God, she was so beautiful.
“The horses,” Pyetr reminded him, and shook at his shoulder. “Sasha.”
The horses were out in the woods. Not far. Babi was with them, one of those occasional times one could feel Babi’s presence, fierce and warm as a cat with kittens.
“Sasha.”
“They’re all right. They’re coming.” He watched the girl break off a bit of cake in fingers that surely had never seen rough use before this woods, and said to Pyetr, absently, out of the welter of thoughts absorbing him, “It was leshys last night. They risked a fire bringing her to us, Pyetr. You know how they hate fires. Let’s not question a gift, shall we?”
“The leshys could damned well stay for tea if they’d an interest in co—”
A branch fell, breaking branches below it, over their heads. “Move!” Sasha said—and Pyetr stepped aside just in time, scowling up into the branches.
There was anger from the woods too, deep and dangerous. The leshys are upset at us, he thought. They’ve a surfeit of wizards on their hands. Young leshys. They don’t know us, but they’re watching… He said to Pyetr, never taking his eyes off the girl, who had frozen: “Fire. Tea.” And to the girclass="underline" “We’ve odd friends. Don’t be alarmed. Clearly they were the ones who brought you here. We assume there was reason.”
She only stared at him with wide, stricken eyes. Pyetr had walked over to the deadfall and began breaking it up for fire—be careful, he wished Pyetr, feeling the precariousness of the situation, hoping the leshy watching from the treetops would not take offense, and saw to his chagrin how he had left his book last night, with the inkpot left open. He hastily began to put that away, and to stow all the books out of reach—though there seemed no danger to them from a single frightened girl, who looked at them, between bites of cold cake as if she and they had collectively lost their wits.
She asked, swallowing a mouthfuclass="underline" “You’re a wizard, aren’t you?”
He made as courteous a bow as one could, sitting on the ground. “Sasha,” he said, raked his hair back and, to his chagrin, pulled a leaf from his hair. “Alexander.” So like in mouse when she frowned like that.
“I’ve heard of you,” she said. (Of course. People did know them downriver.) “I thought you were—”
What? he wondered helplessly.
“Older,” she said, in a way that meant much older, and made him feel like foolish fifteen again.
Wood landed beside him. Pyetr was annoyed, Pyetr thought he was woolgathering and Pyetr wanted the horse right now, dammit—he caught the edge of Pyetr’s opinions, while Pyetr took the tea-pan to the rock that poured a thin thread of water into a boggy puddle of a pool in this place. Sasha decided he should see to the fire, stuck a branch into last night’s coals and wanted it to light. It did.
She said, “Why is Yvgenie off with his daughter somewhere? “
He piled kindling onto the burning piece and answered her without quite looking her in the eye, “He thinks we’re upset with him. So does she.”
“Are you?”
“No. Not with him.” God, he thought, she must see us as liars at the least—and how do we tell her the truth? Forgive me, but a dead wizard’s possessed your young man, and he’s confused about who he’s with?—Because Yvgenie Pavlovitch, with so many dark spots in his memory, must be confused. The resemblance was so clear from some angles it upset one’s stomach.
He had the fire going. She had finished one of the cakes no knowing when she had last eaten, although the leshy would surely have left her in better health than they had found her. He opened the tea packet as Pyetr set the water on the fire, Pyetr muttering under his breath, “She looks like Ilyana. At least the hair. And about the same age, give or take. I think Misighi must have heard us, and made a mistake. They don’t tell one of us from the other very well.”
The girl’s eyes went from one to the other of them, doubting their sanity, Sasha was sure. He saw another tiny morsel of cake go down dry and wished her not to choke.
“There’ll be tea in a moment,” he promised her, while Pyetr unstopped the vodka jug, thinking shadowy thoughts. Pyetr poured a small dose of vodka, and said, “Here, Babi.”
Babi turned up. The pan clanged to the ground, the rest of the cakes in the girl’s lap.
She made not a sound. Or a move. Thank the god. Sash said quickly, as she gulped down a bite of cake. “He’s a dvorovoi. Don’t be afraid. He might go after the cakes—”
She picked one out of her lap and offered it hastily—tossed it as Babi came her direction. Babi swallowed the whole cake at a gulp.
“Behave,” Pyetr said sternly, and poured another dollop of vodka that never hit the leaves.
“It’s not everyone he likes,” Sasha said, fluttery about the stomach himself, considering Babi’s other shapes, while the girl drew small anxious breaths. “I don’t think he’d really hurt you. It’s absolutely only the cakes he wants—and he thinks you’re all right, or he’d let you know it.” He reached after the tea and burned his hand on the pan. Sucked a finger. “Why don’t you pour a bit of vodka in the tea, Pyetr? And some honey. I think honey would be nice, don’t you?”
Volkhi and Missy made a leisurely appearance through the trees, interested in the spring. The girl looked worriedly at that, at Babi, at them—
He poured the tea, sloshing it badly. Pyetr added vodka, milled honey and Sasha offered it to her. “There. We’ve only the two cups—Pyetr and I don’t mind sharing.”
“Pyetr,” she echoed faintly, and looked at Pyetr with—as seemed—an unwarrantably troubled look.
Pyetr lifted a brow and took a sip of tea-and-vodka. “Pyetr Ilitch Kochevikov. Notorious in Kiev and various other places, I gather. I’m flattered if my reputation’s gotten to such lovely ears.”
That was the old Pyetr. Rain would not fall on him, aunt Ilenka had used to say—meaning he was far too slippery. And far too false and angry to deal with a frightened girl. — Slop it, Sasha wished him. Can’t you see you’re scaring her?
Pyetr shut up. Sasha said gently, “Drink your tea. It’s gelling cold. We need to be moving as soon as we can.”
She sipped at it, holding the cup in both hands. Winced, swallowing, and blinked tears. Too much vodka for a young girl, Sasha thought, and took a sip of the cup Pyetr passed him. There certainly was. His own eyes watered. He thought of the mouse at the table, the last night she had been home, he looked at the girl and thought—
Something’s wrong. Something’s very wrong here—While Pyetr asked, in a dreadful hush, “Where are you from, miss? Kiev?”
A shake of her head. The tears had kept running. She was staring at Pyetr.
“Where?” Pyetr asked sharply.
“Pyetr,” Sasha objected, suffocating in that silence. And stopped, because the girl had taken on a scowl that—god, he knew in a way that made his stomach turn over. The match for it was sitting beside him.
The girl said, with that hawk’s look, through a film of tears, “You are my father, aren’t you?”
Sasha drew in a breath, it seemed forever, and said, the instant he had wind enough, “More tea, actually—I think we could do with more tea, here…”
Pyetr said faintly, “Who’s your mother?”
“Who’s my mother? You—”
Silence! Sasha wished, so abruptly the girl winced. He got up and hauled Pyetr to his feet. “We could use some more water, Pyetr.”