“Are you sure you’ll be all right on your own?”

“I’ve hunted wolves and bears before, Mikhail. I’ll be fine, trust me.”

He sighed, relenting. “All right, but meet me at the bridge when the clock tower strikes the hour, and promise me you’ll be careful. Don’t go with any strange men—or any strangers in general—and don’t stray far. I’m going to figure out whose command this town is under and try to find someone who will buy my jewels.”

In my mind, trying to barter a pocketful of diamonds and rubies would be just as conspicuous as if he’d come in wearing a crown, but what did I know? Mikhail had gotten a royal education, after all.

He crossed the street and hesitated like he wanted me to follow. I smiled reassuringly then walked in the other direction, looking into shop windows and at people. They eyed me, wary of my clothes, or the musket slung skyward over my shoulder, or just an unfamiliar face.

Once I reached a crossroads, I circled back the way I came, walking along the river. There were more buildings on the other side of the waterway, and I crossed over the bridge connecting the two banks.

The river was calm and placid, as dark as a tarnished mirror. No rusalki swam in its depths, perhaps in part due to the spiked pilings lining its banks. Beneath the bridge, I caught glimpses of sunken copper caltrops, their barbs green with verdigris.

I had read about defenses like these. Before the introduction of the Yezmirskiy steam engine, cargo ships would be dragged upstream by troops of barge haulers, men and women yoked to vessels from the time the ice melted in the spring until the Vesna froze over once more. It was a deadly job for only the most desperate, and many fell victim to the rusalki and vodyanye if exhaustion didn’t claim them first, or so the stories told. To protect the barge haulers, such barricades had been built along the major waterways, and even in the wilds, I still came across the mussel-encrusted remnants of pilings washed up along the strand.

For the first time, it occurred to me that out here, such precautions were still necessary. That the restless dead were something to be feared.

Clinging to the rocky shore like teeth along a decaying palate, the buildings on the other side of the river appeared in danger of crumbling away entirely. Some were built upon the ruins of even older structures, patches of new brick and stone clashing with the age-blackened wood and weathered plaster.

Turning down the street, I followed it along until I entered a market square. Stalls were set up along the courtyard’s outer edge, while in the center, other vendors sold their wares out of pushcarts or simply piled them in baskets and atop rugs.

I stood to the side for a moment and studied the people walking past. Some dressed in the same fashion as their neighbors across the river, except there was not a hint of white or red upon them. The majority wore heavily embroidered black tunics, the stitching as elaborate as anything I’d created, although in the goldwork singular to Strannik craft.