Wildwood Dancing

Sorrow took the coat. He did not put it on.

“Jena, just a moment longer,” pleaded Tati.

“Now!” I hissed. “Do you want to see him run through with a pitchfork? Sorrow, go, please! Just go!” As I spoke, I heard someone coming through the door at the foot of the steps, and a voice.

“Jena?” It was Cezar.

Sorrow slung the coat over his shoulder. He reached out, and Tati threw her arms around him, burying her face against his chest. He stroked her hair, murmuring something.

“Jena, are you up there?” Cezar sounded anxious rather than suspicious.

“I’m just coming down!” I called in what I hoped was a 241

casual tone. I jerked my head violently toward the other end of the terrace as Sorrow disengaged himself from my sister once more. Anastasia had used some kind of portal to reach the Other Kingdom from here—I hoped he could do the same.

“Go!” I mouthed. “Now!”

“It’s freezing cold out here, Jena, and you don’t even have a shawl. You’ll catch your death!” I could hear my cousin’s heavy tread as he climbed the steps.

Tati was standing frozen, her eyes on her lover as he swung up onto the parapet. “Goodbye,” she whispered.

“Goodbye,” Sorrow said, and, slipping his arms into the black coat, he stepped off the wall and into space. I sucked in my breath, then let it out as Cezar appeared at the top of the steps.

“Come inside, girls,” he said. “Get warm by the fire. Jena?

Are you all right?”

Tati walked past him, unseeing, and vanished down the stairs. I wanted to go to the parapet: to look over, to see whether Sorrow lay among the trees far below like a broken doll.

“I’m sorry to have worried you, Cezar,” I said shakily. “I needed some fresh air.”

“Maybe we can find a quiet corner, just the two of us, eh?”

He put his arm around me. Under the circumstances, I let him.

Anything to distract him from the oddity of the situation.

“Come, my dear, let’s go in.”

As we made our way down, it came to me that a sudden descent from a castle wall might present no difficulties at all for Sorrow. He had been in the Other Kingdom a long time. Perhaps he had indeed changed: become less like a human and more 242

like one of them. Maybe he’d gone through a portal; when Anastasia had taken us across, it had felt like falling. But maybe he could spread out his black coat and fly like a bat. I shivered.

That had been too close, by far.

“It’s all right, Jena,” said Cezar. “I’m here.”

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Chapter Ten

My heart, still thumping from Sorrow’s narrow escape, slowed with relief when Cezar left me to go off and find the quiet corner he had mentioned. I kept myself very busy: first chatting to Aunt Bogdana, then dancing with R˘azvan and Daniel and some other young men, whose names I instantly forgot. Gogu’s comments were predictable:

Too tall, you’d get a sore neck just talking to him.

This one smells.

Lavender silk. What more need I say?

I imagined a different face on my partner: a tangle of dark hair, a sweet mouth, wary green eyes. Beside the man in Dr˘a-gu¸ta’s mirror, tonight’s collection of suitors seemed entirely without character. Then, in my imagination, I heard my sisters’

screams as the green-eyed man turned to something monstrous, and I knew how foolish it was to let myself think of him. Dark of the Moon had opened up a realm of peril—dream about it too 244

much and I might be drawn into forgetting my sense of right and wrong. This world, I told myself sternly. These suitors, this life.

If you want your family to be safe, if you want to protect Piscul Dracului, this is the way.

I kept watch over my sisters, something that was second nature from our visits to Dancing Glade. I spotted Tati and Stela retreating upstairs together—Stela stifling a yawn, Tati drifting along at her side. Iulia was talking to R˘azvan. Whatever he was saying to her, it had coaxed a smile to her face.

The supply of pastries began to run short, and people still seemed to be hungry. I headed for the kitchen to check with Florica. As I entered the passageway, my cousin stepped out of the shadows and grabbed me by the arm, making me gasp in fright. There was nobody else around.

“Don’t do that!” I snapped as my heartbeat slowly returned to its normal pace.

“Are you trying to avoid me, Jena?” Cezar asked, not letting go. “I need to talk to you alone. I said so when we came inside, but you’re always somewhere else. Come and share some ¸ tuica.

˘

Rest for a little.” When I opened my mouth to tell him that Aunt Bogdana had asked me to come straight back, he added, “I have something to say to you. You must know what it is. Jena, this needs to be in private.”

I glanced around frantically. The sound of laughter and clink-ing platters filtered up from the party. From the other end, behind the closed kitchen doors, came the sound of scrubbing: Florica and her assistants, starting to clean up. In the middle, Cezar and I stood in our own little patch of awkward silence.

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“If you’ve got something to say, better just go ahead,” I told him.

He had held on to my arm all this time. Now he grabbed the other arm as well. I had my back to the wall, and his face was unpleasantly close to mine. I could smell ¸ tuica˘ on his breath. I gritted my teeth.

Get on with it, wretch.

“You know what it is. You know how much I want you, Jena. You look wonderful in that red gown. I can’t keep my eyes off you. Jena, you will marry me, won’t you?” The words came out in a rush. Before I could draw breath—let alone start to say I wouldn’t marry him if he were the last man in all Transylvania—Cezar bent forward and kissed me.

I had often dreamed of my first proper kiss, though the dreams had not contained a particular man, just a vague idea of one. The kiss itself, I knew all about. It would be tender and sweet and exciting all at once. It would make my knees go weak, and at the same time it would make me feel safe, and loved, and beautiful.

The touch of Cezar’s mouth on mine destroyed every trace of that dream. His kiss was not about love or tenderness. It was a kiss of possession, and it bruised my lips and wounded my heart. When he was done, I wrenched my arms from his grip and stood there shaking, using all the strength I had to stop myself from hitting him.

Tell him.

I drew a deep breath. There were words bursting to get out of me—furious, hurtful words. Though I was shaking with 246

humiliation, I kept them back. Cezar held power in our household. If Father died, that power would become absolute. My refusal would offend my cousin, there was no avoiding that. But I must do it as tactfully as I could. He had the capacity to cause terrible damage to all the people I loved.

“Thank you for your proposal,” I said in a tight voice.

“Cezar, this just wouldn’t work, you and I. We’re too different. We don’t think alike. We don’t enjoy the same things.

We’d argue all the time, and be desperately unhappy—”

“Jena, Jena, Jena,” he muttered, moving in close again. He pressed his body up against mine and put his lips against my ear. “You don’t mean that. Haven’t we been friends since we were small children? All lovers quarrel, that’s the way things are. Besides, this solves the problem of your father’s estate. I’m family already. I’m sure this is what Uncle Teodor would want.

Come on, Jena, you’re just teasing me. . . .”

His hand went down the front of the red gown, and my rage finally got the better of me. In the pocket, squashed between Cezar and me, Gogu was quivering with fury. “Stop it!”

I shouted, and hit Cezar across the cheek, hard. “Don’t you dare touch me like that! What do you think I am, some girl who lets every drunken oaf pinch and fondle her in dark corners? I’m not going to marry you, Cezar, and if I have anything to do with it, nor are any of my sisters. Don’t ever put your hands on me again. I’m saving that privilege for my future husband. And there’s one thing plain as a pikestaff: that won’t be you!” I turned on my heel and marched off to the kitchen, and I didn’t look back.

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*

*

*

After the guests had retired for the night, I retreated to our bedchamber, exhausted and distressed. My mind hardly had room to hold the double shock of Sorrow’s foolhardy appearance in our midst and Cezar’s crude behavior.

I took off the red gown, knowing that I would never wear it again, and slipped into my night robe. I put Gogu on the side table. Stela was asleep. Tati lay in bed with her eyes open. The others were sitting on Iulia’s bed, conversing in whispers. Nobody looked happy. On some level, perhaps, our party had been a success, but the possibility of finding suitors we genuinely liked seemed farther away than ever. I remembered Tati saying once that the Other Kingdom might spoil us for life in our own world, because nothing could ever match up to it. Tonight I was beginning to wonder whether that was true.

“Jena!” exclaimed Paula as I turned and she caught sight of my face. “You look terrible! It wasn’t as bad as that, was it?”

I cleared my throat. “Cezar just proposed to me,” I said. “I turned him down.” I had not planned to tell them just yet—the hurt of his abusive kiss was still raw. The words had spilled out despite myself.

There was a stunned silence. Even Tati stared at me, getting up on her elbow to do so.

“True,” I said. “He kissed me, and groped me, and it was disgusting. I tried to be nice about refusing, but I lost my temper. I’ve made him angry. Even angrier than he was before.” I poured water into Gogu’s bowl. There was comfort in the small daily routine.

“I bet he thinks you’re a challenge,” said Paula.

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“Yes, like wild boar to be hunted,” I said. “If I married him, he wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d crushed the last spark of spirit in me. I can’t think how he ever believed I’d say yes.” But, I thought, perhaps underneath the man who seemed hungry for power and dominance—the one who feared the Other Kingdom so much he felt bound to destroy it—a little boy still existed: the solemn child who had idolized his big brother, and had felt responsible for an even smaller cousin since the day tragedy struck the three of them. Perhaps he had always believed that one day he and I would be together. If so, it was sad. I would never marry him—his touch disgusted me, and his anger frightened me.

I snuffed out the last candle and got into bed beside Tati. I could not even begin to talk to her. Curiously, as the image of my sister and her lover wrapped in each other’s arms came to my mind, what I felt most strongly seemed to be envy. To love like that, to be so lost in it that you forgot everything else in the world, must be a wonderful feeling—powerful and joyous.

I wished the green-eyed man in the mirror could be what he had seemed at first. I wanted him to be real, and to love me, and not to be a monster from the Other Kingdom. Why did things have to keep twisting around and going dark when all I was trying to do was keep my family safe and live my life the way Father would expect? Tears began to trickle down my cheeks.

A little later, Gogu hopped across and settled damply on the pillow.

“Jena?”

I had not expected Tati to say anything. “Mmm?”

“Thank you.”

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“For what?”

“You saved Sorrow tonight. If you hadn’t warned us, Cezar would have seen him. Caught him. I didn’t think you would do that.”

“You can’t have thought I’d stand by and let Cezar run him through with whatever was handy.”

“No, of course not,” Tati said in a murmur. “But you still want the problem to be gone, don’t you? You’re still hoping Ileana will send them away and that I’ll never see him again.

You were angry with us.”

“Of course I was angry,” I said. “He must never come here again, Tati. Did you plan this? How?”

“I see him sometimes in the woods.” Her whisper was barely audible. “I told him about the party. I didn’t think he would come, Jena, truly.”

“He shouldn’t have. It’s not just Cezar he has to fear, or the other men of the valley. Coming here to see you might get him in trouble with Tadeusz as well.” I thought of the terrible things I had seen at Dark of the Moon—the imaginative ways the Night People had devised for tormenting those human folk unlucky enough to become their slaves. I remembered Anastasia telling me that Tadeusz wanted Sorrow to see him with Tati.

That would be a very particular kind of torture. “Sorrow must love you very much,” I said, “to take such a risk for you. Please don’t do this again, and please don’t go out into the forest looking for him. Promise me.”

“All right. As long as we go across at next Full Moon.”

“I think,” I said grimly, “that’s going to depend on Cezar.

Good night, Tati. Sweet dreams, Gogu.” I did not tell my sister 250

how much Sorrow’s leap from the wall had troubled me; how it seemed to me that if he could do that, he was no longer so different from the folk who had captured him as a child. I wondered what they ate in the realm of the Night People, he and his poor sister. I fell asleep with dark images in my mind. My dreams were a chaotic jumble of angry voices and violent hands.

Cezar didn’t say a word about what had happened. In fact, he seemed to be on his best behavior with all of us. Still, I was suspicious. It wasn’t like Cezar to forgive and forget.

The conduct of the business had been taken right out of my hands. Cezar claimed Father’s desk and told me, politely enough, that for the rest of winter there would be no figures for me to reconcile since his own people at Vârful cu Negur˘a would deal with everything. In short, there was nothing for me to do, and no reason for me to be in the workroom. He didn’t actually say this last part, perhaps knowing the explosion it would generate, but he made the message clear.

I protested, but not for long. To tell the truth, after the night of our party, I could hardly bear to talk to my cousin. I was finding it hard to sleep. When I did, my dreams were tangled and distressing. I’d be dancing with a young man: not Cezar, or the odious Vlad of the frog experiments, or any of the folk from Ileana’s glade, but a man with green eyes and unkempt dark hair, who held me firmly but gently and smiled his funny smile as he looked at me. I’d feel radiant with happiness, full of a contentment I had never known before, not even on the most thrilling of all our nights of Full Moon dancing. Then the man would bend his head to say something—perhaps Trust me, Jena—

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and his face would change to the grotesquely ugly thing I had seen in Dr˘agu¸ta’s mirror. Around me, the bright chamber would fade away. The light would become livid, green and purple, and sounds of screaming would fill my ears. My partner’s sweet smile would become a grimace—all long, sharp teeth and pale, flicking tongue. I would wake up covered in cold sweat, my heart racing in terror. Sometimes I shouted and woke my sisters. Sometimes my dream was different: in this one, I was chasing Tati through the forest as someone led her away. Whether it was Sorrow or Tadeusz I could not see. I ran and ran, and the harder I tried the farther ahead they moved, until they reached a cliff top looking out over a great ravine filled with mist. Jump, said the man, and as I tried to reach her, my sister leaped out to be swallowed up by the vapor.

I kept these dreams to myself, but the memory of them was with me even in waking hours. To keep the nightmares at bay, I tried to make plans. I must get a letter to Father somehow, without Cezar knowing. A truthful letter, perhaps addressed to Gabriel, in which I set out what I could about our problems and let them know how badly we needed help. Who would take it? The snow still lay in heavy drifts, piled up against walls, blanketing roofs, burdening trees. Winters were long in the Carpathians. A possible solution presented itself—but I did not write the letter, not yet. Cezar had a habit of reading anything left lying around.

The days passed. The young men helped Petru with the farm chores, which was a good thing. They also accompanied us girls anywhere we went outside the castle, which was not 252

so good. Cezar had tightened his watchfulness, and it became near-impossible for any of us to slip away for a solitary walk. I spent a lot of time in the tower room, a favorite haunt for me and Gogu. Piscul Dracului was full of nooks and crannies. I liked the notion that however long we lived here, there would always be new ones to discover. This particular tower had seven arched windows with views out over snowy wood-land, and the ceiling was blue, with stars on it. A long time ago I had brought an old fur rug up here and a pile of threadbare cushions.

I was lying on my back on the rug, looking up at the painted stars and doing my best not to think of our problems. Gogu was perched on my midriff, unusually still.

“We’re not going to talk about anything bad today, Gogu,”

I told him. “We’re going to discuss only things we like. You start.”

It was your idea. You start.

“Paddling in the stream in springtime,” I said. “Making pancakes. The smell of a wood fire. The sound of a waterfall.”

Gogu made no response.

“Come on,” I said, a little disheartened. “You must be able to think of one good thing.”

Sleeping on our pillow, side by side.

“Mmm-hm.” His choice surprised me. “If I go a long way back, my memory’s full of good things. We used to fill up the day with adventures. Skating in winter—not on the Deadwash, of course—and swimming in summer, though we weren’t actually supposed to, not when we were playing with Costi 253

and Cezar. Aunt Bogdana had the idea that it wasn’t appropriate for boys and girls to strip off their clothes and swim together, even though we were only little.”

She thought you’d catch cold.

“How could you know that? I bet you weren’t even born then.”

No response.

“Actually,” I told him, “you’re probably right. Aunt Bogdana adored Costi. I suppose I was lucky she let him out to play at all.”

Green.

“What?”

Nice things. Green is nice. Your green gown with the deep pocket.

I smiled and stroked his back with my finger. “Gogu,” I asked him, “do you think I’ve been unfair to Cezar? He was all right as a little boy. But he’s grown up so obnoxious and so sure of himself and . . . well, I am actually quite scared of him. He’s so much bigger and stronger than any of us, and people don’t stand up to him when they should.”

A pause, then: I thought we were only talking about things we like.

Your brown hair, so soft—lovely to hide in.

“Hmm,” I murmured, surprised again. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this description, which would have been apt for a favorite bit of undergrowth. “Father coming home. That’ll be the best thing of all. Father coming home fit and well—and soon. ”

True love.

I lifted my head off the musty cushion and stared at him.

“True love is looking less and less likely, if it’s my future you’re 254

talking about,” I said. “Or do you mean Tati and Sorrow? That’s not a good thing—it’s a disaster waiting to happen. We weren’t meant to be talking about that.”

True love is the best thing. It’s the thing that makes troubles go away.

“Even for frogs?” I couldn’t help asking.

Gogu’s eyes closed to slits, and he went silent on me.

“Gogu, I was joking,” I said, sitting up and, in the process, dislodging him onto the fur rug. “I know you’re not an ordinary frog. It’s just that . . .”

He hopped off the rug and concealed himself somewhere on the elaborate mosaic floor, which was patterned with tiny dragons. In the muted blues and greens and grays of the tiling, I could see nothing of him.

“Gogu,” I said, “come out, please. There’s enough trouble right now without you and me getting cross with each other. If I upset you, I’m sorry.”

Not a twitch.

“Gogu,” I said, kneeling on the tiles and waiting for him to move so I could pounce, “if you would tell me what you are and where you come from, it might make things between us far easier. You’ve never said. You’ve never given me even the tiniest clue. We’re supposed to trust each other better than anyone, aren’t we? Surely it would be easy enough just to say. I always tell you the truth.” I realized that this was no longer accurate: I had not told him much at all about my visit to Tadeusz’s dark revels. I had not told him about the young man in the mirror, or about what Anastasia had said to me. He’d been too upset and too angry with me to hear it. As for what he 255

really was, I had long ago given up trying to guess. To me he was simply Gogu, and perfect just as he was. It was a shame he was increasingly unhappy with that. “If you don’t like it when I treat you as a frog,” I went on, “maybe you should be honest with me and tell me exactly what you are.”

He made no appearance. His mind remained shut tight against me. Gogu was expert at camouflage. It took a hammering at the door to startle him into moving; I picked him up, my heart thumping, and went to open it. Paula was standing outside, her expression anxious.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” she said. “I know you probably came up here to be by yourself. But Florica’s crying. I know Cezar’s been asking her questions. She’s really upset, Jena. I heard her say something about leaving Piscul Dracului. I think you’d better come.”

In the kitchen, Florica was shaping rolls on the table while Stela made little dogs and gnomes and trees out of the scraps.

Our housekeeper’s distress was obvious. Her eyes were red and swollen and she would not look up at me, even when I spoke to her by name. As she lifted a roll from the table to the tray, I could see her hands shaking. Iulia, who was feeding wood into the stove, gave me a meaningful look as I came in. They were all expecting me to put things right. It was alarming that my family still had such faith in my ability to solve problems—thus far, I had been a woeful failure.

“Florica,” I said, coming over to sit at the table, “what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Mistress Jenica.” The formality of this address told me that something was badly amiss.

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“Come on, Florica, tell me. You’ve been crying. It is something.”

Florica muttered a few words about not getting us into trouble and not making things any worse. A moment later she sat down abruptly, her shoulders shaking.

“He said . . .”

“What, Florica?”

“Master Cezar’s been asking questions around the valley—

trying to find out about things so he can go ahead with these plans of his. Someone mentioned Full Moon to him, Jena—told him that was a time when barriers were open. He’s taken it into his head that you and Mistress Tati know something you’re not telling him.”

“Why would this upset you so much, Florica?” I had taken over the task of forming the dough into rolls while Iulia had started brewing tea. Stela put a small arm around Florica’s shoulders.

“He said if we didn’t tell him everything we knew, he’d see that we lost our places here. He said we were too old to work.

I’ve been here since I was fifteen, Mistress Jena. Petru’s been in the valley even longer. We’ve given good service all our lives.

Piscul Dracului is our home. And Ivan has enough mouths to feed already—we can’t expect him to take us in as well. Master Cezar wouldn’t really send us away, would he?”

