I looked up from beneath my hair, heart still pounding. Malovski was silhouetted against the light. With her dark clothes and narrow waist, she looked like a wraith, a vengeful spirit. Her nostrils were flaring.
‘I apprehended them,’ said Captain Vereski into the silence.
‘I see that. Though I also heard some bargaining.’
‘I was only – I was just trying to make that one come close enough to catch her.’
‘And then what?’ said Malovski. ‘These are not for you, Captain. These are my girls, and my girls do not associate with the likes of you. Go to the tavern like the rest of the servants.’
‘I am a soldier,’ said Captain Vereski, drawing himself up to his full height, but though he was at least a foot taller than Malovski, she still seemed to tower over him.
‘A servant with a sword,’ she said dismissively, and jerked her head at Kizzy and me, turning back to the passage. ‘Come.’
He spoke quietly, so quietly that had the wind not dropped for a moment she may not have heard him. As it was, his mutter carried on the dead air. ‘Better a servant than a whore.’
I caught my breath. Malovski stopped so suddenly she might have been turned to ice. She pivoted on her heel, smoothly, her long skirts giving the impression that she floated above the floor.
‘You will pay for that,’ she said simply, and snapped her fingers at Kizzy and me. The sound made me jump. ‘Come.’
I could almost hear the blood draining from Captain Vereski’s face as we followed Malovski into the passage, her heels clicking, Kizzy’s and my bare feet slapping on the cold stone. I was almost looking forward to the thin straw mattress, the warmth of other bodies, but Malovski did not stop at the bedroom door where our fellows slept.
Neither of us dared speak. I could not imagine how Kizzy was feeling: the adrenaline and relief and fear coursing through my body must be doubly strong in hers. Compared to whatever Captain Vereski had wanted with her, I was almost sure that what Malovski had planned wouldn’t be as bad.
Unless … my mind raced. We would not be offerings?
She turned sharply left before the end of the passage, and instead of climbing, we descended slick stone steps, worn smooth at the centre with use.
The air down here was stale and dank, and the temperature dropped with every step. My soles cringed on the stone as the ground levelled out. It was unlit, and the light from the passage was lost until I felt we waded through the thick, still air like water. Malovski must have the senses of a bat, because she seized my arm with nauseating accuracy, right in the spot it was already tender from Captain Vereski’s grasp.
‘In here,’ she said, and threw me forward.
I found myself on my knees again, on a hard floor sparingly strewn with moist straw. A smell came up from it, of unwashed bodies and other, worse things. I heard a door clang shut and wheeled around. My eyes gradually adjusting to the dim light, I saw Kizzy was not with me.
Panic coming thick in my chest, I felt for the door, and my hands met solid wood. I ran my fingers across it, and found a metal slot, an opening, and pressed my eyes to it. I could make out Malovski closing another door opposite and turning a key in the lock.
My breath caught. She had not yet locked mine – there had been no sound of a bolt. I scrambled for the handle, but Malovski closed the gap with short, fast strides, and locked my door too. She lowered her eyes to the metal slot, her crimson mouth made black by the darkness, a pit lined with neat white teeth. I reeled away.
‘This will learn you, slave.’
And then she was gone.
I waited a few moments before pressing my face to the metal slot.
‘Kizzy?’ I called.
I lowered my eye to the slot again. The darkness was a grimy grey, lightening by the moment. I saw the flash of my sister’s teeth through the slot opposite.
‘I’m here.’
‘Are you all right? Did she hurt you?’
Kizzy let out a strangled laugh that sounded more like a sob. ‘No more than she had already.’
I wilted in relief.
‘I didn’t know these places were real,’ said Kizzy. ‘I thought they were a story made up to frighten us.’
‘What places?’
‘Places without light where they keep people prisoner.’
I wanted to cry. ‘Kizzy?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Do you – did we …’ I could not think how to say it. The thought had swelled like a tumour in my mind over the past weeks. Now it caught on my tongue. ‘The mushrooms,’ I managed, finally. ‘If we had not—’
‘Lil,’ she interrupted, her voice firm. ‘You cannot think it. Mamă would not want you to think it.’
‘How can I not?’ My tears were hot on my chilled cheeks. ‘If it hadn’t been for our birthday—’
‘Who’s to say they wouldn’t have found us anyway? Lillai, if we go down that path, there is no turning back.’
‘But I cannot forget.’
‘Then forgive. And if you can’t forgive yourself, forgive me.’
‘You?’
‘I’m your twin, aren’t I? We are together in all things.’
I pressed my hands to my chest, as though I could claw out my heart. ‘But you tried to save Mamă. You fought. You have fought every moment.’
‘And look where it’s got us,’ said Kizzy, so softly I had to press my ear to the slot to make out the words. ‘Perhaps I should be more like you, Lil.’
I snorted. ‘Definitely not.’
‘You should be prouder of what you are,’ said my sister. ‘Your voice earlier – it was more lovely than ever. Don’t give it to anyone who doesn’t deserve it. Save it for that great love Cook mentioned.’
The bitterness entered her voice again, and I hurried to speak. ‘And you, an ursar after all.’
‘No love though.’ I could tell she was thinking of Fen again.
‘I love you,’ I said, and she laughed.
‘I love you too. And,’ her voice grew serious, ‘I forgive you.’
Her words unknotted a little of my twisted heart.
‘I forgive you,’ I replied, and heard her sigh.
‘A lăutari.’ The pride in her voice swelled my heart. ‘Didn’t I always tell you?’
I nodded, though I could not speak through a throat tight with tears. I realised now, though presumably the thought had always nestled deep inside me, that one of my greatest dreams was dead – had died with Mamă. For a lifetime, I had longed to sing while Mamă and Albu danced.
There was one dance they did, that held the most tenderness. Mamă would take Albu’s paws in her own small hands, dark against his white fur, his enormous claws retracted. She would step close to him, and bring his arms around her, rest her cheek into his warm, combed chest, and they would sway. He would rest his mighty head upon her shoulder like a lover, and they would turn slow as the moon hiding its face.
‘It’s an apology,’ Mamă told me once. ‘From me to him.’
‘You’re saying sorry? Why?’
I remember Mamă’s hand on my head, doubly warm from Albu’s grasp.
‘For taking him from his mother.’