Kate raised her head. It had happened so fast. The square was almost empty. A few people—those who had fallen beneath too many feet—were lying heaped on the cobbles, drifted at the gates. There were piggish moans in the air, and a smell of blood.
The remaining guard, the one with the sword, had held his place. He turned on Linay, and lunged. Linay, one-handed, caught the blade in his naked hand. Kate saw blood begin to slick it, and then a rime of frost. Linay locked eyes with the guard, who froze. The sword grew black with cold, and smoked—and shattered.
“Thank you,” said Linay, stooping to pick up a jagged piece. “I needed a blade.”
The wide-eyed man backed away.
Linay stood fixed, regarding the shard in his hand. And as the guard stumbled away past the heaped bodies, Kate, Taggle, and Drina found themselves alone at the foot of the platform.
Kate drew a deep breath, and climbed the stone steps.
And then she was standing, empty-handed, at the pillar, with no idea what to do.
“Katerina,” said Linay.
eighteen
an exchange of gifts
Linay’s face had a blank, soft-mouthed look, like a man in a dream. One hand was tied to the stone pillar. The other held a jagged fragment of sword blade. Blood dripped off the blade tip and dribbled over the wood at his feet, and as each drop fell, it caught fire. The little flames made spots of smoldering in the pitch-soaked wood.
“Katerina?” said Linay again. “What happens next?”
Plain Kate was shaking. “You don’t want to burn, Linay.”
“But I do,” he insisted. “I’ve planned it. I’ve worked for it. For years.” His voice was still polite, a little distant, but he was beginning to tremble. There was pitch smeared on the white skirts of his zupan, smoke eddying around his knees. He closed his eyes for a moment. “I can do this,” he said. “I want to do this.”
Kate edged toward him. Drina was crouched on the platform steps, Taggle in her arms. “Mira,” she pleaded—and then the name she was never supposed to say again: “Linay…”
“I wish you weren’t here, though,” Linay said. “Everyone here…”
Kate could feel it, behind the clouds, the shadow and the rusalka drawing together, lowering like a slow storm. The blood, the fire: The spell was beginning. “Everyone here is going to die,” said Kate.
Linay made a noise deep in his throat, and stepped sideways, away from the fire. The tie on his wrist brought him up short. Kate reached to help him and the winged carving cut into her hip. Suddenly she knew exactly what to do. “Why?” she said.
Linay gave the heartbroken, startled laugh she’d tricked from him once or twice before. “But you know!” His eyes shifted to Drina, and he pleaded: “To save her! To save my sister!”
Kate held the carving out to him. “This is her. Your sister’s face.”
Linay looked thunderstruck, staring at the carving. “Lenore…” he said. And the thing behind the clouds seemed to answer: yes.
Kate set the carving on the smoking wood at Linay’s knee.
“What are you doing?” said Linay. “Don’t burn it!” Hot smoke made his zupan skirts swirl. The fire ticked and fluttered.
“Would she want to be saved, like this?”
“She was a witch. She understood—the exchange of gifts. The sacrifice.” His eyes darted sideways to the carved face of his sister. “Pick that up.”
“If you’ll answer me. Would Lenore have wanted this?” Fire was raising around the carved face, pushing up from under it and arching above it with fast-beating wings.
Linay’s bound wrist was jerking and jerking like a mink in a trap. He didn’t seem to be aware of it, or aware that he had pulled as far away from the growing fire as the lashing allowed. “Kate,” he said, his breath shuddering. And she lunged forward to cut him free.
Linay flung up a hand between them, and cowered as if from a blow. Kate found herself caught again, in his spell of glass air.
“I can do this. I can do this.” Blood dripped from his cut hand, from his bound and twitching wrist, and fell burning, burning, burning. “Lenore!” he cried, and sobbed as he cried.
“She wouldn’t want this!” Kate had to shout above the roar of fire. “Linay! Let me go!”
Flames were snarling in Linay’s clothes, hot yellow winds lifting his hair. Kate knew how it felt, the pain and panic. And yet still the force of his will held, and she was caught, helpless before the fire as a chestnut on the coals. Her masterpiece was turning black, flames eating through the thinnest places in the wings. “Look at her!” Kate shouted. “Look at her face and tell me she would want this!”
Above them the clouds rumbled and an ugly death stirred.
And from below, high and hysterical, came Drina’s voice. “Lie to her!” Drina shouted. “Lie to her—it will kill you. It can all be over. Just lie to her!”
Linay’s face—it too was turning black—suddenly calmed, suddenly hardened, and his eyes locked with Kate’s. “Yes,” he said. “Lenore would want this.” And he folded up as if he swallowed a sword.