Baba Yaga said, “Give me an unborn life, then, Mercy, so I may restore his.”

I put my hand over my belly—but I wasn’t pregnant. We’d talked about it but had decided to wait before we tried.

“An unborn life is acceptable,” said Underhill slyly, taking in my gesture and my expression.

“You can’t do that,” said Aiden in a low voice. “He’d never want to buy his life with another’s. Especially not his own child’s.”

I got up and went to the backpack and took out one of the hard-boiled eggs, chills sliding down my spine. What if I had just dismissed her remark over the phone? What if I hadn’t decided to bring them along? What if we had eaten them for lunch yesterday, as I’d almost suggested?

I handed Baba Yaga the egg. “One unborn life,” I told her, my voice shaky.

“Hard-boiled are my favorite,” she said, popping the whole thing, shell and all, into her mouth. “I can’t eat them much anymore at home. I keep telling her that just because she stands on a chicken leg doesn’t mean she is a chicken.”

Underhill looked back and forth between me and Baba Yaga. “You tricked me,” she said, looking at me like I was interesting. She looked at Baba Yaga and suddenly smiled—a smile that didn’t belong on a young face, so wise and joyous. She laughed and clapped her hands. “That was fun,” she said. She looked at me. “You should come visit me. We could play a lot of jokes on each other. It would be fun.”

“It could be fun,” I managed. That was the truth, right? The possibility existed that it would be fun—but I’d have put my money on terrifying.

Baba Yaga waved her hands at Adam—and he sucked in a breath of air so hard he choked, and the wolf convulsed, trying to breathe.

It hurt. I could feel it along our bond, but if he hurt, he was alive, so I didn’t mind. Much. I fell to my knees beside him and put my head against his heart so I could hear it beat. He coughed as the pain faded, and tried to get up. It took him two tries, but once he was on his feet, he shook himself briskly. I held him for a moment more.

He was alive. I breathed in, breathed him in, and believed. I wiped my tears—of fright and grief—and then loosened my hold.

“He’s okay?” asked Aiden, sounding, for once, the same age that he looked.

“Of course,” said Baba Yaga. “Everything was done right and proper.”

Adam turned to Baba Yaga and bowed his head. And then he did the same to Underhill. If his gaze was wary, I don’t think anyone else there knew him well enough to notice.