“Fire isn’t what we have to worry about,” Vanya said. “After Kupalo’s old temple was burned down two hundred years ago, we rebuilt it with wood that’s been specially treated so that it’s practically fireproof. I doubt even a bogatyr’s flames would have much effect on it.”

A nearby explosion shook the building. Dust fell from the ceiling, and the floorboards rattled beneath our feet.

Vanya grimaced, holding on to a pew. As the temple’s shuddering ceased, something broke inside of him. His lips disappeared into a puckered line, a gruff choking sound coming from deep inside his throat. He lifted his hand to his mouth and turned his face away from me, gripping the back of the pew even tighter than before.

“It’s never been this bad before,” he said, features gaunt with anxiety. “I never...I never had to shoot someone. I’ve hunted before, but what I did back there, it...was different. Just pulling the trigger. It was easy. I don’t understand it. Taking another person’s life, how can it be so easy? Shit. Shit! How could they have come prepared to do this? Damn it! How could anyone be prepared to do this?”

Slowly, he sank down on the pew, his gaze focusing on the glow filtering through the dome’s oculus. In shadow, his wavy, unkempt hair was almost black, but in sunlight it was the color of dried blood. “Just give me a moment, please. I just... My chest hurts. I need to breathe.”

“Of course.” I sat down next to him, resting my musket muzzle-up against the seat.

Listening to Vanya’s rough breaths and watching his strength fissure, I felt a piercing urge to comfort him. I reached out and placed my hand over his, rubbing gentle circles over the area between his thumb and index finger. The gesture had always soothed Galina, and I hoped it would have the same effect on Vanya.

Exhaling slowly, he closed his eyes. We were strangers, but that didn’t stop him from leaning against me, shoulder to shoulder. Subdued tremors racked his body, as though he was still feeling the explosion’s aftermath.

“My name is Ivan Zoravich,” he mumbled.

It struck me as slightly ridiculous that he would introduce himself so formally, as though we were both adults, but then I realized that he needed to do it this way. Because someone his age shouldn’t have been forced to shoot a grown man in the face. Because this outer world did not favor youth or innocence.

“It’s Tamar, right?” He squeezed my hand softly. “Or Tamara?”

“No, just Toma.”

“Short for what?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing,” he repeated, and laughed as if I had made a joke without realizing it. “What’s your matronym?”

“I’m not Strannik.”

“Your patronym then.”

“I don’t have one either,” I said, because I didn’t want to think about my biological father or my birth family at all.

Papa—once Anatoly, when he had still breathed—had always been just Papa to me. Even though he was more important to me than my real father had ever been, I couldn’t bring myself to take the patronym of Anatolyevna.