Yvgenie (42 page)

But he was in the saddle before she had quite made up ha mind, and then it was too late. He looked down at her, said,
‘
If everything else fails, there's a house south of here, on the river. No one comes there.
’

And while she was wondering what house, and what he meant, he turned the horse's head and rode away, fading quickly into the dark outside the fire.

A shadow fell across the page. Ilyana looked up at Yvgenie's dark shape between her and the fire, and he said quietly, kneeling and taking her hand:

‘
Ilyana, put the book away. Please. You're coming no closer to the truth.''

‘
You're eavesdropping!''

A lowering of lashes—a glance up at her: Yvgenie's eyes, pale and deep and gentle. Kavi's unmistakable gesture. And the motion of Yvgenie's hands to lips and heart and to her.
I
love you. To brow and to heart, frowning. I'm worried. It
wa
s the old way of talking. Maybe it was the one he found
ea
siest now. And he was as silent as only her uncle could be,
not
a whisper of his being there the moment she accused
him
.

‘
Sasha's very good,
’
he said ever so softly.
‘
And very
stro
ng. He scares himself. And that's good. A little fear will
sa
ve you so much pain.
’

Sweat glistened on Yvgenie's face. A bead broke and ran.
‘
Kavi—is that truly your name?
’

A nod.

‘
Is
it so hard to speak?''

A second nod. A gesture toward his heart, with a hand
v
isibly trembling.
’
He can't last much longer. He has to rest.
Just
a little farther, Ilyana, and then we can all rest
…
’

O
ne did not like this idea of resting when a ghost said it.
But
looking into his eyes this close made her think how it
felt
to touch him and to be touched, and one wished—

—
one wished, that was the tro
uble, when a wizard loved a
g
host: one wanted, and one could have, and if it were not
for
Yvgenie's gentle, distressed look to warn her she would not even be thinking no, this is wrong, this is dangerous. He looked so dreadfully upset—

‘
Please don't,
’
Yvgenie asked her,
‘
please don't.
’
And
aft
er that, taking her hand in his, on the open book that
nobody
was ever to touch but her,
‘
He loves you. He loves
yo
u very much, Ilyana, and he's very scared, and some
thi
ng's dreadfully
w-wrong
tonight. We're going somewhere
da
ngerous—and he's trying to t-tell you—I don't think he's
eve
r loved anything in his life but Owl, and he loves you so much he doesn't want you to go on with this. He wants you
j
ust to go home to your father and not to try to help him anymo
re. Plea
se
. He can't—can't—go any farther with
th
is—
’

‘
With
what
?
’

Yvgenie had no idea. And Kavi when she tried to wish him to speak to her was uncatchable, scattered in pieces, like
O
wl on the river shore. There were tears in Yvgenie's eyes,
which he was not accustomed to shed in anyone's witness, he wished he could make her understand that—but he knew what Kavi was doing now, and he knew that for all the adv
ice
Kavi tried to give he was helpless to leave her, he could not stop following her or loving her or killing her the way he w
as
doing—he loved her,
he
loved her whether it was Kavi's idea or his own, he had come to think more of her in these few days than he had ever loved his own confused existence
—

He touched the back of her hand, where it rested on the book, and she felt that tingling she could never forget and never quite remember. He began to say something
—

Then hurled himself to his feet and away from her, as
far
as the old tree that sheltered them both. He leaned
against
its trunk, holding to it like a living person, wanting—

—it's life, because he refused to die, he could not
want
in die.

Not life, uncle had told her, and she had not heard him
.
Not life—but hell.

She folded her book and got up to go to him—wanting him—god, wanting to hold him and help both of them wanting just that touch again—

The first leaves drifted free of dying branches, and ne
e
d had become its own wish—little it could matter. She reached out to touch him.

But he shoved away and turned his back on her.
Yvge
nie
wanted her not to touch him, not to make him touch
her
, please, no—and he stopped cold, if only because there
was
nothing in the world Yvgenie could do to stop her. Not
fair
,
not
fair
to wish someone who could not even hear her
doing
it, not
fair
to insist on her own way with someone who could do no more to stop her or Kavi than he was doing now.

The mouse could never do that—never hurt her father never hurt this boy
…

But
mother
thinks otherwise. And expecting something is a wish, isn't it? The mouse can't hurt anybody. The mouse
—
can't. That's why I like her better.

Ilyana's not that good.
Ilyana
's her
mother's
daughter. B
ut wh
at's the mouse to be, uncle, grown-up and lonely for the
rest
of her life because she can't want anybody?

