As Vanya busied himself with preparing a kettle of tea, I allowed my gaze to wander around the room. A pheasant hung by its twine-bound legs from a hook above the icebox, a recent kill left to air-dry and tenderize. On the floor by the cast-iron stove, he had left a small dish filled with porridge. I grimaced. No wonder the domovoi never lent a hand to household chores—judging by the surface crust, it had been a good month since Vanya had remembered to refresh the gruel.

“Is it really safe to just be standing around here?” Mikhail asked, crossing his arms. When he wasn’t eying Vanya, he kept glancing out the window.

“Probably not.” Using a bit of burning paper, Vanya lit the potbelly stove. “But I’d say my little trick in the temple gave us another day or two of calm, and nowhere is safe unless you want to hide in the forest. Which raises the question... Why did you come here?”

“We’re just passing through,” Mikhail said. “Do you know of a wagon we can hire to take us to the Grozniy border?”

“Sure, but that’s a good way to get yourself killed. If you’re looking to get into Groznaya, it would be safer for you two to take a train or ferry and avoid the border entirely.”

“I’m not going to Groznaya,” I interrupted.

Vanya furrowed his brows. “But I thought you two were traveling together.”

“Toma,” Mikhail said like it was a warning.

“I’m looking for my sister,” I reminded Vanya. “The Fraktsiya took her. She’s an upyr, and I think they’re going to kill her!”

“An upyr?” Vanya asked in disbelief. “Is that a joke? You can’t be serious.”

My cheeks flushed in indignation. “Stop laughing, Vanya! There’s nothing funny about it. I’m telling the truth.”

Vanya’s amused smile faded. “Shit. You mean it. How is...do you mean an actual upyr? Decaying, hunger for human blood and flesh, upyr?”

“Upyri don’t eat humans. They don’t eat anything. They raised me and protected me.”

“I see...” He studied me. “Since you were an infant?”

“No, a child.”

“I really don’t think now’s a good time for this discussion,” Mikhail cut in.

Vanya ignored him, his full attention on me. “What happened to your parents?”

“I...I don’t remember much of my parents. There are just fragments, but they were alive. I know that. We lived in a small village. I can’t remember its name. My father...” I closed my eyes, trying to remember his face, but it was just a blur. Instead, I imagined Papa, whose decrepit face I had only seen in bits and pieces over the years. “My father worked in a mine. He died in a cave-in. I know that.”

The smell of rust and coal smoke always brought back memories of my childhood. Sitting on my father’s lap by the fire. My mother’s lithe hands ensnared in thread as she worked on her embroidery. Beautiful shards of the life I once knew.