I took my time wending my way back through the dark passages. It was quiet down here, and I’d barely had a moment to think since Baghra had told me her story. I knew she’d intended it as a cautionary tale, and yet my thoughts kept returning to the little girl who’d been thrown into the river with Ilya Morozova. Baghra thought she’d died. She’d dismissed her sister as otkazat’sya—but what if she simply hadn’t shown her power yet? She was Morozova’s child too. What if her gift was unique, like Baghra’s? If she had survived, her father might have taken her with him in pursuit of the firebird. She might have lived near the Sikurzoi, her power passed down from generation to generation, over hundreds of years. It might have finally shown itself in me.

It was presumption, I knew. Terrible arrogance. And yet, if we found the firebird near Dva Stolba, so close to the place of my birth, could it really be coincidence?

I stopped short. If I was related to Morozova, that meant I was related to the Darkling. And that meant I’d almost … the thought made my skin crawl. No matter how many years and generations might have passed, I still felt like I needed a scalding bath.

My thoughts were interrupted by Nikolai striding down the hall toward me.

“There’s something you should see,” he said.

“Is everything all right?”

“Rather spectacular, actually.” He peered at me. “What did the hag do to you? You look like you ate a particularly slimy bug.”

Or possibly exchanged kisses and a bit more than that with my cousin. I shuddered.

Nikolai offered me his arm. “Well, whatever it is, you’ll have to cringe about it later. There’s a miracle upstairs, and it won’t wait.”

I looped my arm through his. “Never one to oversell it, are you, Lantsov?”

“It’s not overselling if you deliver.”

We’d just started up the stairs when Mal came bounding down in the opposite direction. He was beaming, his face alight with excitement. That smile was like a bomb going off in my chest. It belonged to a Mal I’d thought had disappeared beneath the scars of this war.

He caught sight of me and Nikolai, arms entwined. It took the briefest second for his face to shutter. He bowed and stepped aside for us to pass.

“Headed the wrong way,” said Nikolai. “You’re going to miss it.”

“Be up in a minute,” Mal replied. His voice sounded so normal, so pleasant, I almost believed I’d imagined that smile.

Still, it took everything in me to keep climbing those stairs, to keep my hand on Nikolai’s arm. Despise your heart, I told myself. Do what needs to be done.

When we reached the top of the stairs and entered the Spinning Wheel, my jaw dropped. The lanterns had been extinguished so that the room was dark, but all around us, stars were falling. The windows were lit with streaks of light cascading over the mountaintop, like bright fish in a river.