On the other side of the fire, Sofi’s fingers flashed in the light. “The others are afraid,” she signed. “Katerina’s correct; they want someone to blame. But by the time the blame’s done falling, it will have taken Iriska with it. The Magiya is the place most likely to hold answers, and Niko is the person most capable of defending us against the Darkness on the way. As for you, Katerina, who else has journeyed to the Underworld and returned unscathed? Who else has defeated an army of Grigori, with only her Shadow at her side? Damien and I are proud to cast our lot with yours.”
Tears pricked Katerina’s eyes. “Your faith in us means more than you know,” she managed. “All of you. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. But speaking of having faith in you, Katerina, how did you summon the Lisovyki and the Mavka?” Ana twirled one of Alexei’s blades between her fingers, looking more like her usual restless self. “When Gadreel showed up, I thought we were dead, for sure.”
“Oh, that.” In the hubbub of their retreat from Rivki, Katerina had nearly forgotten. “When Niko…when he…” She couldn’t bring herself to use the word died, not with ‘nezhit’ still hanging in the air and her Shadow sitting right beside her. “You remember how I spent all those hours looking through Kalach’s library, Ana? I didn’t find the answers I sought, as you well know. But I did find other things, including how to summon the spirits of the forest in times of need. I thought it might come in handy one day. And…it did,” she finished, a chill washing over her as she remembered where she’d finally discovered the way to save Niko.
What had happened to the Book of the Lost? Was it still hidden beneath her floorboards? Or had Baba and the Elders discovered it, and saw it as further proof of Katerina’s perfidy?
She’d have to ask Ana, but not tonight—especially not now, when her best friend was giving her usual irrepressible grin, looking as gratified as if she’d just bedded the most gorgeous woman or man in Rivki. “You, Katerina Ivanova,” she announced, scooping up the last apple, “are a hard woman to kill.”
“And a stubborn one,” Niko murmured, giving her a sideways glance. She hadn’t told him about the hours she’d spent in the library, hours that until now, she’d thought were wasted. But she hadn’t given up, either.
“I was afraid they weren’t going to come,” she admitted. “The spirits of the forest… They could have decided not to answer. If they’d decided I was unworthy…” Her voice trailed off, the terror she’d felt when Gadreel and his army had materialized gripping her once more. It had been such a long shot, praying to the Lords of the Forest and the Mistress of the Waters. If they had refused to answer—if they had turned their backs—it would have broken Katerina’s heart.
Sofi’s brows knitted. “Why would they think that?” she signed.
It was just like Sofi to always see the best in people. She and her gentle Shadow were too good for this world. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because I destroyed a sacred maze, flooded Rivki, burned the Druzhina’s alpha Shadow, and?—”
“And you’re bonded to me.” Niko’s voice was low, matter-of-fact, but the tension in his shoulders told a different story. “They might have decided you were corrupted, and drowned us alongside the Grigori.”
Again, Katerina wondered what the Mavka had said to him, but now was definitely not the time to ask. “That’s not what I was going to say,” she protested, but her Shadow snorted, stabbing the stick that had skewered his dinner into the dirt.
“If it wasn’t,” he said, his tone carefully devoid of emotion, “it should have been.”
“Oh, for the love of the trifold Saints. Didn’t we just go through this?” Ana rolled her eyes, tossing her apple in the air and catching it again. “The spirits answered you.” She pointed Alexei’s blade at Katerina. “The Mavka spared you.” The tip of the blade twitched in Niko’s direction. “And we”—she swept the blade in a wide arc, and Alexei winced—“are no fools.”
“I never said—” Katerina began, but Ana wasn’t finished.
“All of us told you why we’re on your side,” she said, glaring from Niko to Katerina and back again. “Well, this is yet another reason. If you won’t listen to us, then maybe you’ll accept the judgment of Iriska itself. The land has blessed us and our journey. It’s blessed you.” There went the blade again, this time in Katerina’s direction.
“Will you watch it with that thing?” She scooted backward, alarmed, and Ana snorted.
“Oh, cut it out. I’ve been handling a blade since I could toddle. Relax,” she said to Alexei, who was crouching now, clearly prepared to wrest the knife from his Dimi’s grip. “All I mean to say is, there’s no higher vindication than this, Katerina. If any of us—if you—needed proof that this quest is blessed by the Saints, then we’ve just gotten it. So, quit worrying, would you?”
“Agreed.” Damien fed another piece of wood to the fire. “I’ll never forget what I saw today. And if the Druzhina and Prince Regent had seen it too, they’d be forced to change their minds. The spirits of the forest don’t answer to just anyone. I haven’t heard of anyone actually summoning them, not outside myths and legends.”
Next to him, Sofi stirred. “What if,” she signed, the motions tentative, “there’s a reason for that?”
“What do you mean?” Katerina tilted her head in puzzlement, leaning back against the trunk of an oak that edged their clearing. The bark was rough and jagged, but the trunk was steady, an anchor in an ocean of unknowns.
“The Darkness is rising.” Sofi shrugged. “What if the Light is rising to counteract it, in equal measure?”
The six of them were silent as Sofi’s words sank in. The more Katerina thought about it, the more the idea made sense. The world sought balance, after all; Baba Petrova had always taught them that. When she and Niko had come back from the Bone Trials, Baba had said as much: that the existence of Katerina’s four-fold powers was linked to the mounting threat of the Darkness. Maybe that was true, and maybe it wasn’t. Baba had been wrong about so much. But this made sense: Iriska itself, and the human world beyond its borders, were under siege. The spirits of the forest were the embodiment of the land, as Ana had said. They were guardians. Perhaps they were fighting back, rousing themselves in ways they hadn’t had to do for centuries, to protect what belonged to them.
It was a frightening thought, but also a welcome one. It meant Katerina and her friends were not alone.
“So, what’s the plan?” With a flourish, Ana skinned her apple in a single unbroken stretch of peel and handed each of them a slice. “We ride for the Magiya, lift this curse from Niko, and then corral the Darkness back into the Void where it belongs?”
There was no sarcasm in her friend’s voice, but Katerina felt foolish, all the same. The plan had more holes than a sieve, but what choice did they have?
“The scribes at the Magiya have dedicated their lives to understanding magic,” she said. “Their books are our greatest repository of knowledge. And, well, a book saved us today. If answers can’t be found there…well, then they’re nowhere.”
Her words fell like lead into the quiet of the night, broken only by the chirp of crickets and the crackle of twigs. The fire burned steadily as five of them stretched out beside it, with Ana taking first watch. Katerina hadn’t expected Niko to take her in his arms, after what he’d said before the Druzhina had captured them—but it still hurt to see him turn away from her, giving her the long line of his back. He’d peeled off his shirt to air it out and slept bare-chested, his skin gleaming in the moonlight. Unable to look at him without reaching for him, Katerina closed her eyes.
She drifted off into an uneasy sleep, beneath the moon that, somehow, was still full. She expected to dream of her dank cell in Rivki’s dungeons, or of their harrowing escape. But instead, she sank down into a quiet, still place, as if she were not just falling asleep but truly falling. And when she opened her eyes, she was not by their campfire at all.
Katerina stood in front of a small blue house she hadn’t seen since childhood. It was her grandmother’s cottage, burned to the ground in the aftermath of a Grigori raid. Katerina had always loved this house, with its ever-present stew simmering in an iron pot above the fire and the sprigs of lavender that her grandmother sewed into the pillowcases, to encourage sweet and restful dreams. She remembered feeling safe here, tucked beneath a down comforter as her grandmother spun stories of the Lisovyki and the Mavka, of the Domovoy and the Kikimora, of Koschei the Deathless, who concealed his demise within nested objects: a needle inside a quail egg inside a rabbit inside a rune-spelled chest with no key. Her favorites had been the tales of Kitezh, the Invisible City beneath Lake Svetloyar, where the streets smelled of chocolate and flowers, and each silver-spired dome was more majestic than the next.
