“And the story?” I prod him.
His brows draw close together. “Come and see my wife. Tell her your tale, and we will see what she thinks—if I should come with you, or if I should not. Is that agreeable?”
It’s more than I hoped for. “Yes.”
I pay the old woman who runs the café the remainder of my few precious coins, and as I turn to go, she grasps my wrist, pulls me back to her.
Her grip is shockingly tight. Fire flickers in her eyes, and her face creases in rage. “It will go poorly for you.” Her voice is not her own; it’s guttural, harsh. “If you go with him, it will go poorly for you, and worse for your white wolf. Turn back, while you still can.”
I wrench away from her, heart pounding. Her nails leave long, painful scratches on my arm. “You can’t stop me. You don’t scare me.”
She sneers. “Fool.” And then her eyes grow clear again. She gives me a strange look, as if wondering why I’m still standing there, seeing as I’ve already paid.
If the storyteller noticed our exchange, he gives no sign. Shaking, I pull my coat close, and he leads me out into the snow.
WE WALK PARTWAY DOWN THE mountain, the world whirling and white all around us. Despite the encounter in the café, hope gnaws like a lion at my heart. I focus on the form of the storyteller, tall and strong in front of me, breaking a path through the snow so it will be easier for me to follow. The powder squeaks under my boots, and my nose starts to run. The cold is sharp, and the wind has teeth. Laughter whispers past my ears and I wonder if the storyteller can hear it, too, or if somehow the Wolf Queen is toying with me.
Before half an hour has passed, the storyteller slogs his way toward what looks like a snow-covered hill. As we draw nearer, I realize it’s a reindeer-skin tent, smoke swirling up from the hole in the center and disappearing into the sky.
The storyteller lifts the flap and ducks a little to step in. I follow, shaking the snow from my hair.
It’s warm in the tent, which feels much larger on the inside. Wooden slats like whale bones form the frame—reindeer skin is stretched tight over it. There’s an iron stove in the center of the room, with a chimney pipe disappearing into the roof. The floor is wood, and there are bundles of furs about the edges, with an expensive-looking rug on one side. There’s a bookshelf, too, and a low table laid with tea things. A woman sits by one wall, rocking a baby in a cradle suspended from the ceiling by a sturdy length of braided leather cords.
The woman looks up at our approach and smiles at the storyteller, her whole face coming alive. There is laughter on her lips, contentment in her dark eyes. The storyteller crosses the room to her, kneels down and kisses her soft on the mouth. I stand awkwardly in the doorway, every instinct telling me to flee.
I cannot ask him to lead me north. I cannot ask him to leave his wife and child and head into the unknown.
But then the storyteller looks back at me with a smile and beckons me over.
I come, reluctant, and the woman pats the fur laid out beside her. I sit, my toes and fingers tingling in the welcome warmth of this quiet house.
“This is Echo Alkaev,” says the storyteller. “She has told me a story and asked for my help, promising the story itself as payment.”
The wife lifts her eyebrows and gives a brief nod. “What is the story, dear lamb?”
I tell her, in snatches and starts, a much condensed version of the tale I spun for three days in the café. Weariness presses down on me; my tongue feels thick and slow.
The wife gives me soup in a stone mug and I drink it all, warmth flooding down into my stomach. Without quite realizing it, I allow her to coax me to one wall of the hut, where I lie down on a bed of furs and close my eyes. Just for a moment, I think, and then I will hear her answer.
Sleep claims me.
When I wake I hear voices on the other side of the hut, and I open my eyes to see the storyteller and his wife sitting close together, cradling the baby between them. My heart aches, and I think again that I cannot possibly ask him to come with me. I will tell him that and slip out alone into the snow …
I dream of Mokosh, drinking tea in her palace room. I sit beside her. Her silver hair shines and she looks familiar to me, in a way I can’t quite pinpoint.
“You really should turn back now,” she says, pouring a cup of tea for me as well. “There’s no need to involve the storyteller and his family. You can’t undo what is already done—how do you know Hal is even still alive?”
I don’t drink the tea, just stare into it. “I can feel it.”
“Feelings are all very well, Echo, but look where they’ve gotten you.”
“You’re the one who told me to light the lamp!”
She shrugs. “Perhaps you shouldn’t have listened to me.”
“I’m not giving up. I’m going to find him. I’m going to free him from the Wolf Queen.”
Her violet eyes look very seriously into mine. “How do you know he even wants to be free?”
The dream shifts, and I see Hal kneeling in the midst of the Wolf Queen’s court, bound in thorns. She smiles as she places a gold crown on his head, and hauls him upward. “Not long now, my prince. Not long until this will all be over.”
But there is blood on his shoulders. And his eyes—his eyes are empty.
When I wake a second time, the wife is making tea and stirring a pot of bubbling liquid on the stove. The storyteller isn’t here.
She looks to me with a smile. “Good morning, Echo,” she says. “I am glad you slept so well.”
I shudder, still caught in the grip of my dreams. “Where is—”
“Ivan? He’s gone to fetch supplies.”
My brain feels sluggish. “What supplies?”
Her smile saddens a little. “For your journey, love.”
This jerks me fully awake. Mokosh was right about one thing. “But he can’t! I changed my mind—I’m not asking it of him anymore. He should stay here. With you and the baby.”
She stirs the pot and shakes her head. “Once, long ago, Ivan gave up everything he was to save me. I understand why you must do the same for your Hal.”
I stand from the furs and come to join her at the stove. Porridge bubbles in the pot, thick and sweet.
“There is one magic older than the Wolf Queen’s, a magic not even she can defeat.”
“Love,” I say quietly.
“Yes, dear one. It was there when the world was created, and it will stand when the world is remade. If you love something you will not give it up, not for anything. It belongs to you, it is part of you. If you grab hold of it and never let it go—no one can take it from you. Not even the Wolf Queen.”
Her words are like the ones the wolf said to me, but deeper, somehow. They make me feel fragile and strong, a globe made of glass.
“I will miss Ivan, of course, but he will come back to me. He always does. It’s written in the stars, you know.” The baby stirs in her cradle. “Will you fetch her for me?”
I step over to the cradle and peer in. The baby stares up at me, smiling, her cheeks plump and brown, her eyes fierce and dark, just like her father’s. I scoop the child up gently into my arms, hoping my scarred face doesn’t scare her. But she just laughs and tugs at my hair. She feels heavy in my arms—soft, warm. My throat constricts as I think of Donia’s tight belly, a brother or sister I might never meet. I think of Rodya and his new wife, I wonder if they will have a child soon. I don’t ponder a child for myself. There is too much ahead of me to even wish for one. But I somehow don’t want to ever put this baby down.
Ivan comes back just then, a huge pack over his shoulder, his breath fogging in front of him.
I feel guilty, holding his child, but he smiles and steps over to fondle the baby’s tiny cheek. “I see you’ve met Satu.” Then, to his wife, “I’ve everything we need.”
She smiles at him. “Lay the table, will you, my greatheart? Breakfast is almost ready.”