“I’m just hungry and tired.”

“What about your wound? How did it look when you washed up?”

“It’s fine,” he said, shifting his gaze across the kitchen. He kept looking at Vanya when the other boy wasn’t paying attention. I couldn’t decide if he was suspicious of Vanya’s hospitality or merely intrigued.

As for Vanya, it was just as impossible to decipher what was going through his head. He kept glancing out the window or at the rifle propped in the rack against the wall, and even as he prepared our meal, he handled the knife with rough, hard strokes.

Vanya transferred crispy golden slices of roasted pheasant onto a porcelain platter and carried it to the table. He served us tea from an old brass samovar and brought out china so delicate that it must have been an heirloom set. There were only two chairs, but he dragged up a wooden crate that he upturned and sat on.

The pheasant was juicy and succulent, while the braised cabbage was sweet and tangy with a pleasant bite. Hardly like the bitter, stunted cabbages I grew at home.

“This is delicious, Ivan,” Mikhail said, after the first few bites. “You’d put the royal cook out of work.”

“I know it’s probably not what you’re used to, Tsar,” Vanya said, blushing as he looked down at his hardly touched plate. He had been watching us eat so keenly, he had only taken a few bites. Now, he sliced off a massive chunk of meat and shoveled it into his mouth as if he wanted to avoid saying more.

“It’s ten times better than what I can find out in the wilderness,” I said.

“I’ll bet,” Vanya said, once he had managed to swallow his mouthful of food. He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Shocking you didn’t starve to death over the years.”

“I wasn’t the only one scavenging. My family would help me, and I had a small garden and wheat field.”

I took a sip of tea, savoring its sweet, grassy flavor. Mint leaves and tree bark were nothing in comparison. Nor could anything made of acorn flour rival the thick golden slabs of spiced honey cake that Vanya brought out for dessert.

I broke off chunks of the dense cake with my fingertips and savored it a bite at a time, the rich flavors of honey and cinnamon melting on my tongue. A dark, sugary crust had formed on the surface during baking, but the inside was moist and crumbled lusciously.

As I licked the crumbs off my fingertips, someone knocked downstairs. Heavy, jarring blows—once, twice, three times. The strain that had been buried beneath Vanya’s smile all throughout dinner suddenly rose to the surface. He climbed to his feet, his gaze wary.

“Wait here. Maybe my boss is back early.” He nodded to the rifle propped against the wall. “If you hear anything suspicious, it’s loaded.”

Mikhail and I sat stiffly as Vanya opened the door and stepped onto the landing. The air thickened with tension as we waited for him to return, and the cake’s sweetness soured on my tongue.