“Father’s still the head of this household,” I told her firmly.

“You know he’d never send you or Petru away. You belong here.

Florica, if you’ve told Cezar something, you’d better let us know what it was.”

“He asked about Full Moon: whether you went out at 257

night, whether there had been folk hanging about in the woods, odd folk. I said no, that Full Moon was a night when you girls kept to your bedchamber, and that there was never a peep out of you, although you always seemed tired the next morning. I shouldn’t have told him that. I could see the look on his face. He’s going to use it against you—against all of us. Such men have no understanding of the old things.”

“Florica?” asked Paula in a whisper. “You know, don’t you?”

“Hush,” I said quickly, seeing the look on our housekeeper’s face, a look of sheer terror. “We won’t speak of that. Florica, what’s done is done: don’t feel guilty about it. If there’s anyone who should feel guilty it’s Cezar, for browbeating you like that. Tell Petru that if Cezar tries to make you leave, it’ll be over my dead body.”

“You’re only a young thing, Jena. How can you do it? If your father never comes back—”

“He will come back.” I had seen Stela’s face. “He’s just not sending letters, because of the winter. In springtime everything will be back to normal. And I will stop Cezar from doing what he threatened. He can’t send you away. It’s not right.”

I went straight to find Cezar, knowing that the longer I delayed the confrontation, the harder it was going to be. He was in Father’s workroom, but he did not seem to be doing anything in particular. He was simply sitting at the desk, brooding. I could not look at him without remembering that kiss—and before I had even begun to speak, I was afraid.

“Jena,” Cezar said coolly. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

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Pleasure? Not for us. Gogu was sitting on my shoulder. Not wanting to draw undue attention to him, I left him there.

“I need to ask you about something, Cezar.”

“Sit down, Jena. What is it?” There was a little smile on his face, as if he had a secret.

“I’ve just spoken to Florica. She and Petru say you threatened to turn them out of Piscul Dracului if they didn’t answer your questions—questions about me and my sisters. Is that true?”

Cezar leaned back in his chair, arms folded, eyes on my face. “You need younger staff here,” he said mildly. “No wonder you got into such difficulty this winter. I know girls are soft-hearted and become attached to their old servants, but really, Jena, those two are long past being useful to you. They should be retired, like worn-out horses put to pasture. Don’t look like that; it’s a perfectly practical suggestion. They’ve a grandson in the settlement, haven’t they? Let their own provide for them.”

“If it is only a suggestion, not an order, that’s all right,” I said. “Florica and Petru are part of our family. They’re not going anywhere—not while I’m in charge here.”

He looked at me as if waiting for me to realize that I was speaking nonsense.

“Do I need to tell you again that my father has not died, and that he asked me and Tati to oversee things at Piscul Dracului until he came back?” I tried to keep my voice calm. “You don’t seem to have recognized that yet, Cezar. Nobody asked you to take over the funds. Nobody asked you to move in here. Nobody asked you to ban me from having anything to do with the 259

business. And nobody asked you to browbeat Florica and Petru. If you have questions about Full Moon, I’m the one you need to speak to. Leave the others alone.”

“Jena, what is your interpretation of your father’s failure to send a single letter during all this time away?”

I felt cold. “He’s unwell, I know that. He did get worse, as Gabriel told us. That doesn’t mean he won’t get better, Cezar.

Once the weather improves, I’m sure a letter will come advising us of that.”

“You’d be wiser to prepare yourself and your sisters for the worst,” Cezar said. “That would include moderating your behavior, Jena. I’m not just referring to your outspokenness, your desire to hold all the strings, your wayward choice of that wretched creature”—he eyed Gogu—“as a constant companion.

I mean much more than that. I was deeply shocked to see you and Tatiana out in the courtyard that night, looking as if you’d just come in from running about in the forest. I was still more alarmed when the questions I asked, both here and in the valley, elicited the information that one can somehow cross over to the realm of the fairy folk and back again on the night of Full Moon. Florica tells me that’s a night you girls always spend on your own, in your bedchamber, behind locked doors. So quiet, she said, that you might almost not be there at all.”

I said nothing. I had my hands tightly clasped together behind my back. I was glad Cezar could not feel how fast my heart was beating. “May I remind you that our party was held at Full Moon,” I said, “and that we were all here at home?”

“Ah, the party.” Cezar was suddenly solemn. “That marked 260

a low point in our friendship, Jena. I’m still hoping you will change your mind about a certain issue.”

“I can’t—”

He lifted his hand, silencing me. “You know, it would make life so much easier for all of us if you would,” he said. “It’s what is meant to be, Jena: you and I—I know it. But that can wait.

I’m interested in this Other Kingdom that folk mention, and the talk of portals. Should such an opening be available, that would simplify the process of destroying the Night People and all those that consort with them. One could prepare thoroughly—reduce the risks considerably. There’s been plenty of talk about Piscul Dracului and the likelihood that entries to the other realm may lie within the castle. It seems that as soon as one old fellow starts talking, a dozen others remember tales of their own. It came to me that if you girls generally spent the night of Full Moon locked inside your bedchamber and came out exhausted in the morning, it could very possibly be deduced that one such portal was located within that very chamber.”

Uh-oh.

I stood frozen. I had not expected him to deduce anything of the sort—it was a big leap of the imagination for a man like him. “What are you suggesting?” It wasn’t at all difficult to sound shocked. “That my sisters and I are crossing over to another world and coming back again every Full Moon? That’s ridiculous.”

“So I might once have thought, Jena. I would once have believed you girls incapable of such folly: especially you, who 261

saw what these folk could do on the day we lost Costi in the Deadwash. But there’s your night escapade. And Mother mentioned the appearance of a strange young man on the evening of the party—a young man she’s certain was not on the invitation list. Apparently you told her he was a friend of Lucian’s. Lucian tells me that is not so. This stranger was dancing with Tatiana.

Who was he, Jena?”

Think fast.

“You mean the man dressed in the black waistcoat? I have no idea. I did think I saw him come in with Judge Rinaldo and Lucian. I must have been wrong.”

“Really? Then I’d better ask Tatiana. Maybe she will be more forthcoming.”

My heart sank. Tati was in no fit state to stand up to Cezar’s bullying. “She’s not well,” I said. “If you like, I will ask her for you.”

“I have a far better plan, Jena. You should be happy with it; it obviates the need for me to question any more members of the family. My hunting parties are becoming a waste of time. It seems it’s all too easy for Night People and other denizens of this fairy kingdom to slip away to their own realm, apparently using these portals or gateways that folk speak of. I don’t want to believe this of you and your sisters, Jena. If the people of the valley learned you knew of such an opening and had concealed it, in the light of the murderous activities of those who live beyond, the reputation of our family would be destroyed for all time. But if it’s true, we can make use of it, without letting the community know the secret.”

“There is no portal.” I tried to keep still so he would not see 262

me shaking. “All that happens here at Full Moon is a private night for girls, when we dress up and share our secrets. You should be pleased that we lock ourselves in, if you believe it to be the most dangerous night of the month.”

Cezar narrowed his eyes at me. “It may not be,” he said, and I did not like the edge in his voice. “I also heard another tale, a tale in which Dark of the Moon was mentioned. Ah, I see that means something to you, Jena. That, too, is a night on which mysterious ways may be open and uncanny creatures come out into our world to terrify and attack our kind. Wasn’t it Dark of the Moon when I found you and your sister wandering about in the snow?”

“I didn’t notice,” I said. “You’ve had an explanation for that night, Cezar. You cannot set yourself up as some kind of guardian to us. You’re only a couple of years older than Tati.

This is ridiculous. We’ve done nothing wrong.”

He remained silent.

Ask him. Ask him what this plan is. It sounds bad.

“Are you going to tell me what you intend? Since this is our house, I’d appreciate the courtesy of knowing what it is you plan to do here.”

“Oh, Jena.” He looked genuinely regretful; it made me remember the boy he had been. “I would far prefer us to be friends, you know. More than friends. I meant everything I said to you, the night of the party. Every word.”

“So did I, Cezar.”

“You’ve often told me I am too angry—that I haven’t learned to put the past behind me. Oh, yes, I’ve been listening: don’t look so surprised. But I can’t do it. Not without this—not 263

without pursuing those who ruined my life all those years ago.

Their promises are false, their words are foul lies. When they are all gone, then I will have no more reason for anger.” He had gone unaccountably nervous, twisting his hands together on the desk, avoiding my eye. “Jena, I need your friendship. I need your love. If you help me, I can do this. I can make my life worthwhile again. Don’t you see, I must have vengeance for Costi, and for what was done to me that day. You could help me do that. And when it’s over, you could stay by my side and support me, as you did long ago by the Deadwash. . . .”

Gogu had tensed up alarmingly as this speech unfolded. I put up a hand to stop him from doing something silly. I was struggling for a way to answer Cezar. “On the night of the party,” I managed, “you didn’t say anything about love.”

Cezar looked up; his eyes met mine. “I didn’t think I needed to, Jena,” he said quietly.

This was bad. It made it much harder to say what I must. “I don’t understand any of this talk about making your life worthwhile,” I said. “Isn’t it worthwhile already? You have your mother, you have Vârful cu Negur˘a. In time you can become a man like your father was: a stalwart of the community, someone folk look up to. You’re a merchant, you can make a success of that. As a man you can travel, see things, make your mark in the world. I know you’ve had losses, terrible ones. But you shouldn’t need to crush and destroy the folk of the forest, or to take control of Piscul Dracului and of our family, in order to compensate for that. You’ve got a good life now. Or could have, if you would simply get on with living it.”

264

He was waiting for something more.

“I can’t love you, Cezar. Not in the way you mean. And I don’t believe you love me. If you did, you would have taken the time to understand what was important to me. I couldn’t ever love a man who tried to get his own way by frightening people.”

There was a silence. Even the frog had no contribution to make. Then Cezar got up and opened the door. “You may as well leave, Jena. You’ve made your attitude perfectly clear,” he said. His tone chilled me.

The plan.

“You mentioned a plan, Cezar. Am I allowed to hear what it is?”

“It will become plain to you in due course.”

“Cezar, tell me. Please.” I had to force the word out.

“Let us simply say that should you girls make use of any secret passageways or hidden doors at next Full Moon, you won’t be doing so alone. Between now and that time I will be establishing improved security at Piscul Dracului. I know you’ve been breaking the rules I set down to preserve your safety, Jena.

Tati, in particular, has shown an alarming tendency to go off for walks on her own. I overheard something in the village recently, something that wasn’t intended for my ears. Folk have noticed the change in your sister’s appearance. They’ve been putting it together with what happened to the miller’s daughter, and some of them have leapt to a conclusion that deeply disturbs me. I don’t know how much you understand about the Night People.”

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Now I was really frightened. “Not much,” I whispered.

“They feed, and folk die. Ivona was victim to that. But sometimes they feed and folk remain alive, but changed. If this is distressing to you, Jena, I can only say it is something you need to know, in view of the foolish risks you girls have been taking. I heard someone suggest that Tatiana might have been singled out in this way. The fellow said it explained why Piscul Dracului’s stock had been spared the knife, and would also account for the dramatic change in Tati’s appearance. People saw her at the party, they could hardly not notice it. Folk muttered that she was sure to be visited again, and you know what that means.”

I could hardly speak. “I don’t, Cezar. Tell me.”

“After a certain number of bites, the victim becomes one of the Night People, Jena. Once the process begins, folk see such an individual not as a victim, but as a threat to the community.

There’s no reversing this. She would become an outcast, hunted, her own bite the stuff of desperate fear. I assume there is no substance in this rumor.” He was deadly serious, his eyes sternly fixed on me.

“Of course not!” I felt cold all through. Deep inside me, there was a terrible suspicion that, just possibly, what he suggested could be true. I didn’t want to give it credence, but part of me couldn’t help it. Sorrow had been in Tadeusz’s realm for years and years. Before she met him, Tati had been healthy and happy. Folk didn’t actually waste away for love, did they? So perhaps this was something else. That someone in the village had thought of this possibility was terrifying. I pictured the 266

hunting party—expressions dark, weapons glinting—crashing through the forest, and Tati fleeing before them. I’d still never had a proper look at Sorrow’s teeth.

“We must put an end to such talk,” Cezar said. “Tati has been astonishingly stupid to allow any grounds for it. And she’s the eldest. It is no wonder your younger sisters are growing up so wayward. There will be guards here as of tomorrow. I expect you girls to keep to the house and courtyard.”

I stared at him, my feet rooted to the spot. “You can’t do that,” I whispered, unable to believe that even he would be so heavy-handed. “You don’t mean guards to protect us, do you?

You mean jailers—folk to keep us in.”

“You could cooperate, Jena.” That soft voice again, the one that frightened me most. “Tell me the truth and we can go about this quite differently. Just give a little. I don’t want us to be enemies.”

Ask about Full Moon.

“You said something about not being alone at Full Moon. I told you, all we will be doing is having a little fun among sisters. Nothing untoward. What are you planning to do, set a woman to spy on us in our own bedchamber?”

“Not a woman, not if there is the least possibility of a trip to this Other Kingdom, with its attendant perils.”

Just say it, scum. The frog was a tight bundle of nerves; I was no better.

“I think you’ll have to spell it out for me, Cezar. You can’t mean that you yourself are planning to spend the night in our private quarters, not if you care about the family reputation. If 267

such an episode ever became public knowledge, your own good name would be destroyed along with ours.”

“Of course I would not consider such a thing.” I could see the terror in his eyes at the very thought of exposure to the Other Kingdom; it made me wonder how he had managed his nightly hunting parties—and whether he had, in fact, ever believed they would bear fruit. “I’ll find a man in need of a few coppers to keep body and soul together,” he said. “Someone prepared to take a risk. He’ll be locked in with you overnight, and be bound to find out the secret and follow you wherever this portal leads. Once I know the truth about it, I can prepare properly for an all-out assault. Don’t look like that, Jena. Didn’t you swear to me there was no portal? If you were telling the truth, there’s nothing to worry about, my dear.”

I’ll dear him. How dare he? Wretch! Coward!

“You would put a man in our bedroom. ” My tone was flat with disbelief. “Overnight. Clearly it’s only your own reputation you’re worried about, not those of your marriageable cousins. Cezar, this is ludicrous. I’m going up to see Aunt Bogdana first thing in the morning. She will never allow such a breach of propriety.”

“My mother is not home. She’s gone to visit her friend near Bra¸sov.”

I was immediately suspicious. “She never mentioned that to me.”

“It was a sudden decision. Don’t trouble yourself, Jena. I will provide a woman from my household as chaperone, someone discreet. We’ll make sure this doesn’t get out.”

“Then I’m going down to the village to see Judge Rinaldo.

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You’ve exceeded your authority too far, Cezar. This talk of guards . . . It’s not something you can do.”

“You will explain to the judge about your nighttime escapades, then? The uninvited guest at your party? He knows already of your difficulties in managing your father’s funds and in running your farm with only old Petru to help. He knows this household was singled out to be spared the marauding attentions of the Night People. Very probably he’s heard the theory about the cause of Tati’s illness, as well. I think you’d find it hard to make a convincing case against my providing a force of men to protect you and your sisters, Jena.”

“I’ll try, despite that. I’m not letting you do this.” There was a feeling like a cold stone in my stomach, a dread of what was to come.

“You weren’t listening, Jena. I told you, none of you girls is to go beyond the house and courtyard. Most certainly not down to the village. Not until this is resolved to my satisfaction.”

Prisoners in our own home. Not so long ago, the fool was talking about love.

“And what if this spy of yours discovers nothing at all?”

“Then I will find a new man for next Full Moon—and then another man, and so on—until the truth comes out. You’d do far better to tell me now, Jena. Save yourself all that embarrass-ment. I could have the woods swept clean of these presences even before spring. It’s within my grasp, I feel it.” He was no longer seeing me; his eyes were full of blood and vengeance.

“I can’t believe you thought I might change my mind,” I said, backing away toward the door. “I can’t believe you thought I could ever possibly love you. The real monsters aren’t 269

folk from the Other Kingdom, Cezar. They’re men like you: men who won’t stop grasping for power until they’ve destroyed everything. You think you’re going to put an end to the folk of the forest. But if you don’t take a step back, you’re going to end up destroying your own life.”

Cezar looked at me. His dark eyes were bleak. “No, Jena,”

he said quietly. “I think that’s already been done.”

270

Chapter Eleven

There was worse to come before bedtime. Cezar decided to perform a search of our room without warning, so we’d have no time to hide anything suspicious. He made Florica come all the way up the stairs and stand in the doorway lest I accuse him of improper conduct. Such a concern was ridiculous, given what he had threatened for Full Moon.

Before we could go to bed, we had to sit there and watch him rummage through all our things—from shoes to small-clothes to silk shawls, from trinkets and keepsakes to combs and scent pots—frowning and muttering. I was furious, but I sat there in silence and let him make his comments on our worn-out dancing slippers and the elegant gowns he had never seen us wear. I’d been able to give my sisters only a brief warning about his plans. Tati had her back to the room; I knew she was trying not to cry. She had pinned all her hopes on Full Moon.

“We like sewing,” Paula told Cezar as he lifted a fold of Iulia’s blue silk dancing gown. As a merchant, he would know 271

all too well the quality of the fabric, with its woven-in silver thread. “Aunt Bogdana approves of it as a pastime for young ladies.”

Cezar glanced at her sharply—it was evident he thought she was mocking him.

“All girls love to dream, Cezar,” Paula added. “All girls like to dress up, even when they have nowhere to go.”

He opened the little brass-bound lacquer box in which Paula kept her papers, but it seemed she had already moved them to safer keeping, for all he found was a pot of ink and a few split quills. He went around the chamber checking each window, each alcove, each joint in stones or boards, for secrets that might uncover themselves. All of us carefully avoided looking at the corner where the portal was. He picked up Gogu’s bowl and eyed the jug of water. He scrutinized my pillow, which was still slightly damp from last night. “Oh dear, Jena,”

he said.

Oh dear, yourself.

“You should ask yourself whether that creature is the key to your problems,” Cezar went on. “I have grave doubts about it.

It’s clearly no ordinary frog. Have you considered that it may be of another kind entirely? That it may be . . . influencing you?”

“A frog?” I made my voice scornful. “Give me a little more credit, Cezar. You already know I have a mind of my own.” I would apologize to Gogu later.

Cezar kept us up until Stela was dropping with weariness.

At last he seemed to be done—his flinty expression told me he was far from satisfied.

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“Finished?” I inquired as he stood in the center of the room, hands on hips. All around him was disarray: clothing was spread out everywhere, shoes and other bits and pieces littered the stone floor. Furniture had been dragged out from walls, and even the bedding had been turned upside down.

“For now,” he said. “I don’t for a moment believe Paula’s story of sewing for fun and dressing up for amusement. What would Uncle Teodor think of such reckless squandering of fine fabrics and trimmings, I wonder?”

“In fact,” Iulia said, “we never take anything without asking Father if it’s all right. He doesn’t mind. Sewing’s a good wifely skill.” She was glowering; Cezar’s reprimand at the party would not be soon forgotten.

“A man would be out of his mind to look for a wife among the five of you,” Cezar said, his tone chilly. “A washed-out bag of bones; a domineering shrew; a cheap flirt; a know-it-all scholar; and an impressionable child—a man would do best to stay clear of the lot of you.”

“We’d be very happy if you’d do just that, Cezar,” I said quietly. I was fighting to keep my dignity and not shriek at him like the shrew he’d named me. “We’d love for you to go back to Vârful cu Negur˘a and leave us to our own devices until Father comes home—”

“That’s enough, Jena.” There was something in his voice that silenced me. At that moment I had no doubt at all that he would go through with his threat. Unless, somehow, he could be stopped. Unless there was someone powerful enough to prevent it.

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“Good night, then,” I said politely. The others sat on their beds, watching in complete silence. Cezar went out without a word.

