She dropped her hand. “Do you think the Bear knows you’re here?”

“No,” said Morozko. “I will try to keep it that way. Best we take two days on the road, and go into Moscow in bright morning.”

“Because of the dead things?” said Vasya. “The upyry? His servants?”

“They only walk at night,” he said. His colorless eye was savage. Vasya bit her lip.

An old war, Ded Grib had called it. Had she made herself a third power in it as the chyert suggested? Or merely taken the winter-king’s side? The wall of years between them suddenly seemed as insurmountable as it had been before the night in the bathhouse.

But she forced herself to say crisply, “I imagine that by the end of the day even my brother would sell his soul for cold water. Please do not bait him.”

“I was angry,” he said.

“We won’t be traveling with them for long,” she said.

“No,” he returned. “I will endure the summer as long as I can, but, Vasya, I cannot endure it forever.”

THEY ATE NOTHING; it was too hot. All of them were flushed and sweating even before they started off. They took the narrow track that wound alongside the Moskva, approaching the city from the east. Vasya’s stomach knotted with nerves. Now that they’d come to it, she did not want to go back to Moscow. She was deathly afraid. She trudged through the dust, trying to remember that she could do magic, that she had allies. But it was hard to believe, in the harsh light of day.

Morozko had let the white mare go, to graze beside the river and keep out of the sight of men. He was staying out of sight himself: little more than a cool breeze ruffling the leaves.

The sun rose higher and higher over the swooning world. Gray shadows lay like bars of iron along the trail. To their left ran the river. To their right was a vast wheat-field, red-gold as Pozhar’s coat, hissing as a hot wind flattened the stalks. The sun was like a mallet between the eyes. The path coated their feet with dust.

On and on they walked, still passing the wheat. It seemed endless. It seemed…Suddenly Vasya halted, shading her eyes with a hand, and said, “How large is this field?”

The men stopped when she did; now they looked at each other. No one could tell. The hot day seemed interminable. Morozko was nowhere to be seen. Vasya peered out over the wheat-field. A whirlwind of dust spun through the red-gold grass; the sky was dull with yellow haze, the sun overhead—still overhead…How long had it been overhead?

Now that they’d stopped, Vasya saw that the monks were all flushed and breathing fast. Faster than before? Too fast? It was so hot. “What is it?” asked Sasha, wiping the sweat from his face.

Vasya pointed to the whirlwind. “I think—”