Such a current of rage and bitter memory ran between her and Konstantin that even the guards must have felt it, for they made a path for her. But they closed ranks again at her back, swords in their hands.

Stark in Vasya’s mind was the last time she’d faced Konstantin Nikonovich. Her horse’s blood lay between them, and her own life.

Now it was Olga who was caught up in their hatred; Vasya thought of a cage of fire, and she was deathly afraid.

But her voice didn’t shake.

“I am here,” said Vasya. “Let my sister go.”

KONSTANTIN DIDN’T SPEAK IMMEDIATELY. The Bear did. Was it her imagination or did his face show an instant of unease? “Still in your right mind?” the Bear said to Vasya. “A pity. Well met again, brother,” he added to Morozko. “What magic pulled you from my grip before—?” He broke off, looking between Vasya and the winter-king.

“Ah,” he said, softly. “Stronger than I would have guessed: her power and your bond both. Well it is no matter. Hoping to be beaten again?”

Morozko made no answer at all. His eyes were on the gate as though he could see beyond the bronze-studded wood. “Hurry, Vasya,” he said.

“You can’t stop it,” said Medved.

Konstantin flinched at the sound of the Bear’s voice. His knife was fraying the cloth of the veil about Olga’s face. As though she were speaking to a frightened horse, Vasya said to Konstantin, “What do you want, Batyushka?”

Konstantin didn’t answer; she could see he didn’t really know. All his prayers had earned him only silence from God. Yielding up his soul to the Bear had won him neither that creature’s honesty nor his loyalty. In the stinging grip of his own self-hatred, he wanted to hurt her by any means, and had not thought beyond.

His hands shook. Only Olga’s headdress and veil were keeping her from being cut by accident. The Bear cast a benign eye over the scene, drinking up the raw emotion of it, but most of his attention was still on the world outside Dmitrii’s walls.

Olga was white to the lips but dignified still. Her eyes met Vasya’s without a tremor. With trust.

Vasya said to Konstantin, showing him her open palms, “I will yield myself up to you, Batyushka. But you must let my sister go up into the terem, let her go back to the women.”

“Trick me, witch?” Konstantin’s voice had lost none of its beauty, but the control was gone; it boomed and cracked. “You yielded to the fire too; but it was all a trick. Am I to be taken in again? You and your devils. Bind her hands,” he added to the guard. “Bind her hands and feet. I will keep her in a chapel where devils cannot get in uninvited, and she cannot trick me again.”

The guards stirred uneasily, but none of them made a decisive movement forward.