One by one, my sisters fell asleep. Outside, snow was drifting down onto the many roofs of Piscul Dracului—I could not see it, but I could sense it in the quality of the silence. The four colored windows were winter-dark. On the little table by my bedside, one candle burned. The castle was still, save for the creaks and groans and shifting murmurs an old house makes as the winter chill touches its bones.

“Gogu?” I whispered.

I’m here, Jena.

“We have to do something before Full Moon. Something to stop Cezar from going through with this.” It was a puzzle. We could not use our portal until the night of Full Moon. I had no intention of crossing over at Dark of the Moon again, to visit that realm of shadows and trickery, and Tati had promised Sorrow she would not. That meant we could not seek help or give warnings in the Other Kingdom until the night Cezar put his henchman in our bedchamber: too late. “The simplest thing would be not to go at all,” I murmured. “Not to use the portal.

At least, that way, Cezar wouldn’t find it. But he will eventually, I know it. He’s so angry he’s forgotten what’s wrong and what’s right.” I shivered, imagining where that anger might take him. If he threatened violence against one of my sisters, I’d have no choice but to give up the secret. Would he stoop so low? What he had said about Tati, about folk in the village 274

suggesting that the Night People had begun to change her, was most terrifying of all. That rumor could be a powerful tool to force our obedience.

Dragu¸

˘ ta

“What? Oh. You mean because folk say she’s the real power in the wildwood? But is she? She’s never put in an appearance, Gogu. And I’m starting to doubt the magic mirror story. Why would her mirror be there at Dark of the Moon when she isn’t?”

Mirror? What mirror?

I remembered that I had not given him a full account of that night. That was probably just as well. “You think Dr˘agu¸ta would help us? Grigori did say to me, If you truly need her, you’ll find her. So maybe she can be found even when it’s not Full Moon. I’ve heard other stories that say she comes out often, like the dwarves, but not always in her own form.” I suddenly remembered the white owl. “Gogu, do you really think we should try this?”

Silence. He was shivering the way he did when we crossed the lake. I felt cold, too. There would be guards to get past, Cezar’s wrath to face if he found out I had gone into the forest, a trip in the cold to the Deadwash, and then . . . Finding Dr˘agu¸ta, without knowing where to look, might prove harder than Grigori had indicated. We might wander about in the snow until we were dying of cold, and get nowhere.

“We have to do it, Gogu,” I whispered. “You and I. I’m not putting any of my sisters in danger—this is bad enough already.”

D-dawn, Gogu conveyed to me. First thing tomorrow, before the g-guards come.

275

I peered at him. In the candlelight he was just a green blob on the pillow. “You can stay home if you don’t want to do this, Gogu,” I said, realizing that he was as terrified as I was. “I can go by myself.” At Dark of the Moon, I’d left him behind. The thought of doing that again, of braving the witch of the wood without my dearest companion by my side, made me feel sick.

But it was unfair to drag him along when he was so scared.

You d-don’t want me to c-come? You would l-leave me b-behind again?

His whole body drooped.

“Of course I want you, stupid! I’m petrified of going alone.

I’m just trying to spare you.”

Then we will g-go together, Jena.

“You realize I’ve got no idea how to find her?”

We’ll find her.

“I hope so,” I said, sitting up to blow out the candle. “And I hope she’s prepared to help us. Good night, Gogu. Sweet dreams. Up at dawn, remember.”

This pillow is my best place, Jena.

“What?” I squinted at him in the darkness, but his eyes were already closed.

I settled Gogu in my pocket, wrapped in the sheepskin mitten, and tiptoed downstairs with the first lightening of the sky.

Florica already had the fire roaring in the kitchen stove and was kneading dough on the well-scoured table. Petru sat by the stove, his hands curled around a steaming cup of last night’s soup. Both looked up as I tried to pass the open doorway in my hooded cloak with my winter boots in my hands.

I went in. This was the first test of the day. “Florica, Petru, 276

I need a favor. I must go out on my own, without Cezar knowing. Please . . .”

Two pairs of dark old eyes regarded me shrewdly. “You’d want to hurry,” Florica said. “The boys will be down early today. Daniel and R˘azvan. They’re leaving.”

“Really? Isn’t that rather sudden?”

“There was a lot of shouting last night, after you girls were in bed,” Petru said. “They didn’t like what Master Cezar planned to do. The two of them told him they wouldn’t have any of it. Packed up to go home.”

“Oh.” I would once have been glad to see those two gone, but now their departure felt like bad news. They had willingly performed a hundred and one tasks on the farm. I thought their presence had gone a certain way toward moderating Cezar’s behavior.

“What are you planning, Jena?” Florica muttered. “It’s not safe out there, you know that—especially for a girl on her own.”

“I do have to go, Florica. It’s really important. I’ll be safe, I promise. The folk of the forest don’t harm people who show them respect. You said that yourself. And I’m not alone, I’ve got Gogu. I’ll be safer out there than I am here in the castle, with Cezar in his current mood. All you need to do is keep quiet.

Please?”

“Off you go,” Petru said. “We never saw you. Or the frog.

Here, take this.” He put his little knife into my hand, the one he used for a thousand jobs on the farm. It had been next to him on the table, ready to cut the bread Florica would give him for his breakfast. “It’s sharp,” he warned me. “Keep it in the sheath until you need it. And make sure you bring it back.”

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Florica sniffed, wiping her floury hands on her apron. “May all the saints watch over you, Jena. Take this, too.” She reached into one of many capacious pockets in her apron, fished out a little figure made of garlic cloves, and pressed it into my hand.

“Go on, now. The boys will be here any moment; I’m just making them a little something for the road. Jena, you’ve had no breakfast. Let me—” She was already rummaging on the shelves, finding the crust of yesterday’s bread, a wedge of hard cheese, an apple, and wrapping them in a cloth. “Take these. Petru will be in the barn—find him first when you come back, and he’ll see you safely into the house.”

“Thank you,” I said, and moved to hug them, each in turn.

“I don’t know what we’d do without the two of you. I’ll be back before dusk. If anyone asks, you have no idea where I am.”

At first I didn’t even try to work out where Dr˘agu¸ta’s lair might be, or how to reach it quickly. My main aim was to disappear into the forest, somewhere Cezar could not readily track me. That wasn’t easy with the paths all thick with snow. If the imprints of my boots didn’t give me away, I thought, Cezar only needed to send the farm dogs after me and they’d find me by smell. So I did what I could to make my scent difficult to follow. I tried to walk along frozen streams, and Gogu and I sustained bruises. I clambered up a steep rock wall, and came close to a fall that would have broken an arm or a leg or worse, if I hadn’t grabbed on to a prickly bush just in time. Unfortunately, I had removed my gloves so I could climb better. My palm was full of thorns; at the top of the wall, I sat down to remove the 278

worst of them with the numb fingers of my other hand, and Gogu licked the sore places better.

Poor Jena. Is the hurt gone now?

“Yes,” I lied, thrusting the aching hand under my cloak.

“We’d better go on. I don’t think he’ll track us here. Now what? Which way do we go?”

The D-Deadwash.

“Do you want to go back in the pocket? It’s freezing out here.” In there, I thought, he could shut his eyes and pretend he was somewhere else.

No. I will ride on your shoulder.

“Gogu, are you sure? You sound strange. Sad. You didn’t have to come, you know.”

I know, Jena.

So we went to the Deadwash: not just as far as the little stream where we’d made pondweed pancakes in autumn, but right down under the dark trees to the shore itself. The water was sheeted with ice; the mist hung close, a shifting gray shroud. There was an odd stillness about the place. Not a bird called in bare-limbed willow or red-berried holly, not a creature rustled in the undergrowth. Above the canopy of inter-laced branches, the morning sky was a flat gray. It would snow again by nightfall.

Now what?

“I don’t know,” I whispered, my heart hammering. “Calling out to her seems wrong. Praying would be blasphemous.

Searching for her might take all day and be no help at all. I wonder what it meant, what Grigori said. If you truly want to find 279

her, you’ll find her. . . . ” I hugged my cloak around me. “Gogu,” I said in a very small voice, “I think what we need to show is . . .

well, blind faith. Do you trust me?”

With my life.

“All right, then.” I took the frog in my hands, drew a deep, shuddering breath, closed my eyes, and stepped onto the frozen lake. I walked, unseeing, step by step. The ice made moaning, cracking sounds under my boots. The hard freeze of Dark of the Moon was beginning to weaken; the waters of T˘aul Ielelor had scented spring. I kept my eyes screwed shut, and with each step I thought about why I needed Dr˘agu¸ta to help me: Father; Cezar; Tati and Sorrow; . . . Piscul Dracului; my sisters’ future; the folk of the wildwood . . .

“Dr˘agu¸ta,” I whispered, pausing to stand completely still, Gogu cupped between my palms. “Dr˘agu¸ta, can you hear me?”

Get rid of the man.

“What?” I hissed. Drat Gogu, he had completely broken my concentration.

Throw away the little garlic man.

I dug into my pocket, fished out Florica’s tiny charm, and threw it as far as I could across the frozen lake. Maybe the folk of the Other Kingdom feared garlic or maybe, as Tadeusz had said, that was a myth. Better safe than sorry. I shut my eyes again. “Dr˘agu¸ta,” I said, “I love the forest. I love the Other Kingdom. I love my family, and I love Piscul Dracului. Please help me to save them.” My heart was drumming hard, and so was Gogu’s. Hadn’t my cousin Costi been drowned right here where I stood? I tried not to think about the probability that if 280

the ice broke and I fell through, I would freeze so fast I wouldn’t have time to drown.

We waited. I felt the cold seep under my cloak and my warm gown and my woolen stockings and into the core of my bones. My nose was numb, my ears ached. I thought I could feel ice forming on my eyelashes. Gogu was shivering in great, convulsive spasms. I refused to believe she wasn’t coming. Allow that thought in and she probably wouldn’t. Faith was required, and faith was what I planned to demonstrate, for as long as it took.

It’s hard to stand still with your eyes shut for a long time: eventually you start to lose your balance and feel faint and dizzy. I kept it up a good while, listening to the silence of the forest and willing Dr˘agu¸ta to put in an appearance before I was frozen through. But it wasn’t the witch of the woods who finally made me open my eyes, it was Gogu. He started so violently that I almost dropped him on the ice. As I bent to grab him, I found myself looking into the face of someone very small, who had been standing quietly in front of me, right by my feet.

That’s her.

“What?”

That’s her. Cupped in my hands, Gogu buried his head against my palm, trembling.

I took another look. White shawl, more holes than fabric.

White hair, long and wild. Cloudy green eyes, like ripe gooseberries. Wrinkled face, beaky nose, fine parchment skin. A little staff of willow wood, with a polished stone like a robin’s egg set at the tip. Little silver boots with pointed toes, glittering 281

against the ice where she stood. In the hand that did not hold the staff, she had a delicate silver chain, and at the end of it sat a white fox in a jeweled harness. The woman herself stood not much higher than my knees.

“You stink of garlic!” she said sharply, eyes fixed on mine.

“Can’t stand the stuff, myself. What have you brought me?”

“Ah . . . are you Dr˘agu¸ta?” I could not believe this tiny, frail-looking creature was the feared and fabled witch of the wood.

“What do you think?”

I couldn’t afford to waste even one question. If she was Dr˘agu¸ta, she might decide to vanish at any moment. I had to get this right.

“I think you are, and I offer you my respectful greetings,” I said, giving her a curtsy. She sniffed, but stayed. The fox was pawing at the ice, wanting to dig.

“I have some good bread and some tasty cheese,” I said, curs-ing myself for not thinking of bringing gifts. “And a red, rosy apple. You are welcome to those.” Putting Gogu on my shoulder, I undid Florica’s cloth from my belt and knelt down to offer it.

“Hm,” the tiny woman said, prodding at it with her staff.

“Anything else?”

I thought frantically. “My gold earrings? A nice silk handkerchief?”

“Are you afraid of me, Jenica?” the witch asked suddenly.

And suddenly I was, for she stretched her mouth in a smile, revealing two rows of little pointed teeth. She was looking straight at Gogu, who was trying to hide under my hair.

Dr˘agu¸ta put out a long, pale tongue and licked her lips.

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“You do have something I want,” she purred. “Something juicy. Something tasty. Something green as grass.”

“You can’t have Gogu!” I gasped, horrified. “Anything else, but not him!”

“Oh, Jena, you disappoint me. All this way in the cold, and such a heartfelt plea, and you give it all up for a mere morsel like that? Perhaps you don’t quite understand. Give me the frog, and I’ll tell you everything you need to know. The solutions to all your problems. It’s easy. Just pass him over. It’ll save me from having to decide what’s for supper.” She grinned.

Gogu went suddenly still. I thought his heart had stopped beating from sheer fright. “Gogu!” I hissed. “Don’t give up on me now, I need you!” He moved just a little and I drew a breath for courage. “I won’t do it,” I said, staring the witch straight in the eyes. “I can’t give up my dearest friend. We’re a team, Gogu and I. We do everything together. Do take the bread and cheese, they’re Florica’s best. And the apple’s from our own orchard at Piscul Dracului. They’ll make a much nicer supper.

Trust me.”

Dr˘agu¸ta stared at me a moment, then threw her little head back and burst into peals of laughter. Her laugh was so loud it made the trees all around the Deadwash shiver. The white fox laid back its ears. “Florica, eh? She’ll be an old woman now, just like me. I remember her when she was a mere slip of a thing, with the young men all dancing after her. Ah, well. Me, I was old even then. Dr˘agu¸ta’s always been old.” She gathered up the bundle and stuffed it into one of the silver bags the fox wore behind its miniature blanket saddle. “Tell me your story, then, and be quick about it.”

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I told her everything, starting with Father’s illness, going on with the catalog of Cezar’s misdeeds, and throwing in Tati and Sorrow and the prospect of young men being locked in our bedchamber every Full Moon until we gave up our secret. “And I’ve tried and tried to keep control of things, but it keeps on getting worse,” I finished miserably. “Now I think Tati may be in danger soon, from folk who think . . . who think she’s changing into something else.” It was hard to get the words out, for to give voice to this most terrifying of possibilities seemed to make it real. “She’s so pale and distant, and so thin. . . . It could be true that Sorrow—that he—” I couldn’t bring myself to say that he might have bitten her—that he might have drawn her into his own darkness. “I’m hoping you can tell me what to do.”

She cackled. “Easy, eh? A simple set of instructions. Or a spell, one that turns back time. I doubt if your Tati would welcome that. You’ve surprised me, Jena. My great-nephew Grigori told me you were a capable girl.”

“Not anymore,” I said. “These days I seem to be getting everything wrong.”

Dr˘agu¸ta reached out to stroke the fox’s muzzle. Then, with an agility astonishing in one apparently so ancient, she leaped onto the creature’s back. She gathered what I now saw were reins.

“No—please—” I spluttered. “Please wait! I need your help!”

The witch paused, reaching into a pouch at her belt under the voluminous tattered shawl. “Where is the wretched thing—ah, here!” She tossed something straight at me, and I 284

dodged instinctively. The small item bounced on the ice and went spinning away. I slid to retrieve it, keeping Gogu safe in place with one hand. It was a tiny bottle of greenish fluid, tightly corked. “It gives long sleep,” Dr˘agu¸ta said. “Two drops, no more. Almost tasteless in wine, completely so in ¸ tuica˘. You’ll have no problem with your nocturnal visitors.”

“Thank you,” I managed, desperate to keep her near until all my questions were answered. “Dr˘agu¸ta—Madam—can anything be done for Sorrow and that little girl, his sister? It seems so terrible that they are trapped in that dark place, and perhaps doomed to become Night People themselves. I would like to help them. But Sorrow and Tati, that’s impossible—”

Dr˘agu¸ta regarded me gravely. “Your sister is a grown woman, Jena,” she said. “Let her live her own life.”

“But—”

“Would you challenge me?”

There was something in her voice that stopped further words. Small she might be, but I heard her and trembled. “N-no.

I just don’t want to lose my sister.”

“What will be, will be. I have one piece of advice for you, Jena. Listen well, because it’s all you’ll be getting.”

“I’m listening.”

“Trust your instincts,” Dr˘agu¸ta said. “And remember, nothing comes without a price.” She kicked her little silver boots against the fox’s sides. The creature took off at a brisk trot over the frozen plane of the Deadwash. Within a count of five, the two of them had vanished into the mist.

“Wait—!” My shoulders slumped. She was gone, and all I 285

had was a finger-sized bottle of some dubious potion and a piece of advice I knew well enough already. “Curse it!” I said, stamping my foot in frustration. The ice let out an ominous snapping sound.

C-can we g-go back to shore now?

It seemed Dr˘agu¸ta had decided not to drown us. We reached the shore of T˘aul Ielelor safely, minus our provisions. It was time for the long walk home. I felt desperately tired and utterly despondent. I sat down on a log and found that I didn’t have the energy to get up again.

“She did try to help, Gogu,” I muttered. “But I feel so disappointed, I could cry. What about Sorrow and Tati? And a sleeping potion is all very well, but once he finds out about it, Cezar will use other ways to make me do what he wants. And what’s the point of saying nothing comes without a price? I’d be stupid if I hadn’t learned that. Everyone says it.”

D-don’t be sad. I’m here.

“So you are,” I said, taking Gogu in my hands and holding him against my cheek. “How dare she threaten to have you for her supper? You’re my truest friend in all the world.” I turned my head and kissed him on his damp green nose.

Everything went white. I found myself flying through the air, the sound of a shattering explosion assaulting my ears. I landed with a bone-jarring thump, flat on my back in a scratchy juniper bush. Gogu had been torn from my hands by the blast and was nowhere to be seen. I sat up cautiously as the bright light faded and the lakeshore came back to its gray-green, shadowy self.

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“Gogu?” My voice was thin and shaky. My heart was pounding and my ears were ringing. Distantly, I thought I could hear the sound of an old woman’s derisive laughter.

“Gogu, where are you?”

No response. A terrible, cold feeling began to creep through me. This was Dr˘agu¸ta’s doing. She’d never meant to help me without payment. She’d given me the potion and she’d smiled, and the price she’d wanted was the one she’d asked for in the first place: my precious companion. “Gogu!” I shouted.

“Gogu, if you’re there, come out right now!” I crawled around in the undergrowth, clawing wildly at ferns and creepers.

“Gogu, be here somewhere—please, oh please. . . .”

I was bending to look under a clump of grass when I saw him: a lanky, sprawled figure lying on the shore at some distance from me, as if thrown there. He was pale-skinned, long-limbed, his dark hair straggling down into his eyes. The rags he wore didn’t cover him very well: a considerable amount of naked flesh was on show. He lay limp, perhaps unconscious. Maybe dead. A wanderer, a vagrant. Drunk, probably—

perhaps mad. I was alone out here in the forest. I should run straight home and not look behind me. On the other hand, he might be hurt, and it was freezing. Father had taught us to be compassionate. I couldn’t just leave him.

I crept nearer, my hand gripping the hilt of Petru’s little sharp knife. The young man lay utterly silent. I came still closer, crouching down an arm’s length from him. Not dead: breathing. His face was bony and well formed, a familiar face with a thin-lipped mouth and a strong jaw. No, I told myself.

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No, please. He opened his eyes. Behind the strands of dark hair, they were green as grass. My heart lurched in horror. This was Dr˘agu¸ta’s joke, her cruel joke. This was the lovely young man who had haunted my dreams since Dark of the Moon. Behind that appealing face was the evil creature I had seen in the magic mirror, pursuing and hurting my sisters. And . . .

My skin prickled, my heart felt a sudden deathly chill. Perhaps I had known who it was from the first, although my mind shrank from it. Who else would be there beside T˘aul Ielelor in the middle of winter? There had been nobody—just me and my frog.

“Gogu?” I whispered, backing away with the knife in my hand. “Is it you?” My heart was breaking.

The young man looked at me, not saying a thing. That was cruelest of all: if he had managed even a word or two, some expression of regret, it might have eased the pain just a little. He sat up, wrapping his long arms around his bony knees. Suddenly he was racked with convulsive shivering.

