“No,” said his sister. “You don’t need it, Sasha.”

The shadow, Sasha realized, was a man. A man whose eyes were two points of light, colorless as water. Not a man. A monster.

He drew his sword. “Who are you?”

MOROZKO MADE NO ANSWER, but Vasya could feel the anger in him. He and the monks were natural enemies.

Catching her brother’s eye, she saw with an unpleasant feeling that Sasha’s fury wasn’t just the impersonal disdain of a monk for a devil. “Vasya, do you know this—creature?”

Vasya opened her mouth, but Morozko stepped into the light and spoke first. “I marked her from her childhood,” he said coolly. “Took her into my own house, bound her to me with ancient magic, and put her on the road to Moscow.”

Vasya glared wordlessly at Morozko. Her brother’s disdain was obviously not one-sided. Of all the things he might have said to Sasha first.

“Vasya,” Sasha said. “Whatever he has done to you—”

Vasya cut him off. “It doesn’t matter. I have ridden across Rus’ dressed as a boy; I have walked alone into darkness and come out alive. It is too late for your scruples. Now—”

“I am your brother,” said Sasha. “It concerns me; it concerns every man in our family that this—”

“You left us when I was a child!” she interrupted. “You have given yourself first to your religion and second to your Grand Prince. My life and my fate lie beyond your judgment.”

Rodion broke in, bristling. “We are men of God,” he said. “That is a devil. Surely nothing more needs to be said?”

“I think,” said Sergei, “that a little more must be said.” He did not speak loudly, but everyone turned to him.

“My daughter,” said Sergei calmly, “we will hear your tale from the beginning.”

THEY SAT DOWN AROUND the fire. Rodion and Sasha did not sheathe their swords. Morozko did not sit at all; he paced, restless, as though he did not know which he disliked more: the monks and their hostile firelight or the hot summer darkness.

Vasya told the entire story, or the parts of it she could. She was hoarse by the end. Morozko did not speak; she got the impression that it was taking all his concentration not to disappear. Her touch might have helped, or her blood, but her brother kept a brooding eye on the frost-demon, and she thought it better not to provoke him. She kept her arms around her knees.

When her voice wound raggedly to a halt, Sergei said, “You have not told us everything.”

“No,” said Vasya. “There are things that have no words. But I have spoken the truth.”

Sergei was silent. Sasha’s hand still toyed with the hilt of his sword. The fire was dying; Morozko seemed paradoxically more real in the faint red glow than he had in the full light of flames. Sasha and Rodion looked at him with open hostility. To Vasya it seemed suddenly that her hope was a foolish one; that it was impossible that these two powers would make common cause. Trying to put all her conviction into her voice, she said, “There is evil walking free in Moscow. We must face it together, or we will fall.”