“What is the first thing?” Favorini asked in the candlelight.
When I answered him, translating a deep, nameless hunger into a Russian word: pravda—it was her face I watched across the room, her porcelain cheek writhing with candle flame. She is my lone beacon in a great darkness.
“Huangdi was betrayed to his death, his anima lost for ages,” says Hypatia. “Now he has been reunited with you, his sworn protector. We must act quickly. Leizu is close behind and her spies are legion. She very likely knows her enemy has surfaced, and she will destroy his relic to prevent his reincarnation.”
“We can’t stay,” says Elena. “We will leave together—”
“Flee? To where?” I ask.
“To the New World,” says Hypatia. “The colonies are suitably wild to provide a safe haven for the three of us, though it will not be easy to evade the Worm Mother.”
Now I understand. Elena has procured this artifact as a peace offering. Her relentless logic has found a way to bring me along. Too loyal to abandon me, she scoured the ends of the earth to find a trinket that could satisfy my Word.
This is how I lose her, I can’t help thinking. This is how she leaves me.
“Don’t you think Leizu’s agents will be watching the docks?” I ask.
“A risk we shall have to take,” responds Hypatia.
Mustering all my willpower, I force myself to wrap the anima back in its silk handkerchief. In an avalanche of teacups, I push the bundle back to Hypatia. I press my palms flat against the wooden table to stop them shaking.
“Get out,” I say quietly.
“Excuse me?” Hypatia asks. “I cannot believe you would shirk—”
“Get out,” I say louder, standing and jarring the table. The teacups roll and shiver together, sloshing tea across the linen. The fire gutters and jumps at the shift of air in the closed room.
“I do not know this Huangdi,” I say. “I do not remember him. I did not choose to protect him. I will have nothing to do with it.”
“Oh, Peter,” Elena mutters in anguish. She slips away from the table and runs from the room.
Hypatia is standing now, backpedaling, the bundle clasped tightly in her hands.
“During her research, Elena found that the Word on your master’s anima is divine light,” she says. “Meaning that our enemy carries the darkness of hell,” she continues, speaking urgently. “They were in balance—a Oneness—but Leizu shattered that. Now she suffers a broken Word, unsatisfied, and she seeks a great champion to oppose her. That’s you, Peter.”
My hands curl back into fists. Elena’s sharp clicking footsteps are fading into the abandoned, leaf-strewn hallways of the mansion. Hypatia tucks the anima under her elbow and puts her hands out to me, pleading.
“Pyotr. You are the first protector, since time beyond reckoning. Huangdi is your master.”
“Not anymore,” I say. “I lost my sister once, long ago in another life. Never again.”
“Leizu will come here,” says Hypatia. “She is drawn to you, Peter. Whether you take this anima or not, she will never stop hunting—”
Her eyes drop to where my fingers have closed over the hilt of my saber. I draw the weapon an inch out of its sheath. The blade gleams, a warm silver in the glow of candles and sunset through thick drapes.
Hypatia nods, a small salute.
“Then I shall take my leave,” she says, turning her back to me. “But know that you speak for yourself. You have no right to choose for others. Regardless of what you believe your purpose to be, or whom you think you serve.”
I follow the woman, stalking after her through the hallways and out into the darkening courtyard, stopping only at the gape-mouthed front door. I watch her figure retreat, gray riding jacket disappearing into evening mist at the periphery of the estate.
Hypatia never looks back.
The vast acres around our abandoned mansion are empty of people but full of beasts and insects. A last lick of weak sunlight wavers across the mossy water of our neglected fountain. I sit down on the front steps, knees rising to meet my elbows.
Alone, I listen to the geese honking as they fly over. Hear the animals in the encroaching woods as they chitter and bark at one another. The sun is extinguishing itself through clawed branches. The last of the evening light splinters through a latticework of limbs and the world fades to a dull gray.
Hours pass before I feel a small palm pressing on my shoulder. I put my hand over her cold fingers.
“I love you, Elena,” I say. “I will protect you.”
She says nothing.
“I told you it was too dangerous,” I say, and her hand leaves its perch. My shoulder feels empty.
She sits beside me on the steps and says nothing.
The silence between us lasts a long time and it terrifies me.
Side by side, we watch as the courtyard fills with mist creeping in from the forest. The abandoned crates lining the driveway tilt crazily in the gloom, like broken tombstones. Cloaked in freezing vapor, the long hours of the night march by us in a reverie. An infinity of stars have opened their cold eyes to us by the time she speaks.
“Peter?” Elena asks. “If you could let go of your Word, would you?”
I consider the question.
“There is truth in it…” I trail off. “I would not.”
“But the world isn’t so simple as you pretend. You have made yourself a slave to others. And the worst part…you’re a willing slave.”
“Are you not a slave to logicka?” I ask, turning to her. “Are you not dancing through this world like a clockwork ballerina?”
Elena blinks, seeming to see me for the first time. She leans against me, but I feel a black gulf expanding between us. Abruptly, she reaches her arms around my shoulders in an urgent hug.
Surprised by how grateful I am, I pull the girl onto my lap, sighing as her small arms tighten around my neck in the old familiar way. She is calm now, here in the empty night. Her perfume and the quiet flutter of her gear work are my sanctuary. I could almost pretend the old Elena is back, and we are playing at being vampir in the frozen streets of Moscow.
“You are right, Peter. We are avtomat,” she murmurs into my neck. “We live and die by clockwork. Like the stars on their tracks, we must yield to nature. We must make hard decisions and live by them.”
She pulls back and her face is a pale mask in the night.
“Do you know what logicka dictates?” she asks. “For decades, it has pushed me, whispered to me, willed me to do one thing.”
“What is that, my dear?”
Elena hugs me again, fiercely, her forehead pressed like a knuckle into my chest. When she speaks, her words are needles that shiver into my heart.
“To leave you behind, Peter. Forever.”
39
SEATTLE, PRESENT