“Here,” I said, taking off my cloak and putting it around his shoulders. “It is you, isn’t it? It has to be. Can you get up? Can you walk?”

I knew I should flee: I should run as fast as I could, away from the Deadwash and out of the wildwood, back home to my sisters. He was a monster. I had seen it with my own eyes. But deep inside me, something wanted to help him—something that could not disregard his beseeching gaze. This was like being ripped apart. I hated Dr˘agu¸ta as I had never hated anyone in my life. If this was the price for a few drops of sleeping potion, it was too high.

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“Gogu?” I ventured again, my voice shaking. If only he would say something—anything—while he was still in this form. How long, I wondered, until that kind, sweet face turned to the mask of hideous decay? How long before this semblance of a human became the thing underneath, an evil being from the world of Dark of the Moon? How long before it turned its rend-ing claws and vicious teeth on me as I fled through the forest? It was a long way home to Piscul Dracului. But how could I turn my back on him? It was cold, and we were in the middle of the forest. And it was Gogu, whom I had promised never to leave behind.

“Have you got somewhere to go?” I asked, hating the way those green eyes were looking at me, full of love and reproach.

“Can you get up and walk?” Despite myself, I held out a hand to help him to his feet. He tried. After a moment, his legs buckled under him and he collapsed in a heap, trembling violently.

“Who were you before?” I asked him. Fear tugged at my feet; sorrow and pity held me still. He wasn’t Gogu anymore.

Surely he could answer the question now, the one he’d never been able to respond to before. “Before you became a frog, were you a man or something else? Tell me, go on. Who were you?”

The young man stared at me without a word. His expression was so sad, it made me want to throw my arms around him and reassure him that everything would be all right. But the words that had come to me at Dr˘agu¸ta’s mirror were still in my head: Trust that one, and you will deliver up your heart to be split and skewered and roasted over a fire. It felt as if that were happening right now.

“If you won’t tell me, how can I possibly understand 289

anything?” I burst out. “I don’t want to walk away, but I can’t stay here.” Saying this, I could not look at him. “It’s going to take me a long time to walk home. I don’t think I can fetch help.

There’s only Cezar, and—” I thought of trying to explain this to my cousin; of what would likely be the violent and bloody result: this young man pursued and butchered by a mob of scythe-wielding hunters—or, worse still, turning into his true self and inflicting deadly damage on the men of the valley before he was captured and killed. “I wish you would say something,” I whispered. “It seems terrible to leave you like this. Please tell me who you are.”

Nothing; not a word.

“Then I’m going,” I said, fixing my mind on the vision in Dr˘agu¸ta’s mirror, the bad part of it. “I have no choice.” I took a step away, but something was holding me back. I turned, looking down, and saw that he was clutching a fold of my gown, his long fingers gripping the woolen fabric, desperate to delay the moment when I would walk away. I made myself meet his eyes; tears welled in mine. He looked forlorn, bereft. His expression was just like the frog’s, those times when I had somehow offended Gogu and he had retreated to the bushes. He’s from the Other Kingdom, I told myself sternly. You’ve seen what he turns into. Don’t let him charm you: he can’t be allowed near Iulia and Paula and Stela.

I reached down and opened his fingers, undoing his grasp as if he were a small child clinging to something forbidden. His fingertips brushed the back of my hand, and I felt his touch all through my body, flooding me with tenderness and longing. I 290

remembered Tadeusz’s chill fingers against my skin, his soft voice and tempting words, and the sensations they had aroused in me. I knew that they had been nothing—nothing at all compared with what I felt now. This was deep and strong and com-pelling, and I needed all my strength to fight it. It was all wrong. It was something I could not have. Yet, cruelly, it felt more right than anything in the world.

“Goodbye, Gogu,” I whispered, then turned my back and fled.

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Chapter Twelve

I arrived home freezing, exhausted, and utterly miserable. Petru smuggled me inside. All around the place there were men with clubs or crossbows or knives, some whom I recognized from Vârful cu Negur˘a and some who were strangers. I spotted Cezar giving them stern instructions. All I could think of was the horrible thing Dr˘agu¸ta had done to me—the cruel trick that had turned my world upside down.

My sisters bundled me out of my damp clothes and into warm, dry ones. Stela brought a stone hot water bottle for my feet. Iulia fetched a jug of tea from the kitchen, with a little dish of bread and pickled eggs, but I could not eat.

“Let’s go through this again, Jena,” Paula said carefully, as if humoring a hysterical child. By this stage I’d stammered out the story, more or less, including a brief account of the young man I had seen in Dr˘agu¸ta’s mirror and what he had become. I had not given them details of the scene in which the monstrous figure had pursued and hurt them; there was no need for them to share 292

my nightmares. I had shown them Dr˘agu¸ta’s sleeping potion. I couldn’t expect them to understand how I was feeling. If anyone said, Oh well, it was only a frog , I’d scream. “You did actually kiss Gogu? That was what made him change?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Maybe Gogu was just an ordinary boy once,” suggested Stela solemnly. “Until Dr˘agu¸ta enchanted him.”

“There’s nothing ordinary about him. He belongs in the world of the Night People. He looks good on the outside and he’s all bad on the inside. I saw it.”

“And you believe it.” Paula sounded doubtful.

“I heard Dr˘agu¸ta laughing after she’d done it. Paula, there’s no point in talking about this. He’s gone. I was wrong about him all those years—stupidly wrong. Instead of a friend and companion, I was carrying about some”—I shuddered—“some thing that belonged in the dark, out of sight. How could I have made such a mistake?”

“Or perhaps she changed him,” suggested Iulia. “It’s hard to believe that Gogu was an evil creature, Jena. Maybe she took him and left you this other thing in his place. To teach you a lesson.”

“So it was true, then.” Paula was looking thoughtful.

“About you being able to hear Gogu’s thoughts, I mean. When she transformed him into a frog, Dr˘agu¸ta probably gave him that voice to make up for not being able to talk. Otherwise he’d have gone crazy.”

Tati had been silent so far. Now she gave the others a particular kind of look, and the three of them retreated to sit on Paula’s bed.

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“Jena,” said Tati. “Jena, look at me.”

She hadn’t sounded so sensible for quite a while. I looked at her, and she reached out her fingers to wipe the tears from my cheeks. Her hand was all skin and bone. “Surely this can’t be the first time you ever gave Gogu a kiss,” she said.

“It’s not. I don’t think that’s what made him change.

Dr˘agu¸ta just wanted a dramatic moment to do it, and that’s the one she chose. Maybe I deserve punishing, Tati. I’ve messed up everything, and now he’s gone, and I don’t have any answers, and Cezar’s down there, putting armed guards all around the castle.” The tears flowed faster. “Sorry,” I hiccuped. “I just can’t believe I’ve lost him. It’s even crueler than it seems. . . .”

No, I would not tell her that the young man with green eyes had appeared nightly in my dreams. That I had considered him far nicer than any of the young men at the party. That I had imagined dancing with him, and had wished he could be real.

That meant nothing: every single time, the dream had ended with his changing to reveal the monster beneath.

“Jena,” said Tati softly, “we can go across at Full Moon.

Dr˘agu¸ta’s potion will put Cezar’s man to sleep. You can ask Ileana about this, and I can ask about Sorrow. Maybe it can still be set right, all of it. I’m going to ask her whether she will let Sorrow and his sister live in her realm, away from the Night People. You’ve done something really brave, getting the potion for us. Don’t cry, Jena, please.”

“Do you think Gogu will remember the way home?” asked Stela, whose mind was dwelling on the fact that, unaccountably, I had left my friend on his own out in the forest. If she had missed the point about exactly what he was, I was glad of it. “I 294

hope he doesn’t freeze to death, like birds that fall out of the trees in winter.”

“Shh!” hissed Tati. “Don’t upset Jena. She did give him her cloak.”

“If this was one of those old tales,” said Iulia, “he’d turn up on the doorstep here, and Jena would have to grovel to get him back.”

“Hush, Iulia!” Tati’s arm tightened around my shoulders.

“Don’t make this any worse. Until you lose someone you love, you can’t understand what Jena’s feeling.”

“You know,” Paula said, “it would really be more sensible not to go, this Full Moon—even if there are questions you want to ask. If we never opened the portal again, Cezar couldn’t find it.”

Tati and I both looked at her.

“We can’t not go,” Stela said, all big eyes and drooping mouth.

“You’re saying we should never go to the Other Kingdom again?” Iulia had understood what lay behind Paula’s words, and her voice was hushed. “Not ever?”

“That’s common sense,” said Paula. “I don’t like it any more than you do. Where else am I going to be able to talk about the things I love—history, philosophy, and ideas—now that Father Sandu’s gone? But it’s probably the right thing to do.”

There was a silence. As it drew out, I imagined the sounds that might once have filled such an awkward pause and never would again: Gogu’s wry comments, which only I could detect; his little splashing noises in the bath bowl; the soft thump as he landed on the pillow, ready for good-nights and sleep.

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“We do need to go once more, if we can,” I said as tears began to roll down my cheeks again. “I think we have to let Father know what’s happening here. The only way I’m going to get a letter past Cezar is to ask for help in the Other Kingdom.”

I would take Grigori up on his offer. I thought he was strong enough to look after himself from here to Constan¸ta and back.

“What will happen after that, I don’t know. Paula may be right. Maybe it is the end.”

As we lay in bed later, Tati reached out under the quilt and took my hand in her own. Hers was cold as a wraith’s. “Jena?”

she whispered. “I’m sorry you’re so sad.”

My cheek was against the pillow, on the spot where Gogu always slept. The linen had been almost dry; I was wetting it anew with tears. I said nothing. It troubled me that when we had spoken of ending our visits to the Other Kingdom, Tati had raised no objections. I wondered what she saw in her own future. From where I lay, I could see her hair spread across her pillow like a dark shawl, the pale expanse of her neck exposed.

I shut my eyes. If there was evidence there, a mark on her pearly skin, I was not ready to see it—not brave enough to accept what it might mean. The truth was, at Dark of the Moon, Sorrow had seemed to be a good person, as kind and thoughtful as Tati had always said he was. I did not want him to be one of them.

“Jena?”

“Mmm?”

“If Ileana won’t help about Sorrow, I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t go on without him. I just can’t.”

It seemed an enormous effort to answer. All I wanted to do 296

was curl up into a ball with my misery. I hated Cezar. I hated fate for making Father ill and for not sending anyone to help us.

I hated Dr˘agu¸ta most of all, for twisting my dearest friend into a thing to be feared and loathed. I hated myself for still loving him.

“We just might have to go on, Tati,” I said. “There might be no choice.” I thought of a future in which Cezar was master of both Vârful cu Negur˘a and Piscul Dracului. That future seemed to be almost upon us. Without Gogu, I wasn’t sure whether I would be strong enough to protect my sisters—

strong enough to act as Father would wish.

“There’s always a choice, Jena.” Tati closed her eyes. “Even giving up is a kind of choice.”

As Full Moon approached, Cezar’s mood deteriorated. He could often be heard yelling at the guards, who had evidently been chosen for both their intimidating size and their reluctance to engage in conversation. I wondered that he had anything to chide them about, since they seemed utterly obedient to his rule. They slept out in the barn.

Petru, displeased with the new arrangements, grew still more taciturn. Florica was distracted and fearful. The five of us applied ourselves to helping her in the kitchen and around the castle and to keeping out of Cezar’s way. He was furious, and Petru had his own theory as to the cause. “Can’t find a taker for this job he’s thought up,” he muttered as I passed him in the hallway. “Nobody wants to venture into the other realm. All too frightened of the Night People. A reward’s no good to you if you’re dead.”

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Iulia had become unusually quiet and often had red eyes.

We were all uneasy at the presence of armed minders in our house, but this seemed something more.

“It’s R˘azvan,” Paula told me when Iulia had burst into tears over a trivial matter and rushed out of the room for the tenth time in a week. “She’s upset that he left so suddenly.”

“R˘azvan?” I stared at her. “She liked him that much?” I had noticed the boys’ admiring glances at Iulia, and thought them inappropriate. My sister looked like a woman, but she was only in her fourteenth year—surely too young for such attentions. I had seen, later, how kind Daniel and R˘azvan were to my younger sisters. All the same, this was a surprise.

“He has a sister Iulia’s age, and his father keeps a stable full of fine riding horses,” Paula informed me. “He half invited her to visit in the summer; she was really excited about it. Now that’s all changed. The boys left without saying goodbye, and Cezar’s not letting us go anywhere, let alone all the way to R˘azvan’s father’s estate—it’s on the other side of Bra¸sov.”

“Why didn’t Iulia tell me?”

Paula regarded me a little owlishly. “You’ve been wrapped up in your own misery, Jena,” she said. “With you brooding over Gogu, and Tati counting the minutes until Full Moon, Iulia’s got nobody to confide in except me. And Stela’s got nobody to be a mother to her except me. She’s frightened. She can’t understand why all these men are suddenly hanging around. It would actually be quite nice if you went back to taking a bit more notice of the rest of us.”

Her words were a slap in the face. Was this really true? In my misery over Gogu and my concern to keep Piscul Dracului 298

and the Other Kingdom safe, had I forgotten that my sisters, too, were unhappy? “I’m sorry,” I said, tears welling in my eyes.

“It’s just that I miss him so much.”

“All the same,” Paula said, “you could make a bit of an effort.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Talk to Iulia. Make some time for Stela. Tati doesn’t tell her stories and play with her the way she used to, and Stela thinks that’s somehow her fault. I wish Tati would be herself again. She doesn’t just look thin, she looks really ill. I wish Full Moon was over.”

When I saw Iulia, I told her I thought Father might consider her old enough, next year, to go on a visit by herself, provided Aunt Bogdana approved all the arrangements. The expression on her face was reward enough: her eyes lit up. My little sisters were growing up faster than I had expected. It seemed that the prospect of a summer of riding in the company of an admiring young man was now more enticing to Iulia than the magic of Full Moon dancing. Was it possible to grow out of the Other Kingdom?

I took over the job of teaching Stela her letters—a task that Tati had abandoned when thoughts of Sorrow began to crowd other matters from her mind—and was rewarded by my small sister’s smiles. I made myself available for bedtime stories.

There was not much I could do for Tati herself. I could not force her to eat, and the rumors that were going about the valley made me reluctant to send for a doctor. I watched her fade a little each day, and prayed that Full Moon would bring solutions.

Up in our chamber, Gogu’s jug and bowl stood empty on 299

the side table. Eventually I would put them away, but not yet; it seemed so final. Although I knew that beneath the semblance of the green-eyed man there was something dark and terrible, part of me still longed to go out into the forest and search for him, to see whether he was safe and well, to ask him . . . what?

Why it was that Dr˘agu¸ta had made him into a frog and put him in my path so I could save him and befriend him and love him and then have him torn away from me and revealed to be a monster? What she had done seemed not only pointless, but unreasonably cruel. I struggled to make sense of it.

On the eve of Full Moon I took ink, quill, and parchment up to the little tower with the starry ceiling and sat on the rug to write a letter. This was one place Cezar’s watchdogs had not discovered. I recalled Gogu sitting on my midriff here and astonishing me by talking about true love. Telling me he liked my soft brown hair and my green gown. Saying he liked sleeping on my pillow so we were side by side. “I love you, too, Gogu,”

I whispered into the silence of the tower room, where the rays of the setting sun came low through the seven windows, touching the painted stars to a rosy shine. “At least, I loved you when you were a frog, before I knew the truth. But . . .” It was unthinkable that I could still feel that tenderness, still remember the good things as if they were not tainted by the horror of his true nature. He had watched me undressing, had traveled everywhere in my pocket, warmed by my body. He had snuggled against my breast and cuddled up to my neck under the fall of my hair. He’d been dearer to me than anyone in the world.

“I wouldn’t mind you being a man, once I got used to the 300

idea,” I muttered. “I could have liked that man, he seemed kind and funny and nice. Why couldn’t he be the real Gogu?” I imagined my friend hopping across the dragon tiles to conceal himself in their green-blue pattern. I remembered his silent voice: You left me b-b-behind.

No more tears, I ordered myself. I’d had enough days of weeping myself into a sodden mess. There was a letter to be written and it must be done just right. Without Gogu to advise me, I must try to think of what he would suggest and do the rest myself.

Dear Gabriel, I wrote, I have addressed this to you, hoping you will read it first, then share it with Father. I have already sent several letters, but we have received only one from you, telling us he was too unwell to have the news of our uncle’s tragic death. I am sending this by a different messenger.

Gabriel, if Father is dying , I need to know. My sisters and I would want to be at his bedside to say goodbye. If he is improving , then he should be told that we are having some difficulties at Piscul Dracului. . . .

I kept it brief. Nothing about Sorrow or our Full Moon activities, of course. I told him what Cezar was doing: from the one-sided decision to take over our finances to the establish-ment of a force of guards to curtail our freedom. Telling that last part without revealing what we knew of the portal was tricky, but I managed it. I told him Cezar planned to start cutting down the forest as soon as spring came, and that I believed he had sent Aunt Bogdana away so she could not hold him back. I told him there were dangerous rumors in the valley, rumors about Piscul Dracului and about us.

If Father cannot come home, Gabriel, I ask that we be provided with some other assistance. I am afraid of Cezar and his interference, and I want 301

him kept away from Piscul Dracului. I do not know where to turn. Please discuss this with Father. Do not send a reply with Cezar’s usual messengers, the ones employed for the business, as I believe letters may have been intercepted.

My own messenger is prepared to wait for your response. You must honor his wish to remain unidentified. You can trust him. I and my sisters send you our respects and our heartfelt thanks for your loyalty to Father. Please give him our love and fondest wishes for a good recovery and a speedy return home. Jena.

I folded the parchment and slipped it into my pocket. Then I lay on the rug, staring up at the ceiling as the sunset moved through gold and pink and purple and gray, and birds called to one another in the dark forest outside, winging to their roosts.

I made myself breathe slowly; I willed myself to be calm. It wasn’t easy. As far as we knew, Cezar had found nobody willing to undertake his mission. But I knew he would make it happen somehow, even if he had to do it himself. An elderly servant called Marta had come down from Vârful cu Negur˘a earlier in the day, her job to act as our chaperone. We had made up a pallet for her in our bedchamber. It all seemed quite unreal.

I hoped the letter would reach Father before Cezar did anything worse. Tonight, at Dancing Glade, I would ask Grigori to take it to Constan¸ta for me, and both Tati and I would seek an audience with the queen of the forest. If Ileana had no further answers for us, I thought this might be the very last time we would visit the Other Kingdom. To risk exposing the folk of that realm to Cezar without good reason was something we could not do, not if we loved them and valued the wonderful opportunity they had given us month by month and year by year 302

since we’d first found the portal. Tonight we might be saying our last farewell to Grigori and Sten, to Ildephonsus, to Ileana and Marin and all our friends from the Other Kingdom. I knew I must drink my fill of the colored lights, the exquisite music, the glittering raiment and delicious smells, and store it all up in my memory. The rest of my life might be a long time.

When I was an old woman, I wanted to be able to remember every last jewel, every last gauzy wing, every last thrilling moment.

“Jena?” A tap at the door.

“Mmm?”

“Come downstairs! Quick!”

My heart plummeted. What now? I got up and opened the door.

No fewer than three sisters were clustered outside, their expressions mingling excitement and anxiety.

“There’s a man here,” Iulia babbled, “for the quest. Cezar’s absolutely beaming! I think he thought he’d have to do it himself—”

“So you need to get the potion ready—” put in Paula.

“Quick, quick!” urged Stela, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward the steps.

We reached our chamber. Marta was down in the kitchen with Florica right now, waiting to find out if there would be any call for her services.

“Make sure none of your party clothing is in sight,” I told my sisters. “We want both Marta and this man asleep before we show any signs of getting ready. Where’s that ¸ tuica˘?”

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We had a silver tray ready, with a pretty Venetian flask and a set of matching glasses, though none of us actually drank plum brandy. Tonight, Tati and I would make the gesture of taking a small glass each, just so our victims would not be too suspicious.

