One of the Dark Messenger’s strong hands was sufficient to pin the boy there against the wall, feet dangling in the winter night, and he reached the long, twiggy fingers of the other into Yehuda Leib’s glowing pocket and took back the light, which sputtered, flickering in his grasp.

With disgust, the Dark One dropped Yehuda Leib to the ground and tucked the little bottle deep into the blackness of his coat.

“Take my advice, boy,” he said. “Go home. Do what you’re told.”

And, leaving Yehuda Leib in a sobbing heap on the cobbles, the Angel of Death turned and began to stumble away.

“Nothing at all is permanent,” said Death into the night. “Not even you.”

Chapter Ten: The Next Mourning

That night, Yehuda Leib slept where he’d fallen, crumpled at the foot of a dead end. Bluma slept beside the Rebbe’s granddaughter on the rostrum of the Great Synagogue of Zubinsk, and even the Messenger of Death, accustomed as it was to remaining awake for millennia, stumbled into the cemetery and passed out in an empty grave, scattering imps and goblins in its wake.

But on the other side of the forest in silent Tupik, warm beneath the blankets of his own bed, Issur Frumkin could not sleep a wink.

A small patch of moonlight.

Yehuda Leib, looking very small.

A pool of blood.

A dead man.

He tried to forget, tried to push the memory out of his mind, but no matter how he tossed and turned and squeezed his eyes shut, still, there he was: Avimelekh, bleeding, flat on his back, boots squirming in the churned and slushy snow.

The look in his eyes: knowledge—understanding.

Issur could still feel the reverberation all the way up to his elbow, the way the pot had buzzed and hummed at the impact, and as he lay in bed trying to force his memory to look away, he kneaded the flesh of his arm as if trying to blot the sensation out.

He had never meant to hurt the man.

He’d just wanted to help.

He had to stop thinking about it, had to replace the memory with something else, something pleasant, something that would allow him to drift peacefully off and get some rest.

The smell of Sabbath preparations: warm bread and roasting meat.

The glow of candles.

Light.

With effort, Issur slowed his breathing. Bit by bit, his muscles slackened.

After a short time, he began to doze.

But outside the hallway window stood a bare tree, and when the wind stirred, the knobbled knuckles of its twiggy fingers brushed against the window glass. And from the inside of his bedroom, this sounded very much like rattling spurs.

Issur tore back his bedroom door and peered out into the empty corridor.

No. There was no one here: only the shadow of the tree on the wall, shifting and shuckling in the moonlight.

There was no one.