That's crazy, her father had used to shout at her mother.
Be
cause we both want something, you have to want not?

'' Yvgenie,'' she said, in the mouse's voice, very soft, very
quiet
,
and held her hand a little away from touching him,
making herself
not
want him the way she wanted Kavi.
‘
Yvgenie, I'm sorry. It's safe. Please look at me if you want
to.
’

One had to be careful with ordinary folk. And when he
di
d look at her, one could never know whether it was wiz
ar
dry or not or whether she was only deceiving herself.

She said, with as much honesty as she could find,
‘
People
ha
ve to love me if I want them to, even wizards, especially wizards, uncle says, because we hear magic—but ordinary
pe
ople, too, if we want them to. They can't help it.
’

‘
A spell?
’
he asked her.

‘
I don't know what you call it. I don't. I just didn't want in be alone all my life and I wanted Kavi back—I never
wa
nted anything bad to happen to anyone, I never did, I don't
k
now what's gone wrong, or why it was, except it's wrong
to
want people to love you—
’

He touched her cheek and looked her in the eyes.
‘
If I'm be
witched, I don't care, so long as you love me back—that's
w
hat matters, isn't it? I love you,
I
do, the same as he does. And I don't care why—
’

It hurt. God, it hurt.

He said, then, faintly,
‘
Damn him.
’
He shut his eyes,
and
she wished, aching, Don't
do
that to him, Kavi. Please.
It’s
not fair.

Yvgenie sank down where he was, head on his arms, not looking at her. There was pain, that was all she could hear,
pain
and fear and not wanting her to die because of him, when he was already sure he would die, and follow her, and
do
anything he had to to stay with her until someone put an
end
to him—because he would not leave her—not so long as
he
existed—

Nor touch her again, so long as he could help it, no matter what he killed—

‘
Please,
’
he said without looking at her.
‘
Please just leave me alone.
’

She wanted—but wanting stopped short of hurting him again. She went back to her book and sat down and wrote.

I wanted someone like my father. I didn’t know what I was wanting. I don’t know what my father is with my mother, what Kavi is and what she was. Now I know what it feels like. Now I know and I can’t do anything. There’s nothing I can wish that doesn’t hurt and there’s nowhere for me to go but with Yvgenie, because
—

A leaf fell onto the paper. Other leaves were falling, some on the ground, a few into the fire, where they flared and burned and perished.

11

A ring of salt, her father had said, and Nadya had done that as quickly as possible,
aro
und her, around Sasha, around the spotted horse, too.
But
she had not been thinking about firewood when she had
been
drawing the circle, and the fire was getting desperately
lo
w. She added leaves. She stood up and broke off overhanging twigs, and a branch and broke it up and saved it back as long as she could.

But the fire began to die. And the spotted horse made a
s
oft, anxious sound. That made her think that she might have
be
en fatally foolish, that with the fire grown so small, whatever was out there dared come closer and closer, and if the light did not even reach the bushes she would have to go out I here totally in the dark.

She had to do it. She took the knife from her boot and went out of the
circle, breaking branches with cracks that sounded frighteningly loud in the hush about her.

Something hissed at her, right at her feet. She jumped, clenching her knife, and all but fell over her own skirts, seeing two round gold eyes looking at her.

It was the Yard-thing. Babi. Babi stared at her and
growled and
she very carefully backed away, taking her arm
ful of
wood and her knife back into the circle.

Babi turned up there, too. Pop. Babi crouched down his head on his paws and showed white, white teeth whi
le
she fed sticks into the fire and wished, please the god,
that
Sasha would wake up so
on, and not be angry with her about
being left—and that the Yard-thing would not decide she w
as
a threat and bite her hand off.

Please.

Babi barked at her. And vanished. She sat there with
her
knife in her hand and her
arms around her knees and waited,
shivering despite the fire.

Sasha would not be angry with her. Sasha would
not
be
angry with her. She had waited all her life for some ill-wish that would make her slip on the stairs or catch a fish-bone
in
her throat or even just take a fever—the silly knife was only because nobody took her seriously, the guards never took her orders, the guards and the servants would never listen to her if she was in danger, and at least if she had the knife she had something, if only against whoever might break into the house the way Pyetr Kochevikov had done.

Except he had
not
broken in, she believed that part. She believed everything else. Her uncles had snatched up the silver and the gold and her mother had gathered up her jewels and her best clothes and when she had come to say goodbye—because Yvgenie had said he would take her where people would forget who they were—her mother had said go where she liked. Go where she liked—and no truth even then.