“Put the marked glasses on this side,” I said. “Good. Now the potion . . .” I retrieved Dr˘agu¸ta’s tiny bottle from its hiding place under my mattress, uncorked it, and let two drops fall into each of the two glasses that had an unobtrusive ink dot on their stems. “There. We just pour the ¸ tuica˘ on top, and—if the witch was telling the truth—this man won’t detect a thing, and nor will Marta. Then we wait. I hope it works quickly. I can’t believe Cezar is making us let a stranger into our bedchamber.”

We sat through supper. There were so many guards now that Florica couldn’t feed them all in the kitchen, so she had to send provisions out to the barn. Cezar failed utterly to conceal his excitement. The look in his eyes sickened me.

There was no conversation. Florica brought dishes in and out; Cezar smiled his little superior smile; I divided the

˘ ˘

mamaliga˘ and shared out the boiled mutton and pickled cabbage.

My sisters ate what they were given without a word. Apart from Tati, that is: she cut up her meat into tiny pieces and prod-

˘

ded her mamalig

˘ a˘ with a spoon. I didn’t see her eat so much as a crumb.

After that, things grew more and more unreal. A man was waiting outside in the hallway, cap in hands, feet shuffling awkwardly. He looked rather pale. Our cousin introduced us by name, as if this were a polite tea party.

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“Now, Ioan,” said Cezar expansively, “you understand what is required of you tonight?”

“Yes, my lord. Find the entry; go in; come out; make sure I don’t attract notice. Bring back information. I’m sure the young ladies will assist me.”

Cezar raised his brows. “Well, good luck to you. I’ll be waiting at dawn to let you out.”

“What do you mean, let him out?” I asked, alarmed. “We’ll be doing that. The bolt’s on the inside.”

“I have made suitable provision,” Cezar said. “There’s to be no trickery, no funny business, understand?”

“I understand that it excites you to shame your own kins-folk in front of strangers,” I said, seething.

“You’ve brought it on yourselves.” Cezar’s tone was dismissive. “Go on, then. Take Ioan here up to the bedchamber and get on with things. Where’s that frog, by the way? I haven’t seen it at all lately. I must say I very much prefer taking supper without the wretched creature dripping all over the table and slurping its soup.”

“I let him go,” I said through gritted teeth. “This way, Ioan.”

There was indeed a new lock, on the outside. One of the men must have installed it while we were at supper. When all of us were in the bedchamber, including Marta, who had toiled up the stairs after us, Cezar closed the door and we heard him slide the bolt across. The inside bolt had not been removed. I fastened that as well. Then we all stood about, awkward and silent: we sisters, our chaperone, and the unfortunate man.

“Would you care for a drink?” Tati asked politely.

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Ioan muttered something and took the glass she offered.

“Marta?” Iulia favored our chaperone with her most charming smile. “I’m sure you’d enjoy a small glass?”

“Thank you, Mistress Iulia.” Marta was clearly embarrassed by the whole situation. She accepted her glass and retreated to sit on the very edge of her pallet, ill at ease.

All of us tried hard not to stare at either of them. We were deeply suspicious of the contents of Dr˘agu¸ta’s potion. Tati poured drinks for herself and for me; we perched on the end of our bed, sipping.

“Chilly weather, isn’t it?” observed Paula brightly.

“Brilliant observation, considering it’s winter,” snapped Iulia, on edge with nerves.

“That’s rude, Iulia,” hissed Stela.

There was a sigh from Marta’s corner. When we turned to look, she was collapsing onto her pillow, eyes shut. Iulia retrieved the glass before it could fall from her limp fingers, and Paula tucked the blankets over her. Ioan swayed, staggered, then lay down on the floor, snoring faintly. After a moment, I picked up my pillow and put it under his head. It wasn’t really his fault that he’d been so desperate for a few coppers that he’d been willing to risk the reputations of five wellborn young ladies.

“So far, so good,” I said shakily. “We just have to hope it will last until we get back. Dr˘agu¸ta’s unreliable—she might try anything. Get changed quickly.”

Tati put on the gossamer dress. White silk on white skin: she looked like a sacrificial victim. The crimson teardrop around her neck, on its black cord, was her only note of color.

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She seemed all bones and hollows, a shadow of herself. Looking at her, I felt a chill deep inside me.

“Jena.” Iulia’s voice broke into my reverie. “Are you planning to get dressed, or come in your working boots and apron?”

Quickly, I put on my green gown and pulled my hair back in a ribbon.

“Come on!” Tati was already crouched at the portal.

“Hurry up!”

It felt very strange indeed. I could hardly believe this might be the last time we would gather here, a semicircle of pale faces by candlelight, a pattern of shadows on the wall, conjuring the magical, long-ago day when we had first discovered our wondrous secret.

Tati looked at me; I looked back. Her eyes were full of anxiety, but there was a brightness there all the same: the gleam of love and of hope. She had not quite lost that, not while Sorrow might be no farther away than a single doorway and a walk through the forest. I shivered. It seemed to me there was nothing ahead for them but heartbreak and loss.

The portal opened.

“It’s the last time.” Stela’s chin was quivering. “The really, really last time.”

“Maybe not,” said Paula briskly. “Anything’s possible, Stela. Come on, take my hand.” They vanished down the spiral ahead of us, and we followed. I was the last out; I looked back over my shoulder as I went. Both Marta and Ioan lay where they had fallen, motionless.

We reached the bottom of the steps and headed along the Gallery of Beasts. The gargoyles were hanging down from their 307

vantage points, staring at us with their big, vacant eyes. None made a move to join us. Tati had gone ahead, but there was no call to the boats. As we approached the shore, I heard her urgent undertone. “Jena!”

Someone was there before us. A young man stood by the water’s edge, and my heart stopped as I saw him. Pale skin, dark, tangled hair, steadfast green eyes . . . I could move neither forward nor back—my feet refused to budge. What was he doing here? This was Full Moon, Ileana’s night: the night of lights and music, of friendship and good things. It was our chance to make things right again, if the queen of the forest would help us. If anyone did not belong here, it was him—the creature from the mirror, fair mask over foul reality. And yet I longed to go over to him, to touch him, to ask him if he was all right.

“Jena,” whispered Paula, “who is it? What do we do?”

“It’s him: Gogu,” I said grimly. I walked on, ignoring my sisters’ gasps of shock and murmurings of curiosity. “You mustn’t go anywhere near him—it’s dangerous. Don’t speak to him.

And don’t let him in your boat, if he tries to get a lift.”

We advanced to the shore. “Ooo-oo!” called Tati, glancing nervously at the young man. “Ooo-oo!”

Not so long ago I had wished Ileana would banish the Night People for good, and Sorrow with them. I had hoped fer-vently that my sister would never see her black-coated sweetheart again: it had seemed to me that even if he truly loved her, he could bring her only grief. Now, as I watched the little boats come one by one through the cracking ice of the Deadwash, part of me was willing Sorrow to be there, just to keep 308

the spark of hope in Tati’s eyes alive. One, two, three boats came. The first was poled by a dwarf—not Anatolie, but one of his many cousins or brothers—and a cold hand clutched at my heart. Paula, Iulia, and Stela were swept away across the water. The boatmen glanced at Gogu as they came in to shore, and their faces showed nothing but mild curiosity. None seemed afraid.

“He has to be here,” Tati muttered. “He must be, he must be. . . .” She had her arms wrapped around herself: the ice might be melting and the winter starting to lose its grip, but this shore was no place for fine silk gowns. She looked at Gogu again. “Aren’t you going to say anything to him?” she whispered.

“What is there to say? He’s a monster—a thing from the darkness.” I peered over the water, wondering whether I could see a light through the curtains of mist. I willed myself not to meet the gaze that I knew was fixed on me from a little way along the shore. He’d made no attempt to go with any of the others, though the ferrymen had looked amenable enough.

With luck, we could leave him behind us.

“They’re coming!” Tati exclaimed, peering across the ice-strewn water into the vaporous cloud. A moment later her shoulders slumped, for the two craft that emerged were poled by the massive troll, Sten, and tall, dark-locked Grigori. Sorrow had not come.

Tati went with Sten. I could see her questioning him as they crossed the lake. I went with Grigori. As our boat moved away from the shore, I caught Gogu’s eye. His face was white, his mouth twisted in what looked like self-mockery. Don’t think about him, I ordered myself. You have a mission to perform tonight, 309

so do it. But I thought about him all the way across the Bright Between. He wouldn’t go out of my mind.

I asked Grigori whether he would take the letter. “I’m desperate. There’s nobody else I can trust.”

“I’ll take it, Jena. This Gabriel—can he be trusted?”

“He may look at you twice, but I know he has Father’s best interests at heart. He’s not the kind of man to make a fuss about things. All the same, be careful. I’ve made too many mistakes this winter and hurt too many people. I don’t want to put you at risk, Grigori.”

He smiled widely. “So my great-aunt finally turned the frog back into his old form,” he said.

I was taken aback. “You know about that? Does everyone know?”

Grigori nodded. “Dr˘agu¸ta made no secret of what she had done. All of us knew when the spell was cast, and when it was broken.”

“You knew what Gogu really was, all the time?” I was shocked. “Why didn’t anyone tell us? And what do you mean, his old form? What was he before, man or monster?”

“There’s a right time for such answers to be made known, Jena, and it’s not up to me to determine it. Dr˘agu¸ta’s rules bind us all. We were forbidden to tell.”

“There was no right time for what she did to us,” I said.

“To Gogu and me. It was unforgivable.”

“My great-aunt enjoys setting tests and playing tricks.

There’s a reason for every one of them. It pays to listen carefully to her words.”

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“Tell me about Anatolie.” I forced the words out, wanting the truth before we reached Dancing Glade.

Grigori bowed his head. “We lost him,” he said simply.

“Some cruelties are beyond the endurance of the most stalwart.

We will remember his laughter, his heroic strength, his nimble feet. No need to speak, Jena. I understand that this wounds you as it does every being in the Other Kingdom. Here we are,” he added as the little boat grazed the far shore. He laid the pole in the craft and stepped out, extending a hand to help me. “There is a right time, Jena. You simply need to be open to it. Anatolie would want you to be happy.”

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Chapter Thirteen

I knew I would not have the heart to dance, even though this could be our last visit to the Other Kingdom. The confirmation of Anatolie’s death weighed heavily on me. I could not escape the feeling that I could somehow have stopped Cezar if I had been just a little stronger, just a little braver. I was on edge, waiting until Ileana was ready to hold her audience so I could tell her what I needed to. Tati was in a worse state than I was.

There was no sign at all of Sorrow, or of the other Night People. My sister was circling the sward, speaking to one person after another. As she came past me, I heard her asking where he was, where they were, and everyone giving the same answer: Ask Ileana. But Ileana and Marin had not yet appeared. I wondered how I would get Tati home if she refused to come.

The young man who was Gogu had managed, somehow, to get across the Deadwash. He was not dancing, either. As I refused one invitation after another, I stole glances at him and 312

wondered why he had come here. If Tadeusz and the pale Anastasia had not put in an appearance, along with their somber retinue, why was this one creature from Dark of the Moon among us? And why did none of the patrons of Ileana’s glade seem afraid of him? When I tried to warn people, they simply laughed.

My younger sisters had not been able to resist the lure of the music; even Paula was out on the sward, dancing. My feet were itching to be out there in the midst of it. The lilt of the bone flute, the throb of the drum, the thrum of the harp, stirred my blood. My mind showed me, cruelly, the dream in which I circled and swayed in the arms of the green-eyed man and felt a happiness akin to nothing else in the world. I couldn’t do it. I was too full of sadness and guilt and fear.

Sten loomed by my side, huge and craggy. “One dance,” he said. “Come on.”

“I can’t. I’m waiting for Ileana.”

“The queen’s audience won’t be until later.”

“I’m worried about Tati. I need to keep an eye on her.”

“Come on, Jena,” the troll said. “I want to see you smile.”

“I shouldn’t—”

“Yes, you should. Come on! Iulia and Grigori are waving us over.”

“I—”

The troll seized my arm in a friendly grip. In a trice we were out in the double circle of merrymakers, facing Grigori and Iulia for a dance called Haymaking. The band struck up the tune, and I had no choice but to join in. It was a dance in which 313

the circles moved in opposite directions, so everyone changed partners after sixteen measures. In the Other Kingdom this was an interesting experience, since some dancers were only as tall as one’s knees, some had a tendency to use their wings to accentuate their moves, and some were so big that a girl my size had to crane her neck to make conversation. For a little, I half forgot my troubles in the constant effort to keep up and remain on my feet. The pace was frenetic.

I danced with Grigori and with the dwarf ferryman. I danced with the tiny Ildephonsus and with a mountain goblin who complimented me on my light feet. Then everyone moved on again, and the man standing opposite me was Gogu.

A chill ran through me. I whispered, “I can’t—” but there was no extricating myself from the circle of folk moving in intricate pattern to the quick beat. With a crooked smile, the green-eyed man took my hand in his and led me around in a figure-of-eight. His touch alarmed me: it felt every bit as tender, as thrilling, as it had the day he’d first become a man again and I’d had to leave him. It seemed to hold out the promise of a joy beyond measuring. He made no attempt to converse with me, simply looked. In his eyes I could see confusion and reproach and a forlorn sadness that made me want to draw him out of the circle, to sit down and sort things out sensibly once and for all, to get to the truth. . . . But I could not find any words.

The circle moved on, and he was gone.

A forest man in a garment of salamander skins took my hand and led me into the next maneuver. At the far side of the sward, I spotted Gogu again, moving out of the crowd to stand alone 314

under the trees. Somewhere in the throng there was a person without a partner.

When Haymaking drew to a close there was a fanfare, and the throng parted to allow Ileana her grand entry. She wore a cloak of peacock feathers and, under it, a gown that sparkled with silver. I wished she would go straight to her willow-wood throne, ready to receive folk with requests or praise or complaints. Instead, she went from one dance to the next, her tall headdress bobbing like a bright banner above the sea of revelers. I sat on the sidelines, watching Gogu, with a mass of conflicting feelings chasing one another around my heart. I had such a longing to get up and dance with him again that I had tears in my eyes.

“Trying to fill a lake with your tears?” A little voice spoke up right beside me, making me start. I looked down. There was Dr˘agu¸ta, in a long cloak of tattered green and a hat of leaves, under which her white hair shone like moonbeams. Around her neck she wore an ornament of tiny bones threaded on a cord.

“I got it wrong, didn’t I?” I said, wiping my nose. “I messed it up.”

The witch grinned. In the undergrowth not far away, a pure white snake raised its head to stare at me: I had no doubt that it was her creature in another form, for its eyes were just the same. “Mess and mend,” Dr˘agu¸ta said. “Lose and find.

Change and change again. The solution was right at your fingertips, and you never saw it, Jena. Now it’s moving farther away every day. Best wake up soon, or it’ll be beyond your reach.”

315

“What solution? What do you mean?”

“Sometimes you have to let go. Sometimes you should hold on with all the strength you’ve got. And you have a lot of strength, Jena—too much for your own good, sometimes.” She clicked her fingers; the snake wriggled toward her, hissing.

She stooped and it flowed up her arm to settle around her shoulders like an exotic garment. Then she marched off into the forest without another word, and the shadows swallowed the two of them.

At that moment a horn sounded from down by Ileana’s little pavilion. At last it was time for the royal audience. As I made my way across the sward, I found that I had a companion. The green-eyed man was walking beside me, a discreet distance away, not saying a word.

“What do you want?” I snapped, fighting an urge to move closer.

He remained silent; the look he gave me was gravely assessing. We advanced side by side. Although he kept a decorous arm’s length away, my whole body felt his presence as if we were touching—as if we were walking arm in arm, like sweethearts. My face was hot; I knew I was blushing. I kept my eyes straight ahead. I had to keep my sisters safe. I could not afford to weaken.

Ileana was seated on her throne, the long train of her gown arranged artistically around her feet. Marin stood beside her, the lanterns turning his hair to brilliant gold. He needed no crown to show his royal status. Standing on tiptoe and craning my neck over a mass of shoulders, I caught a glimpse of Tati in her gossamer gown, white arms stretched out in supplication.

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“. . . and nobody will tell me where he is,” she was saying.

“I must know! I have to find him!”

“Ah, true love,” said Ileana with a little knowing smile, and a ripple of laughter went around the gathered crowd. I tried to get through to the front, but the throng was too tightly packed, and I stumbled. Almost before I could draw breath, Gogu’s hand was there at my elbow, steadying me. A moment later he was alongside me, clearing a way for us to go through. Folk took one look at him and simply moved aside.

“Thanks,” I muttered ungraciously. We halted at the front, he behind me.

“Please help us, Your Majesty.” Tati’s voice was trembling.

“Tell me where Sorrow went, so I can look for him. He’s all alone. He needs me.”

“Child,” Ileana said, “do you recognize the gravity of what you intend to do? Do you know what a human woman must sacrifice to wed one of our kind? You are young. You will have suitors aplenty in your own world. Give this up. Sorrow is gone. If he did not keep faith with you, why should you do any more for him?”

Tati clenched her fists. “You’re lying,” she told the queen.

A ripple of shock ran around the circle. “I know Sorrow wouldn’t turn his back on me. If he’s not here, there must be another explanation. Anyway, we think maybe he’s not one of your kind.

Jena saw a vision: it looked as if he and his sister were human children captured by the Night People. That means he’s the same kind as me. You can’t forbid us to be together—”

“May I speak?” I interrupted. I had seen the look in Ileana’s eyes. I knew I must stop Tati before she angered the queen 317

beyond helping us. I had never witnessed one of Ileana’s rages, but the folk of the Other Kingdom spoke of them with awe.

Her screams had been known to crack ice and make birds fall from the trees. “Your Majesty, perhaps you know that my sister and I crossed over at Dark of the Moon last month. It was not a very wise thing to do, but Tatiana was concerned about Sorrow’s safety.”

“And you had your own reasons, no doubt, Jenica.” Ileana’s pale blue eyes bored into me, seeking out my most carefully guarded thoughts.

“I wanted information,” I said cautiously. “I’d been invited to look in Dr˘agu¸ta’s magic mirror.” I heard a gasp from the assembled folk; this meant something to them. “I thought if I could see the future I might be able to change things, Your Majesty. That was foolish—I know that now.”

“What did you see in this mirror? Enlighten us, Jenica.”

Ileana’s tone was quite chilly.

“What Tatiana told you. Sorrow and a little girl as children, and the leader of the Night People offering them shelter when they were lost. I saw that same girl at the Dark of the Moon gathering. It alarmed me that such a young person should be exposed to the evil things I saw there. It is hard to believe that world exists alongside yours, Your Majesty. Until we crossed over, we had no idea of it.”

“And what else did this magic mirror show you?”

“I . . .”

“Come on. You went there—you let temptation rule you.

Tell the truth!” Suddenly she was on her feet: tall, fell, and terrible. The glade seemed to darken.

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“I saw this young man, the one who is standing behind me.

As I watched, this mask of—of ordinariness—slipped off, and there was a terrible creature underneath. A creature that belonged there, in Tadeusz’s dark world. He . . . I saw him do some cruel things, Your Majesty. Things that turned my blood cold.”

I could not look at Gogu.

“You are telling us that the creature you have carried close to you all these years—the little frog who enjoyed our midnight frolics and journeyed among us held safely on your shoulder—is a monster beneath the surface?”

Misery shrank my voice to a whisper. Without looking, I could sense Gogu’s utter stillness. We had not been so close all those years for nothing. “That’s the way it seems. When Dr˘agu¸ta turned him back into a man, that’s the man he was. I think it was all some kind of cruel joke.” I pulled myself together. “But I’m not here to ask about that, Your Majesty. Tati and I are deeply concerned about Sorrow and his sister. I understand that even if they are human folk, they have been in the Other Kingdom too long now to come back to our world. I saw Sorrow jump off a high parapet at Piscul Dracului. No human man could do that and survive. I understand that perhaps, after so many years, they have become something very like the Night People. But, Your Majesty, if you could find a place for them in your own realm, safe from those who hold them in thrall, that would be much better than leaving them where they are. That little girl is almost a woman: I don’t like to think what might become of her. . . .”

“Ah,” said Ileana. “You are able to see somewhat more broadly than I gave you credit for, Jenica. Good. You realize, of course, that nothing comes without a cost.”

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“So folk keep telling me.”

“You may have to give up something precious, Jena. Something very dear to your heart.”

I was five years old again, and offering my crown. I want to be Queen of the Fairies.

“Can it be done, Your Majesty?” Tati breathed. “Can you bring them here?”

“Sorrow’s gone,” said Ileana flatly. “You weren’t listening, Tatiana.”

“Nor were you!” Tati’s voice was rising. “I told you, he loves me! He’ll come back for me—I know he will!”

“Love, hope, trust,” Marin said lightly. “These are strong in you, Tatiana: so strong, your belief in them seems almost foolish. Are they so important?”

Tati squared her frail shoulders and lifted her chin.

“They’re everything,” she said, and her voice rang out around Dancing Glade like a clear bell. “That’s what life is all about—

love and loyalty, truth and trust. I’m not giving that up. And I’m not giving Sorrow up. Tell me where he is. Tell me what I have to do to find him.”

Behind me, Gogu shifted. I glanced up. He had a funny look in his eyes, and his fingers were by my shoulder, close to the place where he was once accustomed to sit under the shelter of my hair. I edged away, alarmed by how badly I wanted him to touch me. His hand fell back to his side, and his face went blank.

“Well spoken, Tatiana,” Ileana said, a little smile curving her lips. “You have passed the first part of your test. The second 320

requires that you maintain hope for somewhat longer, for Sorrow is indeed gone—gone far away. As it happens, we have made an arrangement with the Night People. We were very displeased that they did not keep their bloody activities outside this valley. We have watched over your small community since time before time. We do not indulge in senseless acts of violence; wanton bloodletting sickens us, whether it be of human folk or creatures. In Tadeusz’s world it is different. His exists alongside mine—indeed, within the Other Kingdom are many worlds. At Full Moon dancing, you sisters have seen but the merest sliver of our realm. You were young when we first admitted you here, young and vulnerable. We showed you what was appropriate. When you chose to visit Tadeusz’s world, you entered a far different place. In your world and in ours, darkness and light exist side by side.”

She turned and beckoned, and one of her attendants—a tall woman clad in dry beech leaves, with wisps of fern tangled into her hair—came forward, with a pale-faced girl by her side.

The girl was all in black. She looked much as she had when last I saw her—dazed, unseeing—but there was more color in her face now, as if a long frost was starting to thaw.

“We bargained for Silence here,” Ileana said. “I share your concerns, Jenica. She is with us until her brother can achieve the quest we have set him. Much rides on it. Sorrow has three prizes to win, should he fulfill his task in time.”

Tati stood silent, waiting for more. I could see her trembling.

“He has until midnight at next Full Moon to execute it and 321

return. Fail, and he must leave our forest forever. If he prevails and returns in time, he will win his sister’s release to my realm and my rule. The Night People will move away from our valley.

And we will give Sorrow permission to bring you across, Tatiana, and to dwell with you among us as man and wife.”

“Oh . . . oh, thank you,” said Tati, clasping her thin hands together. “Thank you . . .”

My heart was hammering. I had wanted Tati to get her answers, but not this. This just could not be. “My lady,” I blurted out. “Your Majesty . . . this is not right. Don’t you realize what it would mean, if my sister wed Sorrow? She’d have to leave our world forever. Our father is very sick, perhaps dying. This could be the final blow for him—” I saw Tati’s eyes fill with tears. Ileana’s regal features became glacial, but I didn’t seem to be able to stop myself. “You can’t allow this! There has to be another way!”

“Of course, Sorrow may not succeed in the quest,” Ileana said crisply. I wilted under her stare. “We made it difficult, in recognition of the value of the reward. If he never returns, or does so without fulfilling our requirements, you can keep your sister. For you are right: Sorrow and Silence have been here too long to go back to the human world. Each has developed qualities that would lead to great trouble if they tried to return.

Neither could last long.”

What could I say? That I would rather my sister not marry the man she loved, even if it meant she would be unhappy all her life? When I looked at it that way, it did not seem to matter what Sorrow was or what he might have become. How 322

could I wish his quest to fail, if that meant he and the fragile-looking Silence must return to the dark world of the Night People? But if he succeeded, Tati would say goodbye to her family and home forever. We might never see her again. Torn two ways, I held my silence.

“What is the nature of this quest, Your Majesty?” Tati’s voice was trembling.

It was Marin who answered. “He must journey within both your world and ours. Five items are to be brought back. A jewel from the ceremonial headdress of the Caliph of Tunis. A tail feather from the sacred phoenix of Murom-Riazan. A cup of water from the healing well of Ain Jalut, filled to the very brim, but not overflowing.”

“A tooth from the loathsome bog-beast of Zaradok,” added Ileana. “And a lock of hair from the head of a truthful man.”

“In one turning of the moon?” The incredulous voice was that of Paula, whose knowledge of geography was extensive.

“You can’t be serious! There’s no way a person could travel so far in so little time.”

“You’ve set Sorrow up to fail,” said Tati in a whisper. “You never meant him to—”

“Enough!” Ileana’s voice was imperious. “Perhaps you do not comprehend how rarely such an opportunity is offered—

how privileged the two of you are, to be granted our approval for your union. If Sorrow’s will to succeed is strong enough, he will complete the quest. If not, he does not deserve our favor.

Step back, Tatiana. Your audience is over. Jenica, you spoke out of turn. Leave us now.”

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I cleared my throat. “I have something else to say,” I croaked, trembling with nerves.

“Be brief.” The forest queen had risen to her feet. She towered over me, eyes baleful. “You have offended me.”

“I—it is possible I and my sisters may not return here after tonight,” I said. “Our cousin . . . He has a plan to get the secret of the portal from us. He intends to come through and use violence against you. We need to protect you: we owe you that, and much more. I think this may be our last visit. Even so, I can’t be sure we will be able to stop him—but we’ll do our best.”

Around Dancing Glade there was total silence.

“So . . . I want to say thank you. We have been so happy here, so honored. I know few human folk are granted the privilege of crossing over as we were, and the joy of meeting so many wonderful friends—” Across the circle, Ildephonsus broke into noisy sobs and flung his short arms around Stela’s neck. Sten was wiping his eyes on a crumpled gray rag. “There is no way we can thank you enough.” I was struggling now, my own tears welling.

“Of course,” Ileana observed, “there is a way to thank us.

Should Sorrow achieve his quest, you can agree to let your sister come across to us—to become one of us. That would balance the ledger perfectly. Or don’t you set such a high value on your lovely Tatiana?”

“You know I do,” I said, blinded by tears. “I understand what you said, that everything has a price. But that’s too much to ask. Tati’s my sister. I love her. It’s too final.”

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“Death is final,” the forest queen said. “The felling of trees is final. What we ask of you is simply the recognition of change, Jena. Yours is a world of constant change. You must learn to change, too. You spend a great deal of time worrying about others: trying to put their lives right, trying to shape your world as you believe it should be. You must learn to trust your instincts, or you are doomed to spend your life blinded by duty while beside you a wondrous tree sprouts and springs up and buds and blooms, and your heart takes no comfort from it, for you cannot raise your eyes to see it.”

Gogu made a sudden movement, as if in anger.

Ileana regarded him gravely. “I’m growing weary of this audience,” she said. “Young man, have you something to say?”

He stepped forward, bowed courteously, then lifted his hands and indicated his mouth and throat. Then he spread his arms wide, palms up, as if asking a question.

“You’ve lost something?” Ileana queried. A new warmth had entered her tone.

The young man nodded, pointing to his throat again.

“Ah,” said Ileana. “Dr˘agu¸ta’s been up to her tricks again.

Not content with tormenting the young lady, she’s decided to play games with you as well, frog boy. You want your voice back?”

So that was it: not that he would not speak, but that he could not. A spell of silence. I had been less than fair to him.

Ileana sighed. “The witch of the wood is overfond of such charms,” she said, snapping her fingers. One of her attendants came forward with a wand of plain willow, with a small star 325

at the end—the kind of thing I would have loved as a child when I was playing at fairies. “You’ve been a model of control over the years, young man—so much of one that even your best friend failed to see what you really were. Kneel down!”

He obeyed. The cloak he wore, my cloak, brushed the ground before Ileana’s throne. Anticipating magic, the crowd hushed again. The forest queen stretched out her arms, and the sweep of her vivid peacock garment caught the lights of Dancing Glade. “Speak again, young man,” she said quietly. “You have been silent long enough.” She touched Gogu gently on his bowed head with the tip of her wand.

There was no sudden flash of light, no explosion, no flying through the air. The young man said, “Thank you,” and got to his feet. He turned toward me, his eyes blazing. “Jena,” he said,

“don’t you know me?”

I stared at him. In my head, the mask of sweetness peeled back and I saw the monstrous reality beneath it. Don’t trust, don’t trust, don’t trust, a little voice repeated inside me. Don’t put your sisters at risk.

“Jena, I’m Costi. Your cousin. You must recognize me.”

“What—!” That was Paula.

“But Costi’s dead.” That was Stela.

“I’m not listening to this,” I said shakily. How dare he!

How dare he come up with something so outrageous and offensive? “You can’t be Costi—he drowned. Cezar saw it with his own eyes. You’re just saying that to . . . You’re just—” I could not look at him: I could not bear the look on his face, wounded, disbelieving.

“I’m not dead! I’m here. I am Costi—can’t you see? I’ve been 326

with you all along, since the day you found me in the forest.

Waiting—waiting until she lifted the spell, and I could be myself again, and tell you.”

“A spell of silence,” Iulia breathed. “Like Sorrow—a ban on talking about who he was and what had happened to him. But Jena’s right. Cezar saw what happened. So did she. They saw Costi dragged under the water. He couldn’t have survived.”

Despite her words, there was a note of wonder in her voice, as if she would be all too easily convinced.

“The audience is concluded,” Ileana said. “Young man, I wish you well. Strike up the music! The queen wants to dance!”

But for us, there was no more dancing. As the queen and her retinue headed back onto the sward, Tati crumpled to her knees. “Jena . . . ,” she whispered, “my head hurts. . . . I don’t feel very well. . . .” A moment later she fell to the ground in a dead faint.

“She’s hardly eaten a thing since the last time she saw Sorrow,” Paula said, crouching down to feel for Tati’s pulse. “And she’s overwrought. We should go home, Jena.”

“What’s wrong with her?” Stela was crying, half in sympathy with Tati, half in sadness and exhaustion. Ildephonsus clung to her, his gauzy wings enfolding her in a kind of cape.

“She’s fainted, that’s all,” I told her, not wanting to make things any harder. “Paula’s right. We need to go now.”

“I have to say goodbye,” Stela sniffed. “I’ll be quick, I promise.”

“We’ll meet you down at the boats,” said Iulia.

“Wait—” The two of them were already gone.

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“Jena,” said Paula, “we need to get her down to the lake.”

“I’ll take her,” the young man said. “She’s very cold. Is there a spare cloak?”

“No—!” I began, not wanting him to put his hands anywhere near my sister, but he ignored me, picking Tati up as easily as if she were a doll. Paula and I followed him around the margin of Dancing Glade and down the path to the Deadwash.

None of us said a word. I was full of mixed-up feelings, upper-most being a sense of betrayal: how dare Dr˘agu¸ta meddle so cruelly? How dare this thing in a man’s guise play with my heart and disturb my mind? Of course he couldn’t be Costi. I’d have known! I’d have known, even when he was a frog. Wouldn’t I?

By the time we reached the boats, a silent crowd was following us: red-eyed Stela, somber-faced Iulia, and all our usual escorts and hangers-on. There wasn’t a smile among them.

Grigori took Tati from Gogu and laid her in his boat. She was beginning to stir, putting a hand to her brow and murmuring something. Then Dr˘agu¸ta’s great-nephew extended his hand to me. “You, as well,” he said.

Sten took Iulia, and the dwarf was boatman to Stela. Ildephonsus, refusing to accept her departure until the last possible moment, clambered into the small craft to sit by her, sobbing.

A hooded soothsayer ferried Paula, who was now carrying a mysterious bundle. On the shore behind us, the young man with the green eyes stood quietly, watching. He did not ask for a lift, and nobody offered one.

“Goodbye!” my sisters called. “Goodbye! Thank you!” But I had no heart for farewells; all I could feel was a numb disbelief.

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The folk of the Other Kingdom waved and shouted and sang, and one or two flew over us, blowing kisses and causing the dwarf to curse as he nearly lost his pole. Then the mist came down to cover us. Behind us, the Other Kingdom shrank . . .

and faded . . . and vanished.

“All will be well, Jena,” Grigori said quietly. But it couldn’t be. A terrible sense of wrongness was coming over me: the feeling that I had just thrown away my dearest treasure and that I would never, ever get it back.

I reached out to take Tati’s hand. She seemed fragile as a moonflower—destined to bloom for a single lovely night, and then to fade and fall. A whole month until next Full Moon: it was a long time for her to wait. And yet, for me, it was short.

Only a month, and my sister might be gone forever. How could I let that happen?

On the far shore, Ildephonsus refused to be detached from Stela. Both were in floods of tears. Paula disembarked, bundle in hand, and bade her boatman a grave farewell. She moved to Stela’s side.

“Stela,” she said with remarkable composure, “I’ve been given some books and maps and other things, see? Even if we can’t use our portal anymore, there must be other ways we can find. There are clues in here. We just have to work them out.

You can help me. I don’t believe it’s farewell forever.”

Stela dashed the tears from her cheeks, took a deep, unsteady breath, and stepped away from her friend. “Goodbye, Ildephonsus,” she said, hiccuping. Her expression told me she had suddenly grown up rather more than she wanted to. “We’ll 329

come back sometime. Paula knows these things.” She kissed him on his long pink snout. Ildephonsus wrung his paws and began a high, eldritch wailing. The dwarf bundled him back in the boat and, with a shout of farewell, bore him away.

Sten lifted Iulia out onto the shore. “Of course,” he said, “we can come across if we’re careful, so it’s not really goodbye forever. But we’ll sorely miss you at Full Moon. You make lovely partners.” He planted a smacking kiss on my sister’s cheek.

“Don’t go marrying a heavy-footed man now, will you?”

“I’ll see you soon, Jena,” said Grigori. He had brought Tati to land. She was conscious again, though shaky—between us, Iulia and I supported her. “I’ll be back with your father’s answer as quick as I can.”

“Be careful. Cezar’s hunting parties are still going out from time to time.”

“I will. Farewell, then.”

“Farewell, Grigori. Thank you for everything.”

“My advice to you,” he said with a grin, “is to seek out my great-aunt before you go home. I don’t think you’ve asked her all the questions you might.” He stepped back into the boat and dug in the pole. Within a count of three, the vessel had disappeared through the shrouds of mist, and we were alone on the shore. Or not quite alone, for another boat was approaching through the vapor—a flat little craft that bobbed on the surface, the ice shards jingling around it. On it stood a familiar figure: thin arms wielding the pole, green eyes set on the shore ahead, hair tumbling wildly over his brow. His jaw was set tight; he looked every bit as angry and upset as Cezar on one of 330

his worst days. As we watched, he maneuvered his craft to the shore and stepped off it. A raft. A raft made of weathered timbers, bound together with twists of flax and fragments of fraying rope.

“I’m sorry,” Iulia said, staring. “We should have offered you a lift in one of our boats.”

“As you see,” said the young man, “I have my own.”

“You—” I managed. “You—” But my tongue would not deliver the words. I’d been foolish before, letting myself be taken in by Tadeusz and his coaxing. I’d been so foolish that I’d nearly let him take Tati while my attention was all on my own concerns. I would not give way to such foolishness now.

“That could have been here all the time,” I said. “Anyone could have found it and used it. You’re lying. You’re not Costi. You can’t be.”

He looked as if I’d just smacked him in the face. The green eyes went bleak. The thin lips were not humorous now, but set in a tight line. “If you can’t trust, you can’t trust,” he said.

“Goodbye. I’m going home now.” Without another word, he turned on his heel and walked away along the lakeshore.

The five of us stood in silence, watching him, until he vanished into the darkness of the wildwood. He still had my cloak on.

“We need to get Tati home, Jena,” said Paula. “It’s cold out here.”

“You can’t just let him go like that,” objected Iulia. “He was upset. He was really sad. Jena, he does look quite a lot like Cezar. And even more like that old picture of Uncle Nicolae, 331

the one Aunt Bogdana has hanging in her hallway. Are you sure—?”

“Run after him, Jena.” Stela was shivering with cold.

“Run after him? In the forest at night? I don’t think so.” My feet were on the verge of doing just that. How could I let him walk off with that expression on his face?

“Go on, Jena.” Tati’s voice was a thread. “We’ll wait for you at the top of the steps. He can’t have gone far.”

I ran. I did not allow myself to think of Night People, or of wolves, or of any other dangers that might be lurking in the darkness. I ran along the shore of T˘aul Ielelor, and as I went I spotted something shining in the undergrowth—a little crown of wire and beads, ribbon and braid. Following my instincts, I grabbed it as I passed. “Gogu!” I shouted. “Wait for me!” But there was no response, save the hooting of an owl and the patter of a small creature in the bushes.

At the spot where the track branched away from the water I halted, my chest heaving in the chill air. I would not attempt the walk through the woods, the long way home to Piscul Dracului. The others were waiting; without me, they could not open the portal. How had he managed to vanish so quickly?

Perhaps he had slipped away to Tadeusz’s world—perhaps, if I tried too hard to follow, I, too, would find myself in that dark realm. “Gogu?” I said, my voice shrunk to a little, fearful thing in the immensity of the shadowy forest.

“Gone,” someone said from down below. “Gone for good.

Foolish girl. Why didn’t you listen?”

I looked down. She was there, green cloak wound around her small body, broad hat partly concealing the gooseberry eyes 332

and the wrinkled, canny old features. Not far away, the white snake twined in a bush, its forked tongue flickering.

“Gone where?” I asked her, my mind searching for the right questions, not to waste the opportunity as I had before.

“Home. Vârful cu Negur˘a. Where else?”

“You’re talking as if he is Costi. But he can’t be. Costi drowned. Cezar and I saw it. One moment he was swimming, the next he was gone.”

“Think, Jena. You’re on the raft. You’ve just given up your treasure and received a gift of great power in return. You’re frightened. The raft floats out on the water, far out, beyond a safe margin. What then? Tell me the story. Think hard.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I was there.” The witch smiled; the moonlight glanced off her little pointed teeth. Nothing comes without a price.

She was right: I really had been stupid. I looked down at the crown in my hands. “A gift of great power,” I said softly.

“What are you saying? I couldn’t be queen of the fairies. That was a child’s wish.”

“You won the nearest thing I could grant you, little brave adventurer that you were: free entry into the Other Kingdom for you and your sisters, for as long as you needed it. Each of you got what she most desired from it: for Paula it was scholarly company, for Stela little friends to love. Iulia’s wishes were simple—to dress up and dance, to enter a world more remarkable and vibrant than your own could ever be. Tati waited a long time for her reward. She is still waiting, but what she most longs for will come soon enough, if Sorrow can win it for her.”

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I could hardly breathe. “And what about me?”

“The satisfaction of pleasing those you loved. The escape; the freedom; the Otherness. And more, if you learned to recognize it. You had to grow and change, Jena. So did your cousins.

I did not act from sheer mischief that day by the lake. For the good of Piscul Dracului, for the wildwood, for the valley, I made a choice. Three choices. Three wishes.”

“I was on the raft.” I grasped for old memories. “It floated out too far. Costi swam after it to save me. He was scared. Nobody swims in the Deadwash, not if they value their life. But he did. He got his hands on the raft; he got me more than halfway back. Then . . .” Then he got into difficulties, and I had to rescue you, Jena. I went back in for Costi, but he had disappeared under the water.

Hands pulled him down—the witch’s hands. I could still hear Cezar telling the story, coaching me, word for word, so I would get it right when we had to tell our parents. It wasn’t my story—it was his.

“Go on, Jena.”

“I was scared. I had my hands over my eyes. I didn’t see anything until I got back to the shore. I know the raft tipped up and I nearly fell in. I opened my eyes when I landed, and it was Cezar pushing the raft, not Costi.”

“And after that? Did you look out across the water? Did you see Costi?”

“No,” I whispered, a terrible feeling creeping over me, the cold knowledge that I had misjudged my best friend in all the world. “I ran off into the bushes and hid. I put my little blanket over my head. When I came out, there was only Cezar. Costi was gone. And Cezar told me what had happened.”

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“And you believed him.”

“I was only five.” It seemed a poor excuse. “Besides, why would you turn Costi into a frog? You said he had to grow and change. How could that help?”

“He got his wish, as you did yours. He gave up what was most precious to him: his badge of family. He was an arrogant boy—impetuous and exuberant—but he did have duty at heart, and love for his parents and his home. There was a lot of good in him, enough to make his future important. I could not allow that arrogance to go unchecked. He wanted to be King of the Lake, and he got his wish. Isn’t a frog the master of the water, free to go wherever he wishes, lord of all he surveys—as long as he keeps a lookout for large fish?”

“But he wasn’t,” I said. “When I found him later, he was weak and sick and frightened. He didn’t know how to be a frog, not properly.”

“Part of his learning, and of yours,” said Dr˘agu¸ta, her beady eyes fixed on me from the shadow of her broad-brimmed hat.

“He learned patience and humility; you learned compassion.

You both learned love. At least, that was the intention. Don’t look at me like that, young lady. I have your best interests at heart.”

I found this very hard to believe. “Then why the magic mirror? Why show me Costi’s face and make it into something hideous that gave me nightmares? Why show him attack-ing my sisters? I thought the mirror showed the future. I thought it offered warnings. All it’s done is make me hurt him terribly.

He’ll never forgive me for this.”

“He will find it difficult to forgive, yes,” Dr˘agu¸ta said. “I 335

saw the anger in his eyes—the sorrow and shock—when I gave him back what he had given up to me, all those years ago. Costi has a difficult time ahead of him. It is unfortunate that he cannot have his heart’s dearest by his side, but this is the path you have chosen, and you must follow it as best you can.”

“You saw him just now? Gave him back his family ring?”

She nodded. “And I have sent Cezar back his own treasure,”

she said. “A surprise—he’ll get it tomorrow. Now that Costi is home, his brother can no longer be King of the Land.”

I stared at her, horrified. “What?” I whispered. “You mean . . . Cezar becoming the eldest son, and later on getting control of the estate, and taking ours as well, and . . . You mean that was all part of granting a wish? That he actually wished he could take Costi’s place?”

“At eight years old, Cezar was not wicked; he was an ordinary little boy who loved his brother dearly. When I asked him what was most precious to him, that was where his eyes fell: on Costi—his hero, his idol. But he did not make his choice in innocence. As he realized what he had been offered, his childhood fell away from him, and he set his feet on a new path. He chose power before love. He could have saved Costi. I offered him that opportunity after he brought you to shore: his brother was still swimming, but was held there by the current, unable to come in. Instead of helping him, Cezar stood and watched his brother go under the waters of T˘aul Ielelor. In that moment, he shaped his future. He has fought that decision over and over as he has grown to be a man. But he could not unmake it. He could not change the fact that when the choice faced him, he took the darker path.”

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“Oh, God.” The strange things Cezar sometimes said began to make a kind of sense: the mutterings about promises that were shams, about gifts that turned to damage those who received them. I understood, at last, his powerful hatred of Dr˘agu¸ta. “That was . . . unspeakably cruel. Without that, he might have grown up to be a good man.”

“The choice was not mine. It was Cezar’s. Every choice he has made, these ten years past, has been his own. Now he has run out of choices. He has lost his chance to rule the valley. He has lost his brother’s love, and yours. His father is gone. His mother has done her best to love him, but her feelings for this son have always lacked the warmth she turned on Costi, her adored eldest.” She turned her head, snapping her fingers to summon the snake to her.

“Please don’t go yet,” I begged. “The mirror—why that image in the mirror?”

“The monster? Not my doing,” Dr˘agu¸ta said dismissively.

“Hers, I imagine: Anastasia’s. All it would have taken was for you to have a moment of doubt, a moment when you mistrusted your instincts. That moment of weakness would have allowed her control of the image. Such creatures as she take delight in tormenting folk, Jena. She wanted to send you nightmares—to make you squirm.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I imagine she was jealous. She didn’t like the way her brother, if brother he can be called, was looking at you. She didn’t take kindly to his partiality to you.”

“Tadeusz was never interested in me. She told me so. She told me very plainly that I was beneath his notice.”

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“Exactly. She told you. He never said anything of the kind, I imagine. And since you are bidding the Other Kingdom farewell tonight, you won’t be getting the opportunity to ask him. Perhaps you are not such a plain, unattractive thing as you imagine, Jena. You might consider why, with two eligible young men on one estate and a family of five girls on the next, both men fell in love with the same sister: not lovely Tati or blossoming Iulia, but flat-chested, bushy-haired, opinionated Jena.”

“In love? Cezar doesn’t know what love is. As for Tadeusz . . .” I faltered. I had allowed the cruel logic of Anastasia’s words to overrule what I sensed: that the leader of the Night People was indeed drawn to me. I remembered Tadeusz telling me that his kind were misunderstood; that superstition had painted them darker than they really were. I wondered if there was any truth in that. I’d never get the chance to find out now. “And if Costi felt any love for me when he was a frog,” I went on, “it will all be gone after what’s happened. How could he love someone who’s shown such a lack of trust? If only he’d had his voice as soon as he changed back. He could have told me who he was and what had happened to him, and none of this misunderstanding need have happened—”

The witch cleared her throat, and I fell silent. “You have a short memory,” Dr˘agu¸ta said. “Trust your instincts, I seem to recall advising you. But did you listen? It would seem not. He was your dearest friend, and in your heart you knew it. You knew it from the moment you saw him sprawled out on the shore—you knew it as he walked through your dreams and every part of 338

you yearned for his touch. But you wouldn’t let yourself trust those feelings, would you? I couldn’t give the boy back his voice straightaway, Jena. That would have made things too easy for both of you. Even now, you need more time to learn what love really means.”

“Time to do what?” My voice came out tear-choked and harsh. “He just walked away. I don’t know how to mend things now.”

“I can’t help you with that,” Dr˘agu¸ta said briskly. “Now are we done here? It’s not my habit to answer so many questions. I hope you don’t have any more; I doubt if I’m up to it.”

I swallowed a further plea for help. I had not forgotten who she was, or what she could do.

“It’s for you to sort out, Jena,” the witch said, her tone not unfriendly. “You are, in fact, highly capable and full of good-will. You can do it.” The white snake slid up her arm to twine around her shoulders. She picked up her staff, which had been lying in the bushes. “Goodbye, Jena,” she said. “Hurry back.

Your sisters are getting cold.”

“Goodbye,” I said as she slipped away, vanishing within moments. “Thank you for giving me the truth.”

There was a diminishing cackle, high-pitched and scornful, then silence.

At the top of the winding stair my sisters were waiting, white-faced and silent. Paula had the lantern that we had left ready at the foot of the stairs when we came down, and Stela was carrying the bundle. Tati was sitting on the ground with her back against the portal, her eyes shut.

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“She says she’s not coming,” said Iulia, who was crouched by Tati with a hand on her shoulder.

“Tati!” I said sharply, kneeling down and touching my sister’s wan cheek. “Tati, wake up! Put your hand on the door—

come on!”

“Not going . . . must wait . . . Sorrow . . . ,” she muttered.

“Tati,” said Paula, “we can’t get home unless you help us.

We’ll all be trapped here in the middle. Come on! Sorrow’s going to be away for a whole month.” I saw in her face the unspoken thought: And probably far longer—that’s if he ever gets back. The quest had seemed formidable to me, and I had never even heard of Ain Jalut or Zaradok.

Tati opened her eyes. “I’m not going,” she whispered. “I’m waiting for him here.”

It sounded like nonsense. But something deep inside me had changed tonight. Now I could understand so well what she was feeling: the longing, the grief, the fragile hope. “Tati,” I said, “if you truly love Sorrow and he loves you, you need to do what Ileana asked you to do: to keep faith until he achieves the quest. Let us go home, and we’ll help you get through the wait until next Full Moon. Remember what you said: love and loyalty, truth and trust? You can trust your family.”

“You really believe that?” she asked me in a wisp of a voice.

“That love will make it right?”

I longed for the certainty that would let me speak as Tati had to Ileana, pleading Sorrow’s case and her own. If only I could believe that love must triumph over all adversity. But my head was full of doubts. “Of course I do,” I said, wishing with all my heart that it was not a lie.

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“Come on, then,” whispered Tati, kneeling and placing her hand on the stones. We set ours beside it so the five of us touched the portal together. It slid open, and we entered our bedchamber. There, both Ioan and Marta lay sleeping, exactly where we had left them. Our last visit to the Other Kingdom was over.

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Chapter Fourteen

We heard the bolt slide open soon after dawn, and Cezar’s voice. “Where’s my man?” he demanded. “What’s he got for me?” He was in the doorway.

We had changed back into our day clothes; our dancing finery was neatly packed away. I had unfastened the inner bolt.

Stela had slept for a little, but the rest of us had been too nervous to rest.

“Ioan’s still asleep,” I said as calmly as I could. “So’s Marta.

It’s very early.”

“Wake him.” Cezar was keyed up, his hands clenched into fists. His tone shocked me. “I need his account now.”

“I’m not your servant, Cezar.” Something had made me strong this morning. Perhaps it was the knowledge of what he had done, all those years ago. “I’m taking my sisters down to breakfast. I won’t be treated as some kind of lackey in my own home.”

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“Wake him!” He lifted his hand and struck me; my cheek burned. I heard my sisters’ horrified gasps behind me.

“You can’t do that!” protested Iulia.

“Excuse me.” My voice was not calm now, but shaking. I walked past Cezar, palm to my face. The others followed me without a word. As we made our way down the stairs, I could hear him shouting at Ioan, “Wake up, man! What’s the matter with you?”

It was a difficult day. Without making any kind of decision, we sisters did not say anything to Florica or Petru, or to Cezar, about Costi’s reappearance, though I had told the others after we came home that I had been terribly wrong. It was true: Gogu and Costi were one and the same. I feared to tell Cezar the truth. I did not know how he would respond, with anger and suspicion or with love and relief that the adored brother whose death he bore on his conscience was, after all, alive and well. I did not know what Costi would do, how he would manage his return. Would people know him? Or would they be like me—wary and doubtful, unable to trust? I should have known him better than anyone; he’d been my constant companion since I was six years old.

My face hurt. In the mirror, I could see a livid bruise flowering across my cheek, the imprint of my cousin’s angry hand. I was sad, guilty, and afraid.

There was a row. I heard Cezar yelling at Ioan; clearly he was throwing him out of the house. Marta made a hasty departure for home, accompanied by one of the guards. Then Cezar strode into the kitchen, where we were sitting in silence 343

over our breakfast, none of us able to eat much. He confronted me, hands on hips, his broad features flushed red with anger.

“You used something, didn’t you? Some kind of potion, something to send them to sleep? Don’t deny it, Jena, I know your tricks! Answer me! What did you do?”

“Leave her alone!” Tati protested, half rising, her hand on the table for support.

“Master Cezar—” began Florica.

“Enough!” His voice was thunderous. “Jena, tell the truth!”

“I have nothing to say to you,” I said, shivering. “Only that if Uncle Nicolae could see you now, he would be bitterly ashamed of you.”

“How dare you—”

“Don’t even think of hitting me again,” I said. “I have nothing to tell you.”

“Then we’ll see whether your sisters do,” Cezar said. “Not now—I have business to attend to across the valley. I’ll be home before supper, and I’ll be speaking to each of you on your own before you go to bed tonight. If you don’t like the sound of that, Jena, you know how to prevent it. You need only tell me the truth.”

The day seemed interminable. Tati went back to bed and lay there, very still; I could not tell whether she was awake or asleep. Iulia helped Florica with some washing. Up in our chamber, Stela fretted, unable to settle down to anything. She flounced around the room, kicking at the furniture and disarranging things on shelves. When she started to fiddle with Gogu’s jug and bowl, I snapped at her.

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“Stop that, Stela!”

Her lower lip trembled.

“Stela?” Paula put aside the book she had been trying to read and went over to her little storage chest. “You remember how you asked me to teach you to play chess? Shall we do it now?”

“Thank you,” I said as Stela began to unpack the chessmen from their bag while Paula unfolded the hinged board that was one of her prized possessions.

“That’s all right,” Paula said. “Jena, what do you think Costi will do? Will he come here?”

“He has to, eventually. He must confront Cezar. I suppose he might need time to prove his identity. Maybe I should have told Cezar what happened. But it sounds so mad: Your brother’s alive—he was a frog all those years.” I had not told my sisters about Cezar’s choice. I had not explained how Dr˘agu¸ta’s gift had turned our cousin’s life gradually to the dark.

“I can’t believe Cezar hit you,” Paula said in a small voice.

“Jena, if he insists on talking to us one by one . . .”

“Don’t worry,” I said with false confidence. “I won’t let that happen.” But my stomach was heavy with dread, and my bruise throbbed as I remembered the look in Cezar’s eyes. It was the look of a man who believes the whole world is against him—of a man who will do anything to change the ill hand he thinks fate has dealt him. And although part of me shrank from seeing Costi again, for the memory of his set face and wounded eyes filled me with guilt, another part of me was wishing, wishing above anything, that he would come.

*

*

*

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Being cooped up indoors was driving me crazy. Toward the end of the afternoon, I seized a moment when there were no guards around and slipped out, bucket in hand, to give the chickens their mash. The light was fading and the shadowy courtyard was deserted, save for a solitary figure standing stock-still, right in the center. It was an old woman dressed in black, with a basket over her arm. The basket was empty. I felt a prickling sensation all over my skin. A moment later I heard a horse’s hooves approaching along the path that skirted the woods.

Cezar was back.

“Go,” I muttered, setting down my bucket and hurrying over to the old woman. “Go quickly!”

The crone made no attempt to move away. She had shed the tiny uncanny form that I was accustomed to, but I had known her instantly. She looked just as she had long ago, when three children had ventured to a forbidden place to play at kings and queens. The old woman grinned at me, and her little pointed teeth confirmed her identity.

“Go!” I urged her again. “Cezar’s coming!” Images of the hunt were in my mind: those men with their iron implements, their tight jaws, and their eyes half angry, half terrified.

“I know,” said Dr˘agu¸ta calmly.

And it was too late. He was there, riding into the courtyard. He dismounted by my side, glaring at the unexpected visitor. “Be off with you!” he said. “If you’re expecting handouts, you’ve come to the wrong place. We’ve nothing for beggars at Piscul Dracului.”

“Not at all, young man,” said the crone, gazing up into his 346

scowling face. “It’s my turn to bestow largesse. I have something for you.”

Cezar opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again as Costi stepped out from the shadows by the hen coop to walk across to us. His dark curls had been cropped short and he was freshly shaven. He wore a plain white shirt, a waistcoat embroidered with ivy twists, and dark green trousers with riding boots. He looked just as wonderful as he had in my dreams. The green eyes were cool and the mobile mouth unsmiling as he came up to me. Over his arm was my cloak.

“I think this is yours,” he said politely, holding the garment out to me.

Cezar froze, staring at him. I took the cloak but said nothing—for the moment, I had no words. I had known that Costi would come back, but not like this, not suddenly, without any warning, and with the witch of the wood beside him.

“Jena,” said Cezar in a strangled whisper, “who are these people? What are they doing here?” His eyes went from Costi to Dr˘agu¸ta and back again; he looked as if he were caught in a terrifying dream.

“I’m your brother, Cezar,” Costi said. His voice was unsteady; I saw in his face that he was half expecting the same rebuff I had given him last night, and dreading it. There was anger there, certainly, but it was not as strong as the love and the desperate hope in his eyes. “Maybe you’ve forgotten me. It’s a long time since that day by T˘aul Ielelor when we gave up our most treasured possessions.”

I found my voice. “It’s true,” I said. “He didn’t die. He was 347

bewitched into another form until he came back to himself not long ago. Dr˘agu¸ta didn’t drown him, she saved him. She made him into a frog. He’s been here all these years, Cezar. He was Gogu.”

“The frog,” Cezar said blankly. “No. No, it can’t be. It’s nonsense. Are you saying . . . Are you telling me—? I don’t believe you. You’re not my brother, you can’t be. Costi died. I saw it.” He was looking at the witch now, and I saw him open his mouth again to call out, to summon the guards and have her seized.

“No—” I began, but Dr˘agu¸ta gave the tiniest shake of her head. I fell silent. In her eyes I saw that the guards would not hear my cousin shout, that nobody would come until her business here was done. It was as if Piscul Dracului and all the woods around it were frozen while the four of us played the game to its conclusion in the quiet courtyard.

“This is your doing, Jena!” Cezar blustered. “You encouraged this—this thing—right onto our doorstep! You harbored that wretched slimy creature, you lied and cheated and used every trick you could think of to stop me from finding out the truth about your escapades. You’ve probably been crossing over into the dark realm whenever it suited you, as if that didn’t set a curse on the whole valley. No wonder evil made its way into our midst. No wonder—”

“Cezar.” Costi’s voice had gone ominously quiet. “How did Jena get that bruise? Did you strike her?”

“A misunderstanding,” Cezar muttered. “Anyway, that’s none of your business. You can’t just walk in here and tell me you’re Costi—it’s ridiculous. Who would believe you? You can’t prove a thing. You don’t have a scrap of evidence.”

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“There’s this,” Costi said, and he drew out a chain he had around his neck. On it hung the silver ring of Vârful cu Negur˘a, the ring given only to each generation’s eldest son.

“You could have found that in the forest—”

“Cezar,” said Costi simply, “you are my brother. You did wrong that day, long ago. But we were all very young, perhaps too young to understand what our choices would mean. It has been a long time of learning. We can mend things now; we can work together to set this right. That is what Father would wish, for he always put the good of the valley first. There’s plenty of work here for both of us. I will gladly share the responsibilities of estate and business and community with you, if you agree to let our cousins and the folk of the wildwood lead their lives without interference. Cezar, it’s never too late to take a different path. Come, take my hand, and let’s start afresh. Will you?”

There was a moment’s charged silence, in which I held my breath, watching Costi’s face. It made my chest ache to see the longing there. Until now, I had not really understood how lonely and terrible those years as a frog must have been. Soft pillows and loving words do not make up for the cruel punishment of being trapped, helpless, in a body that does not allow you to live your life as your true self. I marveled at Costi’s capacity to forgive. I willed Cezar to put out a hand, to stumble through an apology—to begin to be the man his brother believed he could be. But he stood there rooted to the spot, and there was a darkness on his face.

“Think well on this,” Dr˘agu¸ta said. Cezar started; he seemed to have forgotten she was there. “Today I return your 349

gift, for the game is almost finished. This is a second chance, Cezar—the opportunity to choose again. As your brother says, you were young, though not so young as Jena, who made her choice more wisely than you. Each of you gave up a precious treasure. That, you chose out of love. But when the meaning of the game became clearer to you, you sacrificed love for power.

You were caught up in a terrible snare, a net in which you wrapped yourself more tightly as the years passed. Now your brother offers you the chance to untangle it; to step free and move on. He has learned his lesson. Have you learned yours?”

It seemed to me that as the witch of the wood spoke these words, a shadow grew around her. Now she was not a bent old woman, but a towering sorceress—her face pale as ice and her eyes full of a terrible judgment. A wind blew across the courtyard, scattering dead leaves before it.

“Vârful cu Negur˘a is mine,” Cezar said, and I saw Costi flinch as if he’d been struck. “It’s mine. I’ve worked for it and suffered for it. You’ll never prove your identity: nobody will believe such an incredible story. And don’t expect Jena to back you up—she’s in enough trouble already, with her foolish escapades. She knows what will happen if she doesn’t obey me.

Try telling your lies to Judge Rinaldo, and see how far they get you.” His words were defiant, but he was shivering. “And you,” he added, not quite looking at Dr˘agu¸ta, “get off my land, before I call the guards. Try this again and my men will hunt you down, and every last one of your foul demons with you.”

“Oh, I’ll be gone soon enough,” the witch said. “A little of your company goes a long way. Costi, you’d best tell your brother how you spent your day.”

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“I’ve been with Judge Rinaldo and the village elders,” Costi said quietly. “Doing a lot of talking; a lot of explaining. Maybe you’ve forgotten that the judge and our father were educated together; they knew each other as very young men. Apparently I look a lot like Father did back then. He and the elders have accepted my identity, though not without considerable surprise at the tale I had to tell. They asked many questions.”

Cezar was ashen. “You told them?” he whispered. I saw acceptance of the truth in his face at last, and with it a terrible realization of the dark thing he had set on himself. “You told them what I did?”

Costi regarded him levelly. “That my life was your price for a chance to be the eldest son?” he said. “No, Cezar. I would not shame my own brother thus. Besides, I did not want to damage your chance of a better future. I told them the tale of a boy become a frog—of enchantment and promises and the power of the Other Kingdom. They thought it strange and wondrous.

For a little, it will be the talk of the valley. In time it will be forgotten that I was ever anything but a man. The story will become folklore, another strange tale of witches and goblins to tell around the fire at night. Now I think it’s time the two of us went home and discussed this further, for there must be changes. The first will be the removal of these guards you have set all about our cousins’ house. There’s no need for them. Piscul Dracului is safe from the Night People.”

Cezar stared at Costi, at me, at Dr˘agu¸ta. “How can you know that?” he asked.

“There’s much to speak of; this is not the time or place,”

said Costi. “I will say one thing to you before we leave here. If 351

you ever hurt Jena again, I’ll strangle you with my bare hands.

That’s a solemn vow, Brother.”

He made this startling speech without once looking me in the eye. I did not know what I was feeling; my head and heart were full of confusion. He had seemed so cool to me, and now . . .

“I’m not accepting this,” Cezar said, glaring at him. “What about all the work I’ve done: looking after the business, watching over the girls, organizing the hunt for the Night People?

You can’t just walk in and take it all!”

“Watching over the girls?” The last of the warmth had gone from Costi’s voice. “Have you forgotten that I’ve been here all the time? I saw you set guards on them and threaten them. I watched you crush Paula’s aspirations and rob the valley of its good priest. I saw you humiliate Iulia. I saw you put your clumsy paws on Jena and expect her to like it. Being a frog didn’t relieve me of my intelligence or my powers of observation.”

“You piece of pond scum!” hissed Cezar. “You think you can march in here and help yourself to everything! You don’t deserve to be master of Vârful cu Negur˘a: you haven’t done a scrap of work to earn it—you don’t know the first thing about running the business! All you know about is . . .”

“Being a frog?” Costi raised his brows. “Believe me, if there had been any choice in the matter, I would have stayed in human form. In fact, I don’t think I’ll have as much difficulty picking up the reins as you believe. What Jena learned about the business, I learned, too. Her shoulder made an ideal vantage point for reading all those ledgers.”

I was watching Cezar’s face—pale as parchment and dis-352

torted with outrage. Before my horrified gaze, something snapped.

He strode forward to seize his brother by the throat. I screamed.

Costi struggled, long limbs thrashing. His face turned crimson as he fought for air. His eyes bulged. Cezar was backing him toward the high stone wall by the hen coop. Dr˘agu¸ta stood quietly, watching the two of them.

“It’s her fault, that witch’s, she tricked me!” Cezar babbled.

“It was supposed to be mine, all of it, the estate and Jena, too, that was what it meant, King of the Land, but it was a hollow promise! Even with you gone, I could never be more than second best! It’s wrong! Wrong!” With each repetition he shook Costi as if he would smash his head against the stone.

Nobody was coming out: my screams had not brought a single guard. “Stop it!” I yelled. “Let him go!” I grabbed Cezar’s arm in a desperate effort to intervene. The game was not supposed to end with me watching one brother kill the other, right before my eyes—it could not be so. “Stop it, Cezar!”

Cezar knocked me away and I fell, painfully, onto the stones of the courtyard. In the moment’s respite allowed him, Costi performed a sharp upward jab with his knee. Cezar sucked in air—his grip slackened. Quick as a flash, Costi wriggled out of his brother’s hold and retreated, both hands up in front of him, palms out. “Enough,” he wheezed. “You don’t want to do this.”

“The game is finished.” Dr˘agu¸ta’s voice was solemn. Her gooseberry-green eyes moved over each of us in turn: me struggling to my feet, Costi gasping for breath, and Cezar just standing there with a look on his face that made me want to cry. He 353

had made his choice, it seemed, and it was a waste—a waste of what could have been a good life.

“My work is done here,” the witch said. Basket over her arm, she turned and trudged away across the yard as if she were indeed just another wanderer who had passed by, hoping for a crust of bread or a few coppers. None of us said a thing.

When she was gone, Costi cleared his throat and looked his brother in the eye. “We’re going home now,” he said, and his voice was as bleak as winter. “I’m sorry you are not prepared to accept me. I never forgot that we were brothers, even as I watched you bully the girls and mismanage Father’s affairs.

After this, I don’t want you anywhere near our cousins, Cezar.

We’ll discuss what few options are still available to you.

Come—I’m certain Jena is longing to see the last of us.”

I opened my mouth to speak, to say something—anything—

for the look Costi turned on me was tight and hurt and made me want to curl up and cry. But I didn’t say a word, for someone was coming on horseback, and the moment was over. Into the courtyard rode the gray-bearded figure of Judge Rinaldo, and after him a familiar figure seated sideways on her fine mare, her face pale and tense. It was Aunt Bogdana. She slid down from her horse, her gaze on Costi. As she came across to him, first walking, then running, I saw a wondrous sequence of expressions cross her face: utter trepidation, reawakening love, tran-scendent joy. She threw herself into his arms, hugging him like the child he had been when she lost him, and Costi held her with tears streaming down his cheeks. My own face was wet; I scrubbed a hand across it.

“Jena,” Judge Rinaldo said, “my apologies for coming with-354

out warning. Your aunt passed by on her way home, and I felt obliged to explain to her what had occurred. I offered to escort her straight here, since I knew that Costin was coming up to see his brother. This will silence doubting tongues. Nobody can dispute that a mother knows her son.”

I murmured something polite, hardly hearing him. Cezar was watching his mother sobbing in Costi’s embrace. Over Aunt Bogdana’s shoulder, Costi’s eyes looked into his brother’s.

What I saw in them was as much sorrow and regret as judgment. I did not think Cezar recognized that. He saw only confirmation of what he knew already: that he would never be more than second best. His mouth tightened. Turning on his heel, he strode off across the courtyard and away down the track toward the forest. He seemed hardly aware of what he was doing. It was almost night; the shadows swallowed him quickly.

“I hope this matter will not create confusion and discord at Vârful cu Negur˘a,” said the judge. “The valley sorely needs a time of peace, and it needs its leaders.”

“I know I’ll have to work hard to gain the community’s trust,” Costi said. “I’ll try my best to do things the way my father did—with wisdom and compassion.” He patted his mother on the back. Aunt Bogdana was laughing and crying at the same time. I doubted that she had noticed Cezar was gone. “I hoped that my brother . . . I did hope—” Costi seemed to gather himself together. “We’ve all suffered some blows this winter. It cuts deep to lose the trust of those who were once dearest to the heart. I think that is a wound that can never heal.”

I felt the poisoned arrow of his words right in my heart: it 355

hurt more than I could have imagined possible. He sounded so sad, and so unforgiving. I stood silent, shivering.

“Judge,” Costi went on, and now his tone was that of a leader, “I thank you for your help and your belief in me, and for bringing Mother here so promptly. Jena, I’ll take most of the guards up to Vârful cu Negur˘a with me. I’m sure you can’t wait to have your house to yourself again.”

There were plenty of things I could have said, but all I did was mutter, “I’ll find Petru for you,” and head back indoors as folk began, at last, to spill out of the castle to see what was going on. I did not know what I was feeling, only that my heart was being torn in all directions at once. Furious tears welled in my eyes. Those words about trust had been cruel. It sounded as if he’d decided he wouldn’t even try to forgive me. Perhaps we would live our lives a stone’s throw from each other, never exchanging so much as a friendly greeting.

I sent a bemused Petru to sort out guards and horses. As briefly as I could, I told my sisters and Florica what had happened. I could see that they were bursting with questions, but instead of asking them, the girls tiptoed around me, eyeing me warily as I helped set the table for supper, crashing plates and jangling cutlery. Whatever story my face told them, it didn’t have a happy ending.

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Chapter Fifteen

A strange quiet settled over Piscul Dracului. Cezar was gone.

He had not waited to talk further to Costi or to bid Aunt Bogdana farewell, but had left the valley that very night. Nobody knew where he had gone. The guards had departed, leaving our household at seven once more: we sisters, Florica, and Petru.

The earliest traces of spring were touching the forest, cautious yet, for the winters were long in our mountains: a clump of tiny wildflowers, a bird bearing a beakful of dry grasses for its nest.

Insects on a pond; the hens starting to lay again.

From Ivan, who traveled to and fro, we heard news of Costi in those first weeks after his return. He was working hard to establish himself as master of Vârful cu Negur˘a, and to take the reins of Uncle Nicolae’s business affairs. Aunt Bogdana was torn between joy and sadness. She had found one son, only to lose the other. She did not invite us to visit, and we did not walk up to her house. All the same, we could not be unaware of Costi’s presence so close to Piscul Dracului. Small reminders 357

kept coming. One day not long after Cezar’s departure, two men rode into our courtyard bearing our strongboxes: one for the family expenses, one for the business. A third man brought a stack of ledgers, which he obligingly carried up to the workroom for me. Everything Cezar had taken was being scrupulously returned.

The business coffer was entirely in order, containing both ample funds and full receipts for Salem bin Afazi’s goods. The household box had more silver in it than it had when Cezar took it, but not enough to embarrass me. I judged that Costi had calculated an amount that would see us comfortably through the next three months or so, well past the time we hoped Father would be home. The gesture was generous and sensitive. It was just what I would have expected from Gogu—and from Costi—and it made me feel both relieved and ashamed.

“You can’t go on blaming yourself forever,” Iulia told me bluntly one morning as we were feeding the chickens. “So you didn’t trust him straightaway. I can understand why he was upset, but you did have a very good reason for it.”

“Evidently Costi doesn’t think so,” I said, throwing out a handful of grain. “He remembers when he was Gogu, and the way the two of us trusted each other more than anything. We were so close, and now that seems to be gone, gone as if it never was.”

Iulia glanced at me sidelong. “Didn’t you say he threatened to kill Cezar if he hurt you again? He loves you, Jena. It’s obvious to the rest of us. All you need to do is go up there and say you’re sorry.”

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“I can’t.” The very idea of it made my stomach tie itself in knots. If he spoke to me again the way he had that day in the courtyard, it would be more than I could bear.

“So you plan to be enemies for the rest of your lives?” Iulia asked me. “That could be awkward, with him living next door.”

“I don’t plan anything,” I said. “I’m too worried about Tati even to think about Costi.” Not true, of course; I thought about him all the time—and if I could have rewritten the past, I would have.

As for Tati, we were all worried about her. She had barely spoken a word since Full Moon, and she was eating scarcely enough to keep a bird alive. Her cheeks were hollow and her eyes looked too big for her face. I thought she was living the quest with Sorrow, that she was attuned in some way to his journey and his struggle, every part of her fixed on bringing him safely back, his mission complete. As the moon had gone from full to gibbous to dark, she had retreated gradually into a shadowy world of her own. It seemed to me she was letting go, slipping away to a place where we would not be able to reach her.

I heard from Ivan that there was talk in the valley about which sister had kissed the frog back into a man and what the likely outcome might be. He said nothing about a portal or nocturnal journeys, and neither did folk in the village, although we did attract some curious looks. Whatever version of events Costi had told Judge Rinaldo, it seemed that the full truth had not come out, and I was glad of it.

At Dark of the Moon I dreamed not of a young man who 359

turned into a monster, but of Tadeusz, with his cynical smile and wandering fingers. He was saying to me, You missed your opportunity, Jena. Now what? Marriage to some worthy young landholder, and a baby in your belly every spring? You can do better than that. I’m not far away.

Just wish for me, and I’ll be there. I woke in a cold sweat.

Tati’s side of the bed was empty, and the door ajar. Heart in my mouth, I threw on my cloak and ran through the darkened house, straight up the steps at the end of the party room and out onto the terrace.

She stood there in her night robe, looking out over the dark forest. Alone: no cloaked figure by her side. I breathed again.

“Tati, what are you doing? It’s freezing out here. Come back inside.”

She said nothing. I went up to her, taking off my cloak to put it around her shoulders. I felt a deep shivering in her. Her eyes were blank.

“Come on, Tati. Step by step, that’s it. Come with me.”

Back in the bedchamber, I put the quilt around her and sent Iulia, who had awakened at our return, down to the kitchen for dried berries so we could make fruit tea. I set the small kettle on our stove. After a while, Tati’s trembling subsided. She said in a whisper, “I had a terrible dream, Jena. I think Sorrow’s hurt. I don’t think he’s coming back.”

“Tell me. Remember, dreams aren’t always true.”

“He was fighting some kind of monster, like a wild boar, only much bigger, and he . . . he fell, and the thing gored him with its tusk. . . . He was bleeding, Jena. He was just lying there in the mud. He looked so pale, as if he was already dead. . . .

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And I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t touch him, I couldn’t even say goodbye. . . .”

“Shh . . . shh . . . Don’t think about it anymore. It doesn’t mean anything, Tati, just that you’re worried about him.”

“He’s not coming back,” my sister said flatly, staring into space.

After that she stopped eating altogether. Already she was skin and bone, her appetite whittled away to a nibble of fruit here, a morsel of bread there. Now she refused to touch anything. I could hardly get her to swallow a sip of water. Logic got me nowhere. I told her again that what she had seen was only a dream, not reality, that with half the month still to go, Sorrow had a good chance of getting back in one piece with all the required items. I had scant grounds for such confidence, after what Paula had said about the quest. But I knew the importance of hope. If there was a decision somewhere in what I was saying, I did not acknowledge it even to myself.

As Full Moon drew closer, Tati became too weak to get out of bed. I sent for a doctor. We had one in the valley, an old man who had once traveled with great armies on the march, and whose skills ran more to bone setting and stitching up knife wounds than to tending young ladies fading away for no apparent reason. He applied leeches; the treatment effected no visible change. He suggested bleeding the patient, but I said no, for it seemed to me she was too frail to endure it. My heart was chill.

When I had made my confident assurances to Father that I could look after things in his absence, I never dreamed that I would be watching Tati dying before my eyes. It seemed we 361

might lose her even before we knew whether Sorrow had achieved his quest. I spent a lot of time praying, and even more time thinking.

Florica had heard about the rumors in the village. She did not actually ask us whether our sister may have been bewitched by forces from the Other Kingdom, but she climbed the steep stairs to our bedchamber and festooned the place with plaits of garlic, enough to keep out anything that might conspire to snatch Tati away from us. She put a hand to Tati’s brow and looked closely at her neck—something I had not been brave enough to do myself—and then she went back downstairs. Her expression troubled me: it combined grief and acceptance.

“What will you do when Full Moon comes?” Paula asked me as we sat by Tati’s bedside one evening, listening to the labored sound of her breathing.

“What will I do?”

“It’s not an unreasonable question. You usually do make the decisions, Jena. Do you think Sorrow will come? If he does, how can she go across? She’s barely conscious. She won’t be able to walk.”

“I know that.”

“So what if he does come, and there’s some way he can take her? Will you let her go?”

I gazed down at Tati. “It’s not my choice,” I said, realizing that I had learned that much from all this. “It’s Tati’s and Sorrow’s. I don’t know what we’ll do.” I knew whose advice I wanted. I knew whose support I needed. But I wouldn’t go to Vârful cu Negur˘a. I couldn’t ask him. There was too much 362

between us: too much love, too much hurt, too much misunderstanding. We’d made a gap too wide to bridge.

“Is Tati going to die?”

I had not heard Stela come in. She stood at the foot of the bed, her eyes on our sister’s fragile form—the tight-stretched skin, the shadowed lids.

“I hope not.” I wasn’t prepared to lie to her.

“Doesn’t she believe in true love anymore?” Stela asked.

The moon grew from new to half to almost full again, and the first lambs were born. Men came up from the village to help Petru, willing and able now I could pay them a fair wage. Tati was sinking steadily. I knew she could not last many days more unless we could get her to eat something—a little soup, a sliver of cheese. But she refused everything.

Not knowing what else to do, we told stories of true love in an effort to coax hope back to Tati’s heart. It was often hard to tell whether she could hear them, for she lay mostly limp and unresponsive. Late one afternoon, when Stela was down in the kitchen, Paula told a striking tale she had heard among the scholars of the Other Kingdom. The sun had almost set beyond the green window; the light in our chamber was mellow. Green as grass, I thought, green as pondweed, green as home. Maybe I was the one who needed to believe in true love.

Paula’s was a dark tale, in which a father desired his daughter. She fled to conceal herself in the kitchens of a great house, ash smeared on her face, her body hidden by a coat of many small skins—rabbit, fox, stoat, mole, badger. She fell in love 363

with the young master of the house, and drew his attention with a series of gifts.

“So she dropped her gold ring in the bowl of broth, and gave it to the kitchen maid to place before the young lord at table. And this time, he demanded to know who had served the soup, and where he might find her. . . .”

When Paula reached the end of the story, Tati’s eyes were open. It was the first time in days she had shown any awareness of her surroundings. I took her hand and felt her fingers squeeze mine weakly. They were deathly cold. It came to me that if I said the wrong thing, she would shut her eyes again and sink away beyond reach. Paula’s story had sown a seed in my imagination.

“Iulia,” I ventured, “you remember when Costi first changed back into a man, and you said if it were a story I’d have to grovel to get him back? Was that what you meant—ash and rags and mysterious gifts?”

“I suppose it might work,” Iulia said doubtfully. “Are you saying you’re actually prepared to try now?”

I took a deep breath. “I might be,” I said. “If I can work out the best way to do it. Costi’s not the sort to respond to a gold ring. And you know I’m not the groveling type. But there must be a way to show him that—that—”

“That you love him?” Tati whispered.

I felt my cheeks flush red. “Well, yes,” I admitted. “I’m terrified of going to see him. Why hasn’t he invited us to Vârful cu Negur˘a? If he’s forgiven me, why hasn’t he come to see me?”

“He loves you, Jena.” Tati was too weak to lift her head, but she turned her eyes to meet mine. “You must know that in your heart.”

364

“He needs to know he can trust you,” Iulia said. “That if something bad happens in the future, you won’t let go again.”

“I’ve already broken two promises,” I said. “I told him I’d never leave him behind, and then I did. First to find Tati, then all by himself in the forest, with no voice. If I promise again, why should he believe me?”

Paula was thinking, her chin in her hand. “He shouldn’t be so hard on you,” she said. “When you wouldn’t accept that he was Costi, you were just being careful. That was reasonable enough, considering all the things that had happened. Surely he hasn’t forgotten that you protected him and loved him and put him first for nine whole years. That can’t be wiped out in a single day.”