By the time I guided Mikhail back to my room, I had already made up my mind—I would search for Galina as well. I refused to lose any more of the people precious to me, and there was no way a storm would get in my way.

I locked the door to Mikhail’s room behind me. Prisoner or not, he couldn’t be going anywhere in his condition. The last thing I needed was to hunt him down, too.

I brought the lantern down from the second floor and put on my coat and boots. As I tied my laces, I glanced at the cellar door. I had hidden the musket behind some barrels, wrapped in an oilcloth to protect it from the elements. It would make a good weapon, but the box of lead shot and the powder horn were still in Mikhail’s room. If I went back in there, it would raise too many questions. Besides, I didn’t plan to go far, and if rain damaged my musket, I’d never be able to repair it.

After slinging my satchel over my shoulder, I tamed my dark, disheveled hair into a bun that I tucked under my fur ushanka. I wrapped a scarf around my face to protect my skin from the biting wind and ventured out into the night.

Leaving the izba was like jumping into a frigid pond—a sudden immersive chill that took my breath away. Holding the lantern in front of me and ducking my chin down, I trudged forward.

“Galina?” I called as I headed toward the river, searching the ground for twitching fingers or torn rags. My teeth chattered uncontrollably, and cold water sank into my boots. “Are you out here?”

The wind responded by slapping another wave of sleet in my face. I doubted Galina would be able to hear me no matter how loudly I shouted, and her creaky voice was so soft, I’d never catch it over the howling storm.

The river was swollen to the edges of the banks, and sleet encrusted the bridge. Skidding across the wood, I gripped onto the railing to steady myself. Perhaps the rusalki ignored me, but there were other creatures in the river—I had seen their webbed footprints in the mud along the foreshore and the mauled animals left from their bloodlust.

Alder trees that only a few days ago had been covered in a wealth of gold leaves now stood threadbare. Sloshing through drifts of slimy leaves, I picked my way south along the riverside. After making it some distance, I spotted a light burning in the window of an abandoned home.

It couldn’t be Galina. She wouldn’t know how to set a fire, not that she even needed it except to keep the frightening darkness at bay. But she may have seen it and become curious.

Exposed rafters, rotten thatch and boards. Part of the decorative wooden trim that had once adorned the izba’s roof now protruded from the mud like a dislocated jaw. Nearing the home, I extinguished my lantern, set it on the ground in the cover of the eaves, and crawled through a broken-out window. Sleet pounded against the roof, far louder than the taps of my boots as they touched down.