. He saw Ilyana gathering up Patches’ saddle and felt for some reason that the dream was still going on, that it was a presentiment to do with where they were going, that he had always known where the chase must end.
A place of thorns. And wolves. He had run that corridor of thorns and they would find him there—or had run it, already. He longed for that meeting, and for the sight of Pyetr’s no matter how dreadful the moment, because after that he would not be alone with his dreams. After that—
“Yvgenie,” Ilyana said.
He thought, There’s safety there. Somehow there’s safety, but not the sort I want to find, and not a place she belongs. She won’t forgive me, she won’t ever forgive me for it.
As Owl brushed his face with a wing tip.
Why do I feel that all my choices were long ago?
Why does it seem I’m remembering all of this? Yvgenie, Yvgenie, boy, don’t sleep yet, it’s not time to sleep that deeply. Wake up, saddle the horse and let’s be moving.
Pyetr was my friend once, boy. You missed really knowing him. But he was in that place. Or he will be, again, and we might just die there. Maybe that’s what all this is leading to. Or from.
He waked on his feet, with the saddle in mid-heft, aimed toward Bielitsa’s back. It landed clumsily, and he straightened it and warmed his hands against her, knowing the risk in what he was doing, and the risk in where they were, and the dream he dreamed—but he did what he could. He saw Ilyana climb into the saddle. She had her hair in braids, the way it had been in the yard that day, when he was noticing edges of grass, and sunlight. He saw her that way now, as if he were slipping toward the dark and she were still standing in the light: the whole world was fragile, and poised to slip away—or he was already leaving it.
Sasha waked with his arm asleep, and with someone lying tangled on the cold earth with him—Pyetr, he was certain. Pyetr, now he remembered it, had been reasoning with a very foolish wizard who had had the safe ground fall from under his feet—
He could feel his old master’s knowledge stirring at the depth of his memory once he thought sanely about it, a discovery Uulamets had made and hidden from him, writing the one Great Lie in his book—the one that obscured all the other truths.
God, I know what he used when he brought Eveshka back. I know what Uulamets did to reach back from the grave—all the questions I couldn’t answer then I know; and it’s too damned easy. One daren’t even breathe, knowing it!
But breath did come—and with it, awareness of the whole world, brittle, prone to fracture at the very curiosity that discovered its substance. It was indeed Pyetr tangled with him—one knew Pyetr’s presence, and one could hear the rough, raw echo of the earth, feel the cold mustiness of dead leaves, the acrid smoldering of embers, and the fragility a sleeping and half-dead—
—girl.
His eyes flew open. His hand jerked toward the ground and pressed wet, gritty leaves. His waking vision was exactly the same: a girl was sleeping peacefully beside them, a girl with long blond braids, wearing gilt and blue silk embroidered with flowers. Mouse, he all but exclaimed at first glance, except she did not sound like the mouse, not inside. She sounded—
Pyetr bruised his ribs and his leg sitting up, sharp, welcome pain, that shoved the noisy world back, and convince him most welcomely that Pyetr saw the same thing.
“What in hell?” Pyetr breathed.
Whereupon the girl’s eyes opened and she stared at them both as if they had fallen out of the moon—or she had.
“Who is she?“ Count on Pyetr to ask the critical question, count on Pyetr to grab him by the shoulder at the brink of wondering too much too fast—as the girl thrust herself up on her arms, staring at them, frozen, quiet. Blue eyes, straw-colored hair that trailed free about a frightened face—
A rich girl’s gown all tattered and bedraggled, gilt threads torn, scratches on her hands—
“Yvgenie,” Pyetr muttered, in the same moment Sasha thought, too, of a red silk shirt and gilt collar.
The girl asked—she could hardly ask, she was shivering so: “Are you his f-father’s men?”
“I assure you, no,” Pyetr said fervently, and the girclass="underline"
“ Do you know where he is? “
No, Sasha warned Pyetr without half-thinking, and was sure on a second thought that he was right. Brave as this townbred girl might be, it was more than embroidery was raveled, surely, and it was more than young foolishness had brought her to them. Absolutely, magic was loose.
“We should make a fire,” he said, nudging Pyetr’s arm, wishing him to understand and be careful what he said. “Have breakfast.” The pan was lying next last night’s fire, with last night’s overdone cakes in it. The vodka jug sat beside it. He picked up the pan and offered it to the girl. “There are cakes if you’d like a bite—they’re cold, I’m afraid. We haven’t time to cook this morning. But we can make tea—”
“We need to find the horses,” Pyetr said sharply, giving his shoulder a shake. “We need to find Babi, dammit. The boy wasn’t alone, we can figure that, but we can ask her questions while we’re moving.”
“She’s not a shapeshifter,” he assured Pyetr, in case Pyetr was in doubt. He was virtually certain of it. “One of that kind would have been the mouse to our eyes.” He made smother offer of their untouched supper, wishing the girl to trust them at least that far, quite ruthlessly: she was white as a ghost herself, and her trembling, he was sure, was not all from fright. The forest offered food to woodsmen, not to a girl in silk and gilt. “Go on. It’s all right. Take them.”
She took the pan, perforce, asking, “Please—where’s Yvgenie?”
“With my daughter,” Pyetr said harshly, and, leaning on Sasha’s shoulder, got to his feet. “Somewhere in this woods. We’re looking for them. We’ve been looking for them for two damned days now.”
Pyetr had been a long time from his courtly youth and the idle flattering of young ladies—Pyetr was in a hurry, the mouse was in dire danger, and he both frightened the girl and reassured her of his ultimate intentions, Sasha caught it in the girl’s thoughts and in the glance she gave Pyetr—the hope that they were not liars and that there was truly a lost daughter and a wife and a house and everything that could make two strange men reliable and respectable.