“I suppose it is of no matter now,” he said after a grim silence. “I am called Vladimir Andreevich, the Prince of Serpukhov. I, with my men, was to take a tribute of silver to Sarai, to the puppet-khan and his temnik Mamai. For Mamai has mustered an army and will not disperse it until he has his tax. But now the silver is gone.”

   Her brother-in-law, sent by Dmitrii on an errand meant to avert a war, now thwarted. Vasya understood why affinity had brought her here; knew also why the Bear had wanted to drown the silver. Why bring down Dmitrii himself when he could get Tatars to do it?

Perhaps the silver could be found. But not in darkness. Could she force the vodianoy to retrieve it? She hesitated between the forest and the water.

Vladimir was considering her, narrow-eyed. “Who are you?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she assured him with perfect honesty.

His sharp gray eyes took in the fading cuts and bruises on her face. “I mean you no harm,” he said. “Wherever you ran away from—I won’t send you back. Would you like something to eat?”

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.

“None,” said Vasya with a surge of gratitude, and bowed.

The midnight-demon stalked into the firelight behind her horse, looking sour. Vasya knew that look. She had worn it herself, when Solovey badgered her into something. She almost laughed.

“Pozhar,” said Midnight. “I have business far from here, and I cannot be—”

“Delayed because your horse is ignoring you?” interrupted Vasya.

   Midnight gave her a venomous look.

“Well, then help me now,” said Vasya. “And you can go about your business the sooner.” The black horse twitched his heavy ears. Pozhar looked impatient. Come on, she said. It was amusing at first, but I am tired of this darkness.

A little reluctant humor came into Midnight’s face. “What do you hope to do, Vasilisa Petrovna? He is trapped beyond recall, trapped in memory, in place, and in time: all three.”

Vasya was frankly incredulous. “Am I so vain as to think that the winter-king would let himself be imprisoned for eternity for my sake? He is not a half-witted fairy-tale prince, and heaven knows I am not Yelena the Beautiful. So he must have had a reason, known there was a way out. Which means I can free him.”

Midnight put her head to one side. “I thought you besotted, and that was why you were risking the depths of my realm for his sake. But it’s not that, is it?”

“No,” said Vasya.

Now the midnight-demon looked resigned. “Better put your boots on.” She eyed Vasya’s half-dry clothes critically. “You are going to be cold.”

* * *

IT DID GROW COLD. The first Vasya felt of it was frost-crystals breaking under her boots, as she stepped between midnights. The green smell of summer took on a wilder, earthy note; the stars grew sharp as sword-points, where they were not caught fast in racing clouds. The soft rustling of summer leaves became a dry rattle, and then nothing: only bare trees against the sky. And then between one midnight and another, Vasya’s feet broke through a crust of wet snow. Ded Grib halted abruptly. “I cannot go on; I will wither.” He eyed the white stuff with terror.