The unexpected kindness almost drove tears from her; she realized how bewildered and frightened she had been, and still was. But she had no time for tears.

“No,” she said. “I thank you.” She had decided. To end the Bear’s mischief once and for all, she needed the winter-king.

So she fled, a wraith in the darkness.

15.

Farther, Stranger Countries

THE MOON WAS HANGING NEAR the horizon and it was still endless, sapping night. Vasya was barefoot, and now she was cold.

Ded Grib popped out from behind a stump, clutching Vasya’s basket. He looked outraged. “You are wet,” he said. “And you are lucky I kept you in sight. What if you and I and the horse had all gone into different midnights? You would have been lost.”

Vasya’s teeth were chattering. “I didn’t think of it,” she said to her little ally. “You are so wise.”

Ded Grib looked a little mollified.

“I am going to have to find somewhere to dry my clothes,” Vasya managed. “Where is Pozhar?”

“There,” said Ded Grib, pointing to a glimmer in the darkness. “I kept you both in sight.”

Vasya, in gratitude, bowed deeply and sincerely before him, and then she said, “Can you find a place where no one will see if I build a fire?”

Grumbling, he did. She laid a fire and then hesitated, looking at the wood, feeling the rage and terror—and flame—in her soul just waiting to be let out.

The sticks went up in a shower of sparks, almost before she thought of it, and reality at once yawed at her feet. The infinite darkness of this place already weighed on her; now it felt a hundred times worse.

Her shaking hand crept to the lump in her clothes, where the domovaya had sewn the wooden nightingale. Her hand closed around it. It felt like an anchor.

A light gleamed through the thick trees. Pozhar came out of the dark, mincing in the bracken. She shook her mane. Stop making magic, foolish girl. You will be as mad as the old woman. It is easier than you’d think, to lose yourself in Midnight. Her ears flicked. If you go mad, I am leaving you here.

“Please don’t. I will try not to go mad,” Vasya said hoarsely, and the mare snorted. Then she went to graze. Vasya stripped and began the tedious process of drying her clothes.

How she wanted to sleep now, and wake up in light. But she couldn’t. So, she stood and paced naked, pinching her arms, going away from the fire so that the chill drove her to alertness.

She was standing, wondering if her clothes were dry enough to keep her from freezing, when she heard a squeal from Pozhar. She turned to see Midnight’s black horse, almost indistinguishable from the night, step into the firelight.

“Have you brought your rider here to offer more advice?” Vasya asked the horse, not very kindly.

Don’t be silly, said Pozhar to Vasya. I called him. Voron. She gave the black horse a wicked look, and the stallion licked his lips submissively. The Swan is farther off than I thought, and Voron knows better than I how to get to her—he is more used to the ways of this place. I am getting tired of wandering about, especially when you make it hard for me to keep you in sight. At this speed, we aren’t going to make it before you have to sleep. She fixed Vasya with both ears. Twice you have saved me: in Moscow and by the water. Now I will have saved you twice too, and there will be no more debt between us.