“So, you’ll spend the rest of your life in isolation?”

I found myself at a loss for words.

Vanya sighed, running a hand through his hair. His gaze shifted out the window. “Maybe I should stay, too.”

“I can’t expect that of you.” Just the words made my heart ache. He didn’t belong in the wilderness. It was not his world. But I was beginning to sense that it wasn’t mine either; for seven years, I had only been a visitor there.

“It would be fitting, wouldn’t it?” A wry smile touched his lips, and his fingers strayed to the bandages around his wrist. “The wilderness is for kolduny and monsters.”

“You’re not a monster, Vanya.”

“Aren’t we all?”

As he glanced out the window, I stared down at his hands. The broken nails hadn’t grown in yet, and his cuticles were marred by purplish bruises. His skin was so fair that I could see the bluish branching of veins beneath—the only proof that his blood still flowed.

But that did not make him human.

It had been many days since he last ate, and at night he strayed restlessly through the airship’s dark bowels. He could only choke down a few mouthfuls of water at a time, and if he tried to drink more than that, he gagged and coughed until it welled from his mouth, pink with diluted blood.

It frightened me. He was not an upyr, but not alive either.

Deathless or not, Vanya’s ability to feel hadn’t been taken away. I could tell that he was worried for the people in his town, but if he had confided in Mikhail about his concerns before we set out on the journey home, he had done so in private. He had made it clear to both of us that he didn’t want the Otzvuk to know he was Strannik. I couldn’t say that I blamed him and felt uncomfortable divulging my own heritage as well.

Whenever Vanya was in the presence of Otzvuk officers, he became standoffish, anger and loathing buried in his gaze. In confidence, he told me that he couldn’t forgive the Otzvuk for what they had done in his town.

“I hate them for it,” he said, when we had been given a moment alone after our meeting with Colonel Fyodorov. “I despise them. But the way I see it, there are only two options. I can learn to tolerate them the way Inga did, or I can leave and do what? Run to Yezmirny or Groznaya? No. This is my country. This is the country my father died for. I’m not just going to stand by and let it burn. Here, I can make a difference. I think we can actually change things, Toma. Mikhail is different. If he regains his throne, he won’t be like his father.”

I was slowly realizing that he saw siding with Mikhail as something different than siding with the tsarists—the two were irrevocably linked, but not the same in Vanya’s eyes. Ever since we’d ended up in Otzvuk custody, I had thought long and hard about Vanya’s decision to help Mikhail. It wasn’t out of greed or hunger for power, but a profound desire to change the empire from within, through diplomacy and policy instead of violent upheaval. Despite Vanya’s cynicism, I sensed that he truly did wish to believe in human kindness and empathy.