At least they were out of sight of the village now. Vasya vaulted to the mare’s back and Morozko got on behind her. The white mare was more finely built than Solovey, but the way she moved reminded her— Trying not to think of the bay stallion, Vasya looked down at Morozko’s hand, lying relaxed on his knee, remembered instead his hands on her skin, his hair coarse and cold, tumbled dark across her breasts.

She shivered at the memory and pushed it away too. They had stolen those hours in Midnight; now they must think only of outmaneuvering a clever and implacable enemy.

But— For distraction, she forced herself to ask a question whose answer she feared. “To bind the Bear—must I sacrifice myself as my father did?”

Morozko did not immediately say no. Vasya began to feel a little sick to her stomach. The mare set off lightly through the snow; more snow drifted down from the sky. Vasya wondered if he called it down in his distress, if it were involuntary, like the beat of a heart. “You promised you’d not lie to me again,” said Vasya.

“I will not,” said Morozko. “It is not so simple as exchanging your life for his binding, the two things interchangeable. Your life is not tied to the Bear’s liberty; you are not just a—token in our war.”

She waited.

“But I gave him power over me,” said Morozko, “when I yielded up my freedom. My twin and I will not be equals in a fight, now.” The words came out gratingly. “Summer is his season. I do not know how to bind him, except with the power of a life freely given, or a trick—”

Pozhar said suddenly, What about the golden thing? The mare had drifted close enough to catch their conversation.

Vasya blinked. “What golden thing?”

The mare threw her head up and down. The golden thing the sorcerer made! When I wore it, I couldn’t fly. I had to do what he said. It is powerful, that thing.

Vasya and Morozko looked at each other. “Kaschei’s golden bridle,” said Vasya, slowly. “If it bound her—might it bind your brother?”

“Perhaps,” said the winter-king, brows drawn together.

“It was in Moscow,” said Vasya, speaking faster and faster in her excitement. “In the stable, Dmitrii Ivanovich’s stable. I pulled it off her head and threw it down, the night Moscow burned. Is it still in the palace? Perhaps it melted in the fire.”

“It would not have melted,” Morozko said. “There is a chance.” She could not see his face, but his hand on his knee closed slowly into a fist.

Vasya, without thinking, leaned over and scratched Pozhar’s neck with delight. “Thank you,” she said. The mare tolerated it a moment before she sidled away.

19.

Allies

SUMMER CAME WITH UNNATURAL SUDDENNESS, fell on Moscow like a conquering army. Fires broke out in the forest, so that the city was palled with smoke and no one could see the sun. Folk went mad from the heat; drowned themselves in the river seeking coolness, or simply dropped where they stood, scarlet-faced, bodies dewed with clammy sweat.