Yvgenie

7

“Does its head hurt?” the vodyanoi asked out of the dark. It slithered over Pyetr’s leg, and back again, up against his cheek, wet and smelling of river water. Something unpleasant flickered lightly against his ear, inside it, and Pyetr could not move, not so much as lo case the arm that had gone numb under him.

It whispered within his ear, “Is it sorry now, is the man sorry now for his discourtesies?”

Get away from me, he wanted to say; but breath failed him. The vodyanoi’s serpent shape loomed up and up across the visible sky, and lowered, to nudge his chin familiarly with its blunt nose.

Salt and sulfur, he thought desperately. Salt and sulfur— in my pocket if I could reach it—

Did Volkhi get away?

“The horse ran, oh, yes, off into the woods. Maybe we can find him.” A coil fell across his chest, and grew heavier, crushing the breath out of him. “Or maybe not. You’re so fond of him. Maybe I’d rather eat him later. And no, you can’t reach it, nasty man.”

Sasha! He shut his eyes, thinking as sanely as he could: I’m in deep trouble, friend. Can you possibly hear me?— ’Veshka? Then, on another, calculating thought:—Mouse, your father’s in a damned lot of difficulty. Could we have some help, mouse? You could make things up with your mother… so much easier if I wasn’t this thing’s supper—

’Veshka! God, do something!

Heavier and heavier. He felt his ribs bending, felt the world turning around and around, dark shot through with colored fire. Hwiuur said, tongue flickering maddeningly against his ear, “No one’s listening. Perhaps it would be polite if I let it breathe a moment?”

He would. Yes. Anything to get feeling into his hand and find the salt, or his sword—not clever of him to think of that in the vodyanoi’s hearing, no. But Hwiuur’s weight eased all the same, and he gasped after the promised breath, thinking, What does he want? Whose is he this time, if not Chernevog’s?

—Who’s off in the woods with my daughter—

Oh, god, mouse, where are you?

The vodyanoi rose up and up, huge, darkening the night over him. “Is it polite now?”

“It’s very polite,” he whispered to that shadow, discovering he had a voice. “What do you want, Hwiuur?”

“Pretty bones is on the river tonight. And in my cave. What do you think about that?”

’Veshka. The god only knew what the snake meant about the cave. He risked another, deeper breath. “My wife’s not so easy to catch.”

The vodyanoi hissed and bent lower, sharp teeth looming above his face. “Very dangerous, very, very dangerous. Foolish man, to get a young one with pretty bones. Life in death. Death in life. Her bones are still in my cave, foolish man, and she hears the river every night in her dreams.”

“What about my daughter?”

“Such pretty, pretty bones. Tell Sasha, tell my dear, my sweet Sasha, that he’s been as much a fool as you have.”

“I’ll be happy to tell him. Make him hear me.”

“Oh, can’t he, now? Too, too bad. Then perhaps we can make a bargain without him, you and I?”

“Maybe.”

“Dangerous, dangerous man. What will you give me?”

“What are we dealing for?”

“Bonesss.” The vodyanoi slithered across his chest, beneath a numb leg and over it, under his back and around and around his body and still he could not move, not so much as n linger. “Bones, of course. What will you offer for them? What have you got to trade?”

He felt pain in his shoulder, apart from the general ache in his limbs. Another in his right hand, thinking of which, he tried to move if only a single finger—thinking, The damned snake’s bitten me—that’s what it’s done. Come on, dammit—god—

“Will you trade?” Hwiuur asked. “Nice, fresh bonesss, I wonder?”

He might have his sword by him, if starting with that ache in his shoulder, he could move at all. There was the salt—

The vodyanoi moved across him and weighed his arms. “Nasssty man. Don’t do that. Your daughter’s run off with fine rusalka. With our old friend Chernevog. Aren’t you interested?”

“Sasha!” he yelled. The vodyanoi chuckled softly and caressed his cheek with a scaly jaw.

“Oh, Sasha should have done something by now. So should pretty bones. So might your daughter—but she’s sleeping with Chernevog tonight. Such a dutiful child you’ve made. You should be so very proud.”

Coils went around and around him. He shut his eyes, trying to move that hand, or to make someone hear him, without magic, without anyone in earshot—

“Misighi!” he breathed, because there were things that were magical as the vodyanoi, that needed no spells to hear their names invoked—

Breath stopped. There was no room for it. Then something snarled and spat and rushed, hissing and spitting, across the dead leaves toward him. The vodyanoi reared up and hissed like water on hot iron, carrying him in its coils.

He had a view of the ground. Far below. Then came a sickening drop. Something attached to his leg—he thought, Hell—what is it?

Pain got through the numbness. The coils slipped away from him and let him go.

For what good that did.

Missy was exhausted. Missy trampled down the undergrowth in her path and simply plowed straight ahead, her breath coming hard—far too many apples and sweets from the kitchen over the years—she could not keep such a pace as she took now.

But she smelled something familiar and friendly. Her ears went up and she lifted her head for a look as she went, on a last reserve of strength. It was Volkhi she was thinking of, in Missy’s way, nothing to do with names: but Sasha knew what she smelled, he had wished Volkhi to come to them, and thank the god, Volkhi, alone of everything in the forest, seemed to have heard—Missy, if not him.

But where was Pyetr, he wondered of Volkhi, where had he left him, how long ago?

It was a thoroughly upset, thoroughly tired Volkhi, who did not know where his rider was, and who was sure he was in trouble for it. He arrived out of the brush like a piece of night, distraught, angry, his thoughts scattering every which way—

But he was willing to stand while Sasha slid off Missy and climbed up on his back. Volkhi thought it was stupid to go back where he knew there were snakes, but he would go, if everybody else was going. Volkhi was going to kick hell out of anything that moved back there.

Sasha agreed with him. He wanted leshys, he wanted the mouse’s attention, he wanted Pyetr’s, if he could reach him; and most urgently, knowing the name Volkhi did not, he the vodyanoi sliced and fried, if it harmed a hair on Pyetr’s head—

Hwiuur, you’re being a fool. Hurt him and I’ll get you for it, I’ll get you, Hwiuur, there’ll never be a day I’ll be off our track.

Then he was certain of a sudden where he was going—the slack of Missy’s reins taking up all but pulled him off Volkhi’s neck as Volkhi pricked up his ears and jolted into a brisker pace. Volkhi shook his head and protested with an I-know-you sound as Sasha reined him down to a pace Missy could keep. He wanted to go where Volkhi wanted to go, fast, and it was not helping hold Volkhi in at all.

Babi was the thought he began to sort out of Volkhi’s thoughts. Babi was no easy creature to wish and Babi would not tolerate eavesdropping—but the horses both could hear him. The horses had an idea of Babi that a man had trouble holding; but Volkhi was definitely answering him, in Volkhi’s way: Volkhi launched himself straight up a hill with a drive of his hindquarters, wanting more rein as Sasha tried to hold on to Missy and stay in the saddle, while if ever a horse could swear, Volkhi was swearing, fighting the reins all the way to hp crest, into a thin growth of saplings.

Something shone pale in the dark thicket below, a white scrap of cloth gleaming through interlaced branches—a body lying on the ground.

“Oh, god—” He almost let go of Missy’s reins, then recalled that all their medicines were on Missy’s back, and held on to Volkhi’s saddle and to her, begging her to hurry, please! While Volkhi fought him all the way down the hill.

He wanted Pyetr to be all right, he wanted the whole woods to know they were in trouble as he slid down from Volkhi’s back and shoved his way through the interlaced twigs of saplings. Babi was curled at Pyetr’s side, a very small, very black ball of fur that growled and hissed at him as he fell his knees.

Pyetr was lying on his stomach, one arm beneath him, his shirt stained dark on his right shoulder, and, god, he had bled enough for three men. He was still breathing—but only just.

His hands were shaking as he peeled Pyetr’s collar down and discovered a wound a sword might have made: a vodyanoi’s bite, he was sure of it. On both sides of the shoulder-and blood was still coming.

Nothing had been going right: nothing of his magic had worked, and he was never good at doctoring; he believed in pain more than he believed in his own magic, ’Veshka always said so. Uulamets might have dealt with a wound like this, ’Veshka could, little as she worked magic; even the mouse was better than he was—if it was baby birds or a wounded fox—

Stop shaking, fool. The old man’s voice echoed out of memory. Fool, master Uulamets had used to call him when he hesitated. —What’s more important, feeling or doing? One or the other, fool! Use your wits! Think!

—Warmth. Light to see with, herbs and wishes and bandages to stop the blood, do, fool! Don’t sit there! Wish while you’re working!

He scrambled up and broke dead branches off lower limbs, the driest wood there was; he untied his baggage from Missy’s back, got the medicines and the fire-pot—oily moss for tinder: he tucked a wad in beneath the twigs, struck a spark and wished it—dammit! to light straightaway, no messing about with might-be’s.

Candles tipping, spilling wax. The fireplace would not hold a fire, because in his heart he was afraid of it—

Dammit!

Fire took, the least point of light, and faltered. God, he was going to lose it—

—Please, please be all right, Pyetr, don’t do this to me. It’s no time for jokes, Pyetr, please wake up and talk to me, I’m not doing well at this! Someone’s wishes are winning, but not mine tonight—

The mouse is wishing us not to catch her and her generalities are killing us—

So wish the specific, fool! Decide and do! Specific always wins!

Second spark. No infinite number of chances. There was so much blood in a body, and magic had to want the fire, believe in the fire, one spark at a time, not flinch at the flames, not set out to fail from the beginning.

River stench clung strong about this place. Fire gave smoke, smoke of birch and alder, smoke of moss and herbs— and water gave way to it.

No time for medicines. Blood was flowing too fast. He laid hands on the wound while Babi’s fire-glittering black followed his every move. Babi was here, too, Babi was wanting things to work, no less than he was.

One did not need the smoke, one did not need the herbs, one needed only think of them—yarrow and willow, feverfew and sulfur—

Vodka. Babi’s eyes glowed like moons. But Babi stayed quite, quite still. And licked his lips.

Think of health. Think of home, with the crooked chimney and all. Think of ’Veshka and the mouse being there, and Pyetr, and himself—one did not need to touch, one needed only think of touching—and not even that—

But the sky in that image grayed, and the house weathered, and lost shingles—

He brought back the sun again. He put the shingles back, and added the horses grazing on the open hillside and Babi In the front yard.

Clouds tried to gather. Weeds tried to grow. A board fell off the gate.

He hit his lip and made it go back. A rail fell off the fence. But he set himself in the middle of that yard, with Pyetr as he was, and wanted the shoulder as it had been.

That was the answer. Shingles fell, thunder rumbled, and he built a small fire in front of him and fed it, while he fed the one in the dark of the woods, and breathed the smoke, pine and willow.

He set the vodka jug beside him in the yard—the unbreakable and inexhaustible jug: his one youthful magic, the once-in-a-lifetime spell old Uulamets had told him a wizard might cast: no effort at all it had been to want that jug rolling across the deck—not unbroken—but truly whole, so whole it could never afterward be less than it was at that moment.

Scarily easy, so easy that he had felt queasy about that spell ever after. He had doubted it could be good, and most of all feared what wishing at someone might do—

But he needed that absolute magic now, if only once for the rest of his life, and the jug was the key. He saw the yard, with the wind blowing and the sky going darker; he picked up the jug among falling leaves, locked it in his arms and wanted, with the same simplicity, Pyetr to be with him, the same—the same—as in that unthinking instant he had be-spelled the jug—

No! Oh, god, that day had not been the best in their lives. Pyetr had not married ’Veshka, yet, had not had a daughter then.

God, what have I done?

But the shingles were on the roof again, the yard was raked and kept. The house was standing solid and intact; but he had no idea who was living in Pyetr’s house… as it would someday stand. He had wished something. He had felt the shift in things-as-they-were and things-as-they-would-be. He wanted to go inside the house and find out who lived there; or failing that, only to go up on the porch and look in the unshuttered windows, please the god, to reassure himself what he had done would not change what was inside—

But he was sitting in front of a dying fire with the vodka jug in his arms, and Pyetr was lying on the ground in front of him, while Babi—Babi had his small arms locked about Pyetr’s neck, his face buried in Pyetr’s pale hair.

Pyetr swatted at Babi. The hand fell limp again, but Pyetr had moved, Pyetr was still alive. Sasha suddenly found himself shaking like a leaf, unable to stop. He tucked his foot up and hugged his knee and watched, fist against his mouth to keep his teeth from chattering, wanting nothing but Pyetr’s welfare, not wishing any more proof that the magic had worked than to see Pyetr look at him, whenever Pyetr wanted to, please, sanely and remembering everything since that day in the river.

Babi got up and waddled over, leaned on his legs and reached for the vodka jug. Something had changed: Babi knew. Babi was willing to leave Pyetr: Babi wanted a drink and Sasha unstopped the jug and poured a good dose into Babi’s waiting mouth, libation to all beneficent magic in the twin. “Good Babi,” he said. “Good, brave Babi—”

Pyetr half-opened his eyes, blinking at him through a fringe ill hair. “God—where did you come from?”

“ I was supposed to follow you, remember?”

Please, Pyetr, remember. Keep on remembering.

Pyetr rolled onto his back and felt inside his shirt. Made a face and worked his fingers back and forth in the firelight.

“Does it hurt?”

“No,” Pyetr said, sounding confused, and felt again. “Blood. It’s not me, is it?”

“It was,” Sasha said. “It shouldn’t be now. How do you feel?”

Pyetr took a breath, wiped his hand on his ghastly shirt, making another dark smear, and managed to sit up, leaning on his hand, staring dazedly past the fire, to where the horses were. “Volkhi—”

“Volkhi’s all right. Not a scratch on him, from the vodyanoi, a few scrapes else, that I can tell.”

“God.” Pyetr made a try at getting up and fell on his back before Sasha could catch him.

“ You can’t go anywhere.”

“My daughter, dammit—”

He could not admit to Pyetr what a fool he had been, or warn him of the changes that might happen. He wanted to amend that wish of his—but he doubted he could, that was the stupid part. He could only wish Pyetr to remember his daughter by the time the spell had run its course—and it would not have, yet, it might not have completed itself for days and years, but there was no stopping it—and telling Pyetr about it—what could it do but frighten him, and make his life miserable?

God, stupid, Sasha Vasilyevitch, damnably, terribly stupid! You can’t wish against nature, you can’t wish against time—

But Pyetr, instead of dying, had breath in him tonight, and warmth, and was determined to ride on alone, right now, if he could. “Sasha—we can’t sit here.”

“Volkhi’s exhausted, Missy can’t take it, if you could stay on, which you can’t: the spell isn’t finished with you; and don’t ask me to borrow.”

“I’ll ask you.” Pyetr coughed, and held his shoulder. “It’s not a time for good sense. Or scruples. The leshys will understand us. It’s for them as much as—”

“Not a time to make mistakes, either.”

“Dammit, he’s with her, you understand me?”

“Do you know that?”

“I know more than I want to know. The old Snake has a filthy mouth. The young one, Chernevog, damn him—”

“I don’t believe everything Hwiuur says. He’s left and right and full of twists. And even if it were true, Chernevog’s not in any substance any longer. The boy is—and substance deals with substance.” He felt the heat in his face, but the dark gave him cover. “Yvgenie’s an honest lad. She could do far worse, Pyetr.”

Pyetr could have shouted at him that he was a fool and he had no intention in the world of leaving it at “could do worse,” or “substance.” Sasha heard it all the same. But Pyetr had no strength to go on right now. Pyetr leaned his head against his arm and shook it slowly. “God, how, Sasha? How could she do worse?” And Pyetr thought, wounded to the heart: Why didn’t she answer me?

Because the vodyanoi had taunted him with that.

“I couldn’t answer you,” Sasha said, laying a hand on Pyetr’s shoulder. “Remember? We aren’t hearing each other. And I’m less and less certain our mouse is all the reason for the silence. I think the leshys are aware of it, maybe contributing to it—they did this before, when Chernevog was alive—not helping us, but maybe keeping other things from breaking loose.”

Pyetr was shivering. Trying not to. Trying to be sane. Pyetr said, as calmly as he could, “This isn’t going at all right, is it?”

Sasha put his arms about him, felt the chill and the shivering. “Sleep, Pyetr. Go to sleep.”

Pyetr said not a word. His head fell and his body immediately went heavy in Sasha’s arms: he was that far gone. Sasha suddenly found himself trembling, from cold, from exhaustion, from terror. He wanted Pyetr to be all right, he wanted Pyetr’s daughter to realize her father needed her, and he wanted things right in the woods—now, tonight, this moment.

But—perhaps it was the way his latest wish had gone askew; and perhaps the way all wizards’ wishes went amiss, past childhood—he was not sure he wanted the mouse here. He was less sure he wanted Chernevog, knowing the mouse might have wished him to be with her: wishes held so many conditions, wishes contradicted each other, and tied themselves in knots on wizards’ conditions.

Fool, ’Veshka would say, in her father’s tone.

And she would be right.

Yvgenie became aware of breaking daylight at the same moment he discovered his legs were asleep, he was propped against a tree and he had his arms mostly around Ilyana. There seemed no polite way at the moment to move his legs, the stretch of which was making his back ache terribly, so he sat there in pain, trying to recall, god, what had happened last night, or what he had done last night.

He leaned his head back and looked about at the trees, at the first glimmer of light on the branches, at the horses making a breakfast off spring leaves, and tried not to recall that too vivid sense of life that had driven sense from him.

Fatal, ultimately, the ghost whispered to him. I lend you pleasure I daren’t feel. I’d lose all sanity, else. You’re all the protection we have, Ilyana and I…

He bit his lip, looked desperately up at the branches and thought—

Sanity?

He shifted his legs without thinking, and Ilyana stirred in his arms, put her hands on his shoulders and pushed back from him, eyes wide.

“I’m sorry,” he said, but Chernevog said, softly, “Good morning, Ilyana.”

She looked alarmed and struggled against him to be free. He wanted to let her go, but the ghost pulled her against him and kissed her long and passionately, wanting—

Oh, god, no!

The world went dizzy. He forgot to breathe, until she had to, and fought for breath and reason. He made a clumsy reach for the tree behind him and purchase on the leaf-strewn ground, wanting to straighten his legs. He felt—

—not angry, no—shaken inside and out, and tingling with a feeling he had never had. He did not want the ghost doing that again, or anything else it had in mind. He struggled to stand up, to little avail, and found himself trapped with Ilyana staring at him as if trying to decide which of them was responsible.

He whispered, “I’m terribly sorry,” then thought that he could have said something more flattering. He tried to amend that—and it still came out, “Be careful, please be more careful, miss,” or something as foolish, as she took his hand, which was filthy with bits of leaf and dirt, and tried to help him.

Strength came flooding back to his legs, numbness easing unnaturally quickly. He stood up, he disengaged his hand and wiped it clean as something cold whisked through him, something of more substance than a passing chill.

Owl, he thought.

“Are you all right?” Ilyana asked him.

He answered, “He’s very well, thank you, miss.” And added, with an effort, “Please—you oughtn’t to trust him that far—”

He wanted to take her in his arms himself. Instead he shoved away from the tree and staggered off toward the horses, while the ghost inside him—he was sure it was the ghost—said, without words.

Yvgenie Pavlovitch, you’re a fool.

The boat scraped something and shuddered aside. Eveshka waked with a start as the tiller bucked beneath her arm, saw trees in front of the sail, shoved over hard, and hauled on the sheets, heart pounding as the old ferry skimmed the shoreline. Its hull rubbing its length along some barrier.

She had not intended to sleep. The wind had carried the boat the god only knew how far—she felt grinding scrapes that threatened to take the side out, and wished desperately for a breeze to touch the sail and give her way to steer away from the shore. None was at hand. The trees were too tall and too near, shadowing her from the wind.

The boat scraped rock, as the shore wound outward across the bow. She leaned on the tiller.

The hull glided over sand. Hard. And cleared.

A breeze. Any breeze, god—no matter the direction.

The boat glided into calm water, between the shore and the bar, where a small stream joined the river. She worked frantically to bring the bow around, to catch whatever breeze the stream course might let escape to bear on the sail, but the breeze there was scarcely stirred the canvas. Only rain and gale, she feared, might free the boat from this trap.

She struck the tiller bar with her hand.

Not an accident. Not by any means an accident.

Something different rubbed against the hull, then splashed the surface and chuckled with a familiar sound. She left the tiller in its loop of rope and strode to the rail. “Damn you, Hwiuur!”

Another splash. The vodyanoi could not bear the rising sun. There was no chance it meant to put itself in her reach at the edge of daylight: it kept to the shadow of the boat, the deep water, and only soft laughter and a spreading ring of ripples told where it skimmed the sandbar on its way to the open river.

Something dark red floated in the shadow of the boat, scarcely visible in this change between dawn and day: a scrap of embroidered cloth.

She had stitched that design herself, sewn wishes into the cloth, to keep Pyetr safe and warm—his coat, that was what! Hwiuur had brought her—

“Hwiuur!” she shouted. “Come back here!”

But it had the edge it wanted. It spread doubt like poison, it scattered her wishes like leaves on the water. And it laughed, somewhere out of wizardry reach, in that place she remembered how to enter—but dared not, living.

Sunrise in the deep woods brought scant relief from the clammy chill of earth and air which long since had dampened their clothing and their blankets. Sasha folded up his book quietly searched their packs for food and stirred up breakfast.

Pyetr opened his eyes hi the midst of this, felt of the blanket across his chest and looked hi his direction.

“Pain?” Sasha asked him.

“No.” Pyetr struggled up on his elbows, filthy, bloody and ghastly pale between the beginning dawn and the fire light. He pulled the stiffened cloth away from his shoulder took a look and murmured, “God.”

“No argument out of you. Breakfast is just about ready. Hot tea. You’re not going off this time by yourself.”

“Don’t wish at me!” Pyetr sat upright too quickly and leaned his head into his hands. “I’m sorry. You’re right. You were right in the first place. Everything I’ve done has cost us time.”

So he did remember. Sasha poured a cup of tea, wishing his hands not to shake with cold and sleeplessness. “We do as much as we can do. Despair is never our friend. And we’re not really behind Missy’s pace, as happens, though I’d have a bit more sleep.—Here.”

Pyetr edged over and took the tea, held the cup in both hands to drink it. Sasha turned the cakes and poured his own cup.

Across the fire, Babi waited, black eyes glittering with his of cakes, one could be sure. There was certainly one for Babi, yes, indeed there was, especially for him.

“Had the salt in my coat pocket,” Pyetr said. “Lot of that did. Damned snake’s gotten clever. Where is my coat?”

“I don’t know. Gone, I fear. I looked, but the god only knows how far it dragged you. Have mine: it’s yours, anyway; and I can wish myself warm.”

“We have blankets. A cloak’s all I need.” All I deserve— was the thought in Pyetr’s mind. “—Have you heard anything since last night?”

Sasha slid a cake onto a leaf and set it down for Babi, all his own. “No.” He slipped the other two onto plates and offered one to Pyetr. “But we’re not going to go breakneck into this.”

Pyetr scowled at his caution, then said, looking glumly to his breakfast, “If I hadn’t been so damned stupid—”

“Don’t—” he started to say—stopped himself; but thinking it was enough.

“It’s my f-fault,” Pyetr declared fiercely, piece by piece, painful concentration against his wish. “If you could just for god’s sake t-tell her—”

“I can’t. I can’t make her hear me. So you listen to me, please, Pyetr.”

“I’ve no damn ch-choice, have I?”

That cut deep. Pyetr’s look did. But he said as coldly and rationally as he could: “I don’t like you taking the blame for things. Give me time to think.”

“That’s fine, Sasha. But d-do something!”

He wanted Pyetr not to have to struggle like that. He had not meant that wish for silence, he simply wanted not to be argued with right now, which meant Pyetr had to fight him to talk at all. “Pyetr, believe me, the mouse doesn’t hate us. She’d have come flying back here if she’d known you were in trouble. She isn’t Draga and she’s not her mother: I don’t believe it, I never believed it, no matter what ’Veshka says—”

“The hell with what ’Veshka says! It isn’t the mouse’s fault what happened. She thinks she’s doing right. I don’t have to be a wizard to know that. She’s not against us.”

“It’s not her fault, and if you want the plain truth, I don’t think it was ’Veshka’s either. She was in Draga’s house before the mouse was born. I honestly believe Draga wanted something that made trouble for us.”

Pyetr stopped with the cup halfway to his mouth. “Draga—” But the thought escaped him and escaped his eavesdropping as well. Something about Eveshka’s mother, about the time Eveshka had spent in her mother’s house under the hill, about Chernevog and Draga’s wishes—

Wishes could make a man think all around a matter. Wishes could defend themselves, the same as the mouse wishing them off her track. They could well be missing something essential.

He said, fighting Pyetr for pieces of that thought, “Eveshka was up there with Draga when neither you nor ’Veshka knew the mouse existed—Draga wanted the baby, no question. That’s how she got her there—she couldn’t wish ’Veshka herself, ’Veshka’s too strong; but she could wish the mouse there: nobody wished anything about the mouse, since none of us knew she existed—”

“Draga didn’t have a damned thing to do with the mouse.” Some illusions one hated to challenge. “In fact Draga or Uulamets either one might have wished Ilyana into existence, Pyetr, forgive me. But we don’t know either of them got what they wanted. Wishes can pull other wishes off the mark, make them turn out differently than planned—certainly a young wizard is a scary handful; and unpredictable; and dangerous—but not, not, in my considered opinion, the creature Draga wanted from the beginning, and not under her grandmother’s posthumous influence.”

“Who said she was? Who ever said she was?”

“ ’Veshka.”

“Hell,” Pyetr said in disgust. “She gets those damn moods.”

“No. Sometimes she admits what’s in her heart. And she’s right to worry.”

“Ilyana’s not a sorcerer! She’s not Chernevog’s kind, Chernevog himself isn’t what he was.”

“Pyetr, ’Veshka died—and in her own thinking, she never won her struggle, no matter that her father brought her back to life. She lost. Nobody wins against sorcery—one either uses it or one ultimately loses to someone who does. That’s what she believes. She didn’t want the mouse badly enough to protect her from Draga—that’s what haunts her: she was surprised to know she had a baby, she was under her mother’s will, beset with her mother’s arguments and she only scarcely wanted the mouse enough for your sake to keep her alive. Something could have gotten to her—yes.”

“That’s not so, Sasha!”

“I agree with you. I don’t think you can make anyone good or bad without his consent. I don’t think it’s being sixteen, or fifteen—I think it’s whatever moment you decide what you need and decide what other people are worth to you. I was five when I made my terrible mistake; but I think we taught the mouse her lesson, and I don’t for a moment believe she has to kill anyone to learn it. More than that, I think there was a time you should have been here and ’Veshka should have taken the trip to Kiev, if you want the truth; and a time last year we should have taken the mouse downriver to Anatoly’s place and let her meet the household, damn the consequences.”

“Why didn’t you say that, for the god’s sake? Why didn’t you insist?”

“I did say it to ’Veshka, I said it to you more than once, if you’ll remember, but no one listened. They were delicate years. It wasn’t a time for quarrels in the house.”

Pyetr ran a hand through his hair. “God.”

“When ’Veshka wished you to Kiev, I knew you’d be back; I knew the mouse would want you back. What’s more, I knew ’Veshka would. She can’t turn anything loose. Not her daughter. Not her husband. Not an idea, once it takes hold of her—and she doesn’t ask where she got all of them. That’s her trouble, friend. She learned to fight from her father. Her young lessons were all that way. And in teaching the mouse what to do with magic—I had to hold Eveshka off.”

Pyetr was quiet a moment, staring into the fire. Sasha bit his lip, hoping he had not gone too far, wanting—

No.

“I won’t tell you what to think, Pyetr, only what I think. There always seemed too many quarrels for me to start another. All I could think was—just get her to the age of reason. Eveshka says she wasn’t working magic—but she was, she was constantly, in every opinion she holds. How do you convince someone not to hold opinions?”

“How do you convince Eveshka not to hold opinions?”

“The god only knows, Pyetr. I’m afraid neither of us was that clever. The things we want do come true: we make them happen, we shape them with what we say and what we do. It’s not the mouse’s fault. Not even his, I think. We made the mouse lonely. She wanted a playmate. She wished one up and he wanted—perhaps to come home. I don’t know.—But you taught her things. How to hold a baby bird. Do you remember?”

Pyetr frowned at him, upset and confused. “Not how to hold lives in her hands.”

“How to hold a fox kit. You said, “If he bites it’s only fear. Be careful.” Do you remember that? That’s a very important lesson.”

“A bite isn’t a betrayal. It isn’t your whole damned far against you. Or your mother wanting someone dead.”

“ I wish her to remember what you taught her, Pyetr. That’s the wish I make for her.”

“God, don’t put it down to me!”

“All those years she should have been with you, all the years we kept you apart—what you did teach her, in spite of that, the mouse sets most store by. You were the forbidden. You were the one out of reach.—What would you wish for her now?”

“To wait for me, dammit, that’s what I’ve been saying—for her to talk to me. That’s what I want.”

Dangerous wish. Dangerous and indefinite and putting Pyetr at risk. But Pyetr was, he had had faith in it for years, wiser and braver about such things than he was. So he said, slowly, with the awareness of everything unhinged, and everything in doubt:

“I wish that, yes. And I wish you well, Pyetr… as well I know how.”

Pyetr looked at him as if he were mad, looked at him in the gray dawn, that time that ghosts began to fade, and said, no faintly he could hardly hear: “Wish yourself well, Sasha.”

Because he had chosen the wish he had—foolish wizard that he was: he had deceived himself for so many years that he wished Pyetr’s welfare completely unselfishly, for Pyetr’s benefit, and not his: Let Pyetr be well, let nothing change—

He thought, not for the first time, All of us brought him from Kiev. Who knows, maybe we wished him into trouble to do that, and he never would have played dice with the tsarevitch or crossed Kurov. As it was, it got him home, and it put him here, where he nearly died last night.

Babi turned up in his lap, Babi grabbed for his neck and hung on, fiercely, with his small hands.

—Babi knows something Babi doesn’t like. I wonder where Babi was before he showed up last night. Things aren’t going well, Pyetr’s right.

“Have you done that?” Pyetr persisted. “Do you wish yourself well, Sasha? Or have you done something completely foolish?”

Pyetr could tell he was woolgathering. Pyetr knew his habits, and his expressions.

“I wish myself to keep you alive,” Sasha said slowly. It was all he dared wish this morning. In their fear for the mouse’s abilities, they had wished nothing about a wizard too old for a child’s mistakes, a wizard who had done a child’s naive magic twice now—unwisely in both in stances.

He got to his feet. He picked up the vodka jug and deliberately let it fall.

Babi turned up below it, caught it in his arms and glared at him reproachfully.

But it had not broken. He could not harm it, even trying. In its way it was dangerous. Fall holding it—and the jug would survive.

It was Pyetr’s coat, Eveshka had no doubt of it when she had fished it out of the river. “Pyetr!” she cried aloud to the forested shore, to the winds and the morning; she wanted Sasha to answer her; but no answer came, not from her husband, not from her daughter, not from Sasha, not even from the vodyanoi, who wanted to torment her. She knew its ways; oh, god, she knew them—knew that it lied, but one could never rely on that.

What she wanted now was a breeze—with the sail canted, the tiller set—just a very little breeze, please the god. Ever so slight a breeze—while she trembled with fear and wider wishes beckoned.

The sail flipped and filled halfway. The boat moved, ever so slowly.

And stuck fast again.

She did not wish a storm. She shut her eyes and wished— please, just a little more.

The boat groaned, the sail flapped and thumped.

The wind was there. It took so little for a stray puff of wind to come into this nook, skirl among the trees along the little stream, and come skimming across the water…

Something wanted me toward this shore. Then want me inner, dammit! I’ve no intention to swim for it!

The boat heeled ever so slightly and slid free, bow facing the brushy water edge.

She lashed the tiller and ran forward, past the deckhouse, under the sail and along the low rail to the bow, with the snaggy wooden hook they used for an anchor. She swung it around and around her with all her might and loosed it for the trees.

It landed. She hauled on the rope and felt it hold, threw a loop about the bow post and hauled, not abruptly, but with patience.

Wizardry waited to swallow her up. The river did, while the vodyanoi taunted her with cruel laughter and told her lies. It was a big boat, a very big boat, but on the water the slightest breeze and the slightest of women could move it.

There were terrible holes in the coat she had fished out of the water, and stains, despite its soaking, that were surely blood.

Hwiuur could not be killed, that she knew, not in this world—but there were powers outside this world, in that place where magic lived.

Branches cracked against the hull. The old ferry jolted and scraped along the shore.

The forest that shut out her magic could not shut her out—kill her if it could—but not stop her short of killing her.

Sasha would talk about morality. Sasha would talk about the safety of people she had never met, and children she had never seen, and beg her to have pity on them, remembering that magic sought a way into the world—which wizards must never, give. But Pyetr was her right and wrong. Pyetr was her world outside the woods, and the world inside her heart. Without him, if anything should have happened to him—

Sasha had warned her against killing and against dying— You know what you’d become…

Oh, absolutely she did.