I felt vaguely uncomfortable, like I was observing the mating ritual of a different species. Mama and Papa never touched each other this way, and instead seemed to intentionally avoid it, keeping a wide berth from one another as though they were the opposite poles of a magnet.

“So, now everyone knows,” Annushka said, on a more somber note. “About what you can do.”

Vanya waved a hand dismissively. “Let’s not get started on that. We have more important things to discuss.”

“You’re lucky you have your own roof over your head now, because even my dad thinks you’re a koldun.”

“Good to know. I’ll remember that next time I come over for dinner.” As Annushka rolled her eyes, he turned to me. “Toma, tell her about the two men you’re looking for.”

I choked on the piece of sausage I’d been chewing and swallowed it hastily. “Yes. A man with a black beard, and another with blond hair and bad teeth. Fraktsiya soldiers.”

“Fraktsiya?” Annushka narrowed her eyes. “Why are you looking for Fraktsiya soldiers?”

“That’s none of your concern,” Vanya said.

Restlessly, she rubbed a smudge on the counter. “This isn’t your war, Vanya.”

“It’s all our war,” he said. “Just tell us, did two men like that pass by here yesterday?”

“Who knows?” She confronted him coolly. “It’s none of my concern, as you said.”

“Annushka.” His smile remained, but his voice lost some of its warmth. He glanced back toward the tables at the opposite end of the room, where the other patrons were still eying us with suspicious and resentful expressions. “Are you really going to make me wait here all evening? I’d say we’re a good ten minutes from a bar fight, and then I think your father will like me even less.”

She sighed. “All right. Two strangers like that spent the night yesterday. Kosa nationals, by the sound of their accents.”

“Did they have any luggage?” Vanya asked. “Or strange cargo?”

“A trunk. It looked like the one Gershka’s been trying to sell.” She nodded across the bar, to a haggard man slumped asleep at a table in the corner, surrounded by more than a few tankards. “They must’ve given him a good price. He slept right through the tsurästvo.”

“The riot,” Vanya explained, before setting down his glass. “I’d better talk to him. Maybe he knows more.”

“Did they tell you where they were going?” I asked Annushka as Vanya crossed the room.

She shook her head.

Sighing, I glanced back at Gershka, who had jolted awake at Vanya’s touch. The man raised his tankard with a crooked smile, nearly splashing Vanya in the process. When I looked back, Annushka was watching me.

“Those men you’re looking for, did they do that to your face?” she asked, and there was a hard edge in her voice that hadn’t been there before.

Absently, I raised my fingers to the tender bruise on my temple. “One of them punched me.”

“When you find them, may you pay it back threefold.” Then, as if sensing the deepening tension, she offered me a small smile. “I like your rushnyk.”