“I think she likes you, Ivan,” Mikhail said.

“Would you kindly shut up, Your Highness?”

“Must be all that rusalka blood you have in you.”

Vanya was so busy glowering at Mikhail that he didn’t notice the puddle ahead until he stepped in it, burying his boot up to the ankle.

“No!” he groaned, tearing his boot free. He sighed at the thick, dripping mud and scraped his shoe on the ground. “You know, my father used to say that if you leave yarn or linen out for the mavki, they’ll do something for you in return, like watch over your grazing livestock. It’s also why your clothes sometimes disappear when you hang them out to dry. He told me the mavki steal them.”

“Can you stop talking about your father?” Mikhail growled.

Vanya looked almost as stunned by Mikhail’s outburst as I was. “What’s wrong about me talking about him?”

“I’m sick of hearing about it. You just never shut your mouth. Don’t you realize that you’re the only one here who gives a damn about what your father said?”

“I care,” I said.

Vanya cocked his head, challenging Mikhail with a sarcastic smile. “All right, Tsarushka, let’s hear about your father then. Enlighten us.”

“No.” Mikhail glared at him. “I’m not going to talk about him just so you can twist around everything I say and mock me.”

As they bickered, I searched the forest once more, but there was no sign of the mavka. I sighed, shoving my hands into my coat pockets. The dead could only return once. For saving Galina, this would be my only chance.

“Someone slept poorly this morning,” Vanya said, and walked on ahead, leaving Mikhail and me alone in awkward silence.

“Mikhail, what’s wrong?” I asked softly, once Vanya had put some distance between us.

“Nothing, I just...I’m sick of hearing him talk about it.” Mikhail’s voice caught on the last word. He cleared his throat and continued. “Why does he feel the need to tell us about what his father was like?”

There was something almost defensive about the way Mikhail said it, as if he had taken personal offense to Vanya’s stories. It nagged at the back of my mind as we continued walking.

Mikhail took a deep breath. “You need to understand. My father. My father...”

The muscles tensed in his throat as he struggled with what he wanted to say, as if the words actually had physical weight.

“My father hated me,” Mikhail forced out, a pained grimace contorting his features. “Ever since I could remember, he never told me that he loved me. Never hugged me, never comforted me. Growing up, it felt like he was constantly testing me, but I wouldn’t realize they were tests until I saw his disapproval. I couldn’t even befriend other boys without him remarking on their class, or their uncouthness, or...or the way I acted around them. If I so much as greeted a stable boy or a servant, he’d call me a disgrace, a dishonor to the crown. And nothing I did was ever enough.”