If Ilyana would scream, if she would move, he might move—if she would say, Yvgenie, help me—he might have strength enough. But nothing moved, except the wind among the leaves. His joints were locked, his jaw would not move or let out a sound—
He could only remember he had killed her, or would kill her, to save himself. He bit his lip until the pain could bring sense back and he could recall the bathhouse, and the way back to what he knew. He remembered the hunters, and Ilyana, and Vojvoda—
He remembered his mother, and his nurse—a fat, comfortable woman who had told him about wizards and wolves, and flying houses. But that did not agree with being lost in the woods, or living in that terrible house with Ilyana. His house had had tall pillars. Dogs, not wolves, slept at the door. And he had never met Ilyana until he had come to her house to be betrothed to her, but he had ridden to Vojvoda, because they were hunting her to kill her—for wizardry—and murders—
Both could not be true, god, he could not remember both at once. Draga’s wolf circled their fire, while Ilyana wrote by firelight, the way Draga would…
“You take this,” her father told her, and put a packet of something in her hand. “Salt and sulfur. You put it in a ring about you and Sasha, and you stay inside that ring no matter what and don’t trust anything you see, no matter if it looks like me, or Yvgenie, or anyone else you know.”
“Why?” Nadya asked.
“Shapeshifters. Vodyaniye. Trust Babi. And take care of him.” With a glance toward Sasha, and to her again: “Tell him where I’m going and tell him—” He hesitated, with a second worried glance and a shake of his head. “You don’t have to tell him. He knows things like that. Just take care of him. He doesn’t remember to do that himself.”
He’s a wizard, Nadya thought. What kind of wizard is he that he needs people to take care of him?
Her father turned his back to her. Her father was going after his legitimate daughter and Yvgenie, alone, because somebody, he said, had to look after Sasha till he waked, and because the other horse was too old and too fat, and the black one could not make any speed carrying her. She knew that he was right, and that she was no help but here. But his saying tell Sasha this and tell Sasha that upset her stomach He should tell Sasha when he had found Yvgenie and his daughter and come back—because she was not through talking to him, please the god. He knew the important things about her. She knew nothing about him.
She thought—I should at least tell him I want him to come back, I should at least hug him goodbye—it’s not lucky, him saying those things…
But he was in the saddle before she had quite made up ha mind, and then it was too late. He looked down at her, said, “If everything else fails, there’s a house south of here, on the river. No one comes there.”
And while she was wondering what house, and what he meant, he turned the horse’s head and rode away, fading quickly into the dark outside the fire.
A shadow fell across the page. Ilyana looked up at Yvgenie’s dark shape between her and the fire, and he said quietly, kneeling and taking her hand:
“Ilyana, put the book away. Please. You’re coming no closer to the truth.”
“You’re eavesdropping!”
A lowering of lashes—a glance up at her: Yvgenie’s eyes, pale and deep and gentle. Kavi’s unmistakable gesture. And the motion of Yvgenie’s hands to lips and heart and to her. I love you. To brow and to heart, frowning. I’m worried. It was the old way of talking. Maybe it was the one he found easiest now. And he was as silent as only her uncle could be, not a whisper of his being there the moment she accused him.
“Sasha’s very good,” he said ever so softly. “And very strong. He scares himself. And that’s good. A little fear will save you so much pain.”
Sweat glistened on Yvgenie’s face. A bead broke and ran. “Kavi—is that truly your name?”
A nod.
“Is it so hard to speak?”
A second nod. A gesture toward his heart, with a hand visibly trembling. “He can’t last much longer. He has to rest. Just a little farther, Ilyana, and then we can all rest…”
One did not like this idea of resting when a ghost said it. But looking into his eyes this close made her think how it felt to touch him and to be touched, and one wished—
—one wished, that was the trouble, when a wizard loved a ghost: one wanted, and one could have, and if it were not for Yvgenie’s gentle, distressed look to warn her she would not even be thinking no, this is wrong, this is dangerous. He looked so dreadfully upset—
“Please don’t,” Yvgenie asked her, “please don’t.” And after that, taking her hand in his, on the open book that nobody was ever to touch but her, “He loves you. He loves you very much, Ilyana, and he’s very scared, and something’s dreadfully w-wrong tonight. We’re going somewhere dangerous—and he’s trying to t-tell you—I don’t think he’s ever loved anything in his life but Owl, and he loves you so much he doesn’t want you to go on with this. He wants you just to go home to your father and not to try to help him anymore. Please. He can’t—can’t—go any farther with this—”
“With what?”
Yvgenie had no idea. And Kavi when she tried to wish him to speak to her was uncatchable, scattered in pieces, like Owl on the river shore. There were tears in Yvgenie’s eyes, which he was not accustomed to shed in anyone’s witness, he wished he could make her understand that—but he knew what Kavi was doing now, and he knew that for all the advice Kavi tried to give he was helpless to leave her, he could not stop following her or loving her or killing her the way he was doing—he loved her, he loved her whether it was Kavi’s idea or his own, he had come to think more of her in these few days than he had ever loved his own confused existence—
He touched the back of her hand, where it rested on the book, and she felt that tingling she could never forget and never quite remember. He began to say something—
Then hurled himself to his feet and away from her, as far as the old tree that sheltered them both. He leaned against its trunk, holding to it like a living person, wanting—
—it’s life, because he refused to die, he could not want in die.
Not life, uncle had told her, and she had not heard him. Not life—but hell.
She folded her book and got up to go to him—wanting him—god, wanting to hold him and help both of them wanting just that touch again—
The first leaves drifted free of dying branches, and need had become its own wish—little it could matter. She reached out to touch him.
But he shoved away and turned his back on her. Yvgenie wanted her not to touch him, not to make him touch her, please, no—and he stopped cold, if only because there was nothing in the world Yvgenie could do to stop her. Not fair, not fair to wish someone who could not even hear her doing it, not fair to insist on her own way with someone who could do no more to stop her or Kavi than he was doing now.
The mouse could never do that—never hurt her father never hurt this boy…
But mother thinks otherwise. And expecting something is a wish, isn’t it? The mouse can’t hurt anybody. The mouse—can’t. That’s why I like her better.
Ilyana’s not that good. Ilyana’s her mother’s daughter. But what’s the mouse to be, uncle, grown-up and lonely for the rest of her life because she can’t want anybody?
That’s crazy, her father had used to shout at her mother. Because we both want something, you have to want not?
“Yvgenie,” she said, in the mouse’s voice, very soft, very quiet, and held her hand a little away from touching him, making herself not want him the way she wanted Kavi. “Yvgenie, I’m sorry. It’s safe. Please look at me if you want to.”