“Come,” said Dmitrii, looking worried now. “Cousin, I know you wish her alive, but she did go in. She could not have come out again.”

“No,” said Sasha, drawing a deep breath. “No, that would be impossible.” But still he glanced again at the red and black hellscape of the river, and then abruptly went to his horse. “I am going to my sister.”

Startled silence. Then Dmitrii understood. “Very well,” he said.

“Tell the Princess of Serpukhov that I—that I am sorry for her grief, and yours. She—was a brave girl. God be with you.”

Words, only words. Sasha knew that Dmitrii could not wholly regret Vasya’s death; she had been a problem he didn’t know how to solve. Yet—the fire had contained no bones. And Vasya—you could not always predict Vasya. Sasha wheeled his mare and kicked her to full gallop up the hill of the posad and through the gates of Moscow.

Dmitrii turned, scowling, to snap orders and marshal his guards.

He was very weary, and now there had been two fires in Moscow, the second, in its own way, as destructive as the first.

SASHA FOUND OLGA’S GATES SMASHED, the dooryard trampled. But Dmitrii had sent all of his own men-at-arms that could be spared.

They had established some kind of order, kept the outbuildings from looting. The dooryard was quiet.

Sasha passed Dmitrii’s men with a soft word. A few of the grooms had straggled back after the crowd went down to the river. Sasha roused one in the stable and thrust him the reins of his mare, barely pausing.

The snow of the dooryard was daubed and spattered with blood, and there were the marks of boots and blades on the door to the terem. A fearful serving-woman opened at last to his knocking; he had to persuade her to let him in.

Olga was sitting by the hot brick of the stove in her bedchamber, still awake and still dressed. Her face was drawn and gray in the candlelight; exhausted shadows smeared her milky beauty. Marya was weeping hysterically into her mother’s lap, black hair flung about like water. The two were alone. Sasha paused in the doorway. Olga took in his filthy, blistered, soot-streaked appearance and blanched.

“If you have news, it can wait,” she said, with a look at the child.

Sasha hardly knew what to say; his faint, terrible hope seemed foolish in the face of the blood-spattered dvor, in the face of Marya’s wild grief. “Is Masha all right?” he said, crossing the room and kneeling beside his sister.

“No,” said Olga.

Marya lifted her head, wet-eyed, with marks like bruising about the lids. “They killed him!” she sobbed. “They killed him and he would never hurt anyone but the wicked, and he loved porridge and they shouldn’t have killed him!” Her eyes were savage. “I am going to wait for Vasya to get back, and we are going to go and kill all the people that hurt him.” She glared about the room and then her eyes welled once more. The rage drained out of her, fast as it had come.

She fell to her knees, hunched up small, weeping into her mother’s lap.

Olga stroked her daughter’s hair. Up close, Sasha could see Olga’s hand tremble.

“There was a mob,” said Sasha, low-voiced. “Vasya—”

Olga put her finger to her lips, with a glance at her sobbing child.

But she shut her black eyes the briefest instant. “God be with her,”

she said.

Marya lifted her head once more. “Uncle Sasha, did Vasya come back with you? She needs us; she will be sad.”

“Masha,” said Olga gently. “We must pray for Vasya. I fear she has not come back.”

“But she—”

“Masha,” said Olga. “Hush. We do not know all that happened; we must wait to find out. Mornings are wiser than evenings. Come, will you sleep?”

Marya would not. She was on her feet. “She has to come back!” she cried. “Where would she go if she didn’t come back?”

“Perhaps she has gone to God,” said Olga, steadily. She did not lie to her children. “If so, let her soul find rest.”

The child stared between her mother and her uncle, lips parted with horror. And then she turned her head, as though someone else in the room were speaking. Sasha followed her gaze to the corner by the stove. There was no one there. A chill ran down his spine.

“No, she hasn’t!” cried Marya, scrambling free of her mother’s arms. She scrubbed at her wet eyes. “She’s not with God. You’re wrong! She’s—where?” Marya demanded of the empty place near the floor. “Midnight is not a place.”

Sasha and Olga looked at each other. “Masha—” Olga began.

There was an abrupt movement in the doorway. They all jumped; Sasha spun, one dirty hand on the hilt of his sword.

“It is I,” said Varvara. Her fair plait straggled; there was soot and blood on her clothes.

Olga stared. “Where have you been?”

Without ceremony, Varvara said, “Vasya is alive. Or was when I left her. They were going to burn her. But she broke the bars of the cage and leaped down unseen. I got her out of the city.”

Sasha had hoped. But he hadn’t really thought how…“Unseen?”

Then he thought of more important things. “Where? Was she wounded? Where is she? I must—”

“Yes, she is wounded; she was beaten by a mob,” said Varvara acidly. “She was also near mad with magic; it came on her suddenly,

in desperation. But she is alive and her wounds aren’t mortal. She escaped.”

“Where is she now?” asked Olga sharply.

“She took the road through Midnight,” said Varvara. There was the strangest combination of wonder and resentment in her face.

“Perhaps she will even reach the lake. I did all I could.”

“I must go to her,” said Sasha. “Where is this road through Midnight?”

“Nowhere,” said Varvara. “And everywhere. But only at midnight.

It is no longer midnight now. In any case, you have not the sight: the power to take the Midnight-road alone. She has gone beyond your reach.”

Olga looked, frowning between Marya and Varvara.

Incredulously, Sasha said, “You expect me to take your word for it?

To abandon my sister?”

“There is no question of abandonment; her fate is out of your hands.” Varvara sank onto a stool as though she weren’t a servant at all. Something had changed, subtly, in her bearing. Her eyes were intent and troubled. “The Eater is loose,” she said. “The creature that men call Medved. The Bear.”

Even after Vasya had told them the truth, in the hours after Moscow had caught fire and been saved by snow, Sasha had hardly believed his sister’s tale of devils. He was about to demand again that Varvara tell him properly where Vasya was, when Olga broke in: