This was what we needed—to be here, to be held.

Our sobs slowly faded into quiet tears and then into hitched, rough breaths and soothing silence. Vanya settled onto his knees, wiping his wet eyes with the backs of his hands. Tears trickled down his cheeks, vaguely pink in the glow of the rising sun.

I climbed to my feet and picked up his greatcoat. Although the rusalki had retrieved scraps of his trousers, shirt, and undergarments, the Fraktsiya coat he’d stolen from the train was the only article of clothing to survive mostly intact. The surviving soldier must have wrapped his desecrated body in it before tossing him into the river.

As I lifted the coat, meaning to draw it over his shoulders, he took it from my hands.

“I can do it on my own,” Vanya muttered, sliding his arms into the sleeves. He struggled to wedge the buttons into their holes, but after several tries succeeded. The coat hung to his calves, sparing me the sight of his disfigured body.

I picked up my rushnyk and wrapped it around my neck. It was too torn to serve as a shawl or sash, but it sufficed as a scarf. It took me a bit of looking, but I found my dropped pistol as well, and stuck it into my dress pocket.

I helped Vanya to his feet and walked beside him, my arm around his back. Bushes rustled. Maybe an animal. Maybe a mavka or vodyanoy. But the monsters of the forest didn’t frighten me the way humans did.

Vanya shivered against me, teeth chattering. Each breath he took was choked and abrupt, like he was trying to relearn how to breathe.

We made it to the glade, where flies had begun to gather on the two soldiers’ corpses. I avoided looking too closely at them as I searched their bodies for anything that might aid us. One of the soldiers had a bag of supplies, which I slung over my shoulder after sticking Dronov’s pistol into an outer pocket. I turned away as Vanya took the man’s boots and clothing.

The boots proved to be a greater challenge than the buttons had. His blued fingertips fumbled with the laces, and after several tries, he swore and pressed his hands over his face, tears welling anew in his eyes.

“Don’t worry,” I said softly, kneeling down to tie his boots for him. “You’re tired, that’s all. You’ll feel better after you’ve rested.”

He said nothing until we left the clearing for untamed forest, only to ask, “Mikhail? Is he...?”

“He had a good medic to take care of him, so physically, he’s probably fine. They were preparing to take him to Eyry Castle.”

Returning to the camp would be pointless and deadly. Hours had passed since I had fled, and there was no doubt in my mind that Mikhail and Galina were long gone by now.

“These stitches.” Vanya’s voice was thick. “You were the one who did it, weren’t you?”