The water spirit’s searing gold eyes confronted me, and his fish-pale lips twisted in a smile—a bared rictus devoid of mirth or amusement, simply muscle memory or the warning grin of a stalking wildcat. His first row of teeth was dull and knobby, designed for crushing bone, but behind it I discerned another row much sharper, the kind of fangs meant for bloodletting.

My finger trembled over the trigger. Somehow shooting the vodyanoy seemed even more vicious than turning my weapon against human opponents. When Mama had drawn Papa back from the brink, she had brought him old books and rusted chunks of machinery until his wasted fingers relearned the cogs and gearwork. Perhaps there was a way to help the water spirit recall who he had once been.

“I don’t want to shoot you,” I called as he waded toward us. “Please, don’t make me do this. Just go away, and we won’t hurt you.”

“Toma, you can’t talk this one down,” Vanya shouted as Mikhail lurched into a sitting position, coughing and spitting up muddy water. “It’s not human.”

“You were a person once,” I insisted, talking faster now, propelled by the same desperate urge that had once led me to search for my mother in every ruined building and hollow, as though, if I looked hard enough, she would return to me alive and well. “I know you can understand me. I know you’re listening. Please, I don’t want to fight you.”

The water spirit hesitated. His webbed fingers strayed to the scale-encrusted scars twisting down his belly, the memory of disembowelment.

His lips puckered around a sound, a word even, but all that came out was a low, plaintive groan. In his gaze, I caught a trace of anger flanked by the deepest sorrow. Turning away from us, he retreated beneath the surface, swimming upstream and leaving in his wake a trail of ripples.

“By Voserka,” Vanya whispered, staring at me. “How did you do that?”

I shook my head, my fingers straying to the rushnyk around my waist. “It wasn’t me.”

Once more, my mother’s keepsake had protected me. I could feel it in my heart.

“You okay, Mikhail?” I asked, turning to him as he wiped the mud from his face with the back of his hand.

“I thought it was a man,” Mikhail croaked, his features stricken. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I just...I was just trying to help him.”

His body trembled uncontrollably. When I reached out to place a hand on his forearm, he slapped it away hard enough to sting my fingers. I recoiled in surprise.

“I’ll admit, Tsarushka, that wasn’t exactly how I envisioned our first kiss,” Vanya said with a strained laugh, and Mikhail shot him a look sharp enough to draw blood.

“Go jump in the pond, Ivan,” Mikhail snarled, staggering to his feet. “I’m sure the vodyanoy will give you plenty.”

“Wait, you shouldn’t get up—” I began.

“Thank you for your concern, Toma, but I’m fine.” Without even waiting for us to rise to our feet, Mikhail strode from the clearing, leaving a drizzle of mud and water in his wake.