‘But you are an ursar – you needed a bear.’
‘For me to fulfil my destiny I had to change his. There is always a cost.’
‘But he loves you.’
‘And I love him. But by taking him I have changed his destiny, his nature, who and what he is. I dance that dance to tell him I know the sacrifice I forced him to make. I atone in the only way I can.’
‘How?’
‘Kindness.’
Her words came to me now, as I sat shivering in the eternal gloom of the cell, the stench of myself so enveloping it was all I could do to keep breathing in the stale, stolid air.
‘Where do you think Kem is now?’ I asked, my voice tight. ‘Do you think—’
‘Kem’s tough,’ Kizzy said briskly, though our owl-eyed, watchful brother would cry at the sight of a butchered boar. ‘And Albu will be caring for him. That bear was more human than beast, the way Mamă spoilt him.’
She laughed, so suddenly I jumped, the side of my face grazing the rough wooden door. ‘He loved her, so much …’
She trailed off, and I felt rather than heard the restrained sob in her voice.
‘Was it quick, Lil? Tell me it was.’
I thought of the swallowing heat, the smoke carried away on the wind and the flames stoked high as trees. How Mamă would have fought to the last, knowing we were out there.
‘It was quick, Kisaiya.’ The lie was soft and easy as a sigh.
I felt her tears on my own cheeks, and took my hand in my other, imagined they were her fingers linked through mine, drawing warmth and strength.
‘We should sleep a little.’
I examined the smelly floor. ‘I don’t want to lie down.’
‘Imagine it’s a moss mattress,’ said Kizzy. ‘Use that imagination of yours. We’ll need our strength.’
It felt like the old Kizzy was back: reassuring, taking charge. It felt good. And so I did as she said, and lay on the stinking straw, my head propped on my arm, and sank into a fitful sleep full of roaring bears and stone forests that arched like cages over my head.
Something was moving about outside the door. I eyed the gap beneath it. I knew rats were good at slipping through impossible spaces, making their bodies collapse down like their bones disconnected. But no flattened, furry body emerged through the narrow space. Instead, light blossomed through the slot, and then was blotted out as two eyes blinked through. Grey eyes, the colour of smoke, or storm clouds.
‘Mira!’ I stumbled to my feet, body stiff after a night on the hard floor. She stood a little back from the door, so I could see her through the slot. In her hands she held a plate, full of steaming porridge, and there was another at her feet. My stomach ached at the sight.
‘Did Cook send you?’
She shook her head.
‘Malovski?’
Another shake. How must it feel to have your voice snatched away so brutally, like a spirit in one of Mamă’s stories? They were always vengeful and I wondered if Mira felt the same anger as the Iele who sometimes guided strigoi to their tormentors’ doors.
I frowned. ‘Who, then?’
She passed the plate through with a spoon and pointed at her chest.
‘How did you know we were here?’
She crossed carefully to Kizzy’s cell, and pushed the other plate through. I saw my sister’s sore hands reach for it and take it into the shadows with a murmured word of thanks. I began shovelling the porridge into my mouth, moaning with the relief of having something warm inside me.
Mira returned to my door and knelt up so I could see her face and upper body. She tapped her ear. I realised she was humming a sort of tune, and understood.
‘You heard me sing?’
She nodded, and a wide smile spread across her face. She clasped her hands over her heart. I remembered the grate beside which she slept, the swallowing dark of the gap in the wall that vented into the kitchen. She might have heard everything. We hadn’t bothered to keep our voices down.
‘Did you …’ I trailed off. Had she heard me ask about the pact, the offering? Had I roused memories of her friend who had been taken?
‘She’s good, isn’t she?’ said Kizzy’s voice through the narrow slot in her door.
Mira nodded hard, and looked at me even harder, her gaze unflinching and bold, her stormy eyes fierce. I could almost hear her say, Yes.
I ducked into the safety of the shadows, glad it was not obvious when I blushed. ‘Thank you.’
Mira shook her head and reached her fingers through the slot. I brought my face close and let her brush my cheek.
All three of us sat silently, Mira kneeling before my door. Even if conversation had not been impossible, I think I would have chosen not to speak. It was almost restful, the flickering glow of her lamp reaching into the cell and the porridge salty and good in my stomach. I wondered what she ate, if she could eat at all. Thinking back, I had never seen her take more than water. She was too thin, even set against me. Perhaps Cook made her broth and let her drink glasses of milk from the dairy.
Then she gestured that she should leave. I handed her back the tray, and she collected Kizzy’s too, then was gone up the stone steps, her footsteps light as falling leaves.
‘Kind of her,’ said Kizzