that the whole village heard. “I loved her, and a curse made me forget. But she came for me and broke the curse and now I must go.

My blessing on you all, this winter.”

Whispers of wonder, even joy. Yelena smiled. “We are doubly blessed,” she said to Vasya. “Sister.” She had a gift in her hands: a magnificent long cloak, wolf without, rabbit within. She gave it to Vasya, embraced her. “Thank you,” she whispered. “May I have your blessing on my firstborn?”

“Health and long life,” said Vasya, a little awkwardly. “For your child, joy in love, and a brave death, a long time from now.”

Zimnyaya Koroleva, they said. The winter-queen. It frightened her. She tried to compose her features.

Morozko stood beside her, deceptively calm, but she could sense the feeling rushing between him and his people: a pull like a current.

His eyes were a deep and astonishing blue. Perhaps he wished even now to go back, to take his place in the feasting, to feed forever on this worship.

But if he doubted his course, he did not let it show on his face.

Vasya was relieved when all the people turned at the sound of hoofbeats. Delight bloomed on a dozen faces. Two horses came flowing over the palisade, one white and one gold. They cut through the crowd, and trotted up to the two of them. Morozko, without a word, leaned his forehead against the neck of the white mare. The horse put her head around and lipped at his sleeve. Pain shot through Vasya, seeing it. “I forgot you too,” he said to the mare, low.

“Forgive me.”

The white mare shoved him with her head, ears back. I don’t know why any of us waited for you. It was very dark.

Pozhar scraped a hoof in the snow in obvious agreement.

“You waited as well,” Vasya said to her, surprised.

Pozhar bit Vasya on the arm and stamped. I am not waiting again.

Vasya said, rubbing the new bruise, “I am glad to see you, lady.”

Morozko said, in some wonder, “She has never taken a rider willingly in all the years of her life.”

“She has not taken one now,” said Vasya hastily. “But she helped to guide me here. I am grateful.” She scratched Pozhar’s withers.

Pozhar, despite herself, leaned into the scratches. You took too long, said the mare again, just to show she didn’t in any way enjoy being coddled, and stamped again.

Vasya’s new cloak lay heavy on her shoulders. “Farewell,” she said to the people. They were round-eyed with wonder. “They think they see a miracle,” Vasya said, low, to Morozko. “It doesn’t feel like one.”

“And yet,” he replied, “a girl alone rescued the winter-king from forgetfulness and stole him away with magic horses. That is miracle enough for one Midwinter.” Vasya found herself smiling as he vaulted to the white mare’s back.

Before he could offer—or not offer—to take her up before him, she said firmly, “I am going to walk. I came here on my own feet, after all.” Walking had been a slogging nightmare of deep snow without snowshoes, but she didn’t say that.

The pale eyes considered her. Vasya wished he wouldn’t. He so obviously saw past her pride—not wanting to be carried away across his saddlebow—to the deeper emotion. The shock of Solovey breaking, falling, was still too raw in memory. It felt wrong now to ride away in triumph.

“Very well,” he said, and surprised her by dismounting.

“You needn’t,” she said. The two horses’ bodies shielded them from the crowd. “You can’t mean to march out of the village like a cowherd? It is beneath your dignity.”

“I have seen uncounted dead,” he returned coolly. “Touched them, sent them on. But I have never done anything to remember them. I can walk now with you, because you cannot ride Solovey beside me.

Because he was brave, and he is gone.”

She hadn’t wept for Solovey. Not properly. She had dreamed of him, waked screaming for him to run, felt his absence as a dull, poisonous ache. But she hadn’t wept, except for a few quelled tears after she nearly slew the mushroom-spirit. Now she felt the tears

starting, stinging. Lightly, Morozko touched his finger to the first, as it ran down to her jaw. It froze at his touch, fell away.

Somehow the act of walking out of that midnight village, while the horses paced beside them, drove home Solovey’s loss in a way that none of the last days’ shocks had. When they had passed the palisade and gone back into the winter forest, Vasya buried her face in the white mare’s mane and she cried all the dammed-up tears that one night in Moscow had left inside her.

The mare stood patiently, blowing warm air onto her hands, and Morozko waited, silent, except that once, he laid cool fingers on the back of her neck.

When at last her tears quieted, she shook her head, wiped her running nose, and tried to think clearly. “We have to go back to Moscow.” Her voice was hoarse.

“As you say,” he said. He still didn’t look happy about it. But he didn’t object again.

If we are going all the way back to Moscow, the white mare put in unexpectedly, then Vasya must get on my back. I can carry both of you. It will be quicker.

Vasya had her lips open in a refusal, but then she noticed Morozko’s expression. “She will not let you say no,” he said mildly.

“And she is right. You will only exhaust yourself, walking. It is you who must hold Moscow in your mind; if I guide us, it will be winter when we arrive.”

At least they were out of sight of the village now. Vasya vaulted to the mare’s back and Morozko got on behind her. The white mare was more finely built than Solovey, but the way she moved reminded her

— Trying not to think of the bay stallion, Vasya looked down at Morozko’s hand, lying relaxed on his knee, remembered instead his hands on her skin, his hair coarse and cold, tumbled dark across her breasts.

She shivered at the memory and pushed it away too. They had stolen those hours in Midnight; now they must think only of outmaneuvering a clever and implacable enemy.

But— For distraction, she forced herself to ask a question whose answer she feared. “To bind the Bear—must I sacrifice myself as my father did?”

Morozko did not immediately say no. Vasya began to feel a little sick to her stomach. The mare set off lightly through the snow; more snow drifted down from the sky. Vasya wondered if he called it down in his distress, if it were involuntary, like the beat of a heart. “You promised you’d not lie to me again,” said Vasya.

“I will not,” said Morozko. “It is not so simple as exchanging your life for his binding, the two things interchangeable. Your life is not tied to the Bear’s liberty; you are not just a—token in our war.”

She waited.

“But I gave him power over me,” said Morozko, “when I yielded up my freedom. My twin and I will not be equals in a fight, now.” The words came out gratingly. “Summer is his season. I do not know how to bind him, except with the power of a life freely given, or a trick—”

Pozhar said suddenly, What about the golden thing? The mare had drifted close enough to catch their conversation.

Vasya blinked. “What golden thing?”

The mare threw her head up and down. The golden thing the sorcerer made! When I wore it, I couldn’t fly. I had to do what he said. It is powerful, that thing.

Vasya and Morozko looked at each other. “Kaschei’s golden bridle,” said Vasya, slowly. “If it bound her—might it bind your brother?”

“Perhaps,” said the winter-king, brows drawn together.

“It was in Moscow,” said Vasya, speaking faster and faster in her excitement. “In the stable, Dmitrii Ivanovich’s stable. I pulled it off her head and threw it down, the night Moscow burned. Is it still in the palace? Perhaps it melted in the fire.”

“It would not have melted,” Morozko said. “There is a chance.” She could not see his face, but his hand on his knee closed slowly into a fist.