Winter dragged on with frost and cold, but the lamps always burned golden in the little hut. Nadya’s cheeks grew rosy and her clothes grew snug. She learned how to mix up Magda’s tonics without looking at the recipes and how to bake an almond cake in the shape of a crown. She learned which herbs were valuable and which were dangerous, and which herbs were valuable because they were dangerous.
Nadya knew there was much that Magda didn’t teach her. She told herself she was glad of it, that she wanted nothing to do with Magda’s abominations. But sometimes she felt her curiosity clawing at her like a different kind of hunger.
And then, one morning, she woke to the tapping of the blind crow’s beak on the sill and the drip, drip, drip of melted snow from the eaves. Bright sun shone through the windows. The thaw had come.
That morning, Magda laid out sweet rolls with prune jam, a plate of boiled eggs, and bitter greens. Nadya ate and ate, afraid to reach the end of her meal, but eventually she could not take another bite.
“What is it you want?” asked Magda.
This time Nadya hesitated, afraid. “If I go, couldn't I just—”
“You cannot come and go from this place like you’re fetching water from a well. I will not have you bring a monster to my door.” Nadya shivered. A monster. So she’d been right about Karina.
“What is it you want?” asked Magda again.
Nadya thought of Genetchka dancing, of nervous Lara, of Betya and Ludmilla, of the others she had never known.
“I want my father to be free of Karina. I want Duva to be free. I want to go home.”
Gently, Magda reached out and touched Nadya's left hand—first the ring finger, then the pinkie.
“Think on it,” she said.
The next morning when Magda went to lay out the breakfast, she found the cleaver Nadya had placed there.
For two days, the cleaver lay untouched on the table, as they measured and sifted and mixed, making batch after batch of batter. On the second afternoon, when the hardest of the work was done, Magda turned to Nadya.
“You know that you are welcome to remain here with me,” said the witch.
Nadya stretched out her hand.
Magda sighed. The cleaver flashed once in the afternoon sun, the edge gleaming the dull gray of Grisha steel, then fell with a sound like a gunshot.
At the sight of her fingers lying forlorn on the table, Nadya fainted.
Magda healed the stumps of Nadya’s fingers, bound her hand, let her rest. And while she slept, Magda took the two fingers and ground them down to a wet red meal that she mixed into the batter.
When Nadya revived, they worked side by side, shaping the gingergirl on a damp plank near as big as a door, then shoved her into the blazing oven.
All night the gingergirl baked, filling the hut with a marvelous smell. Nadya knew she was smelling her own bones and blood, but still her mouth watered. She dozed. Near dawn, the oven doors creaked open and the gingergirl crawled out. She crossed the room, opened the window, and lay down on the counter to let herself cool.
In the morning, Nadya and Magda attended the gingergirl, dusted her with sugar, gave her frosted lips and thick ropes of icing for hair.
They dressed her in Nadya’s clothes and boots, and set her on the path toward Duva.
Then Magda sat Nadya down at the table and took a small jar from one of the cabinets. She opened the window and the eyeless black crow came to rest on the table, picking at the crumbs the gingergirl had left behind.
Magda tipped the contents of the jar into her palm and held them out to Nadya. “Open your mouth,” she said.
In Magda’s hand, in a pool of shiny fluid, lay a pair of bright blue eyes. Hatchling’s eyes.
“Do not swallow,” said Magda sternly, “and do not retch.”
Nadya closed her eyes and forced her lips to part. She tried not to gag as the crow’s eyes slid onto her tongue.
“Open your eyes,” commanded Magda.
Nadya obeyed, and when she did, the whole room had shifted. She saw herself sitting in a chair, eyes still closed, Magda beside her. She tried to raise her hands, but found that her wings rose instead. She hopped on her little crow feet and released a startled squawk of surprise.
Magda shooed her to the window and Nadya, elated from the feeling of her wings and the wind spreading beneath them, did not see the sadness in the old woman’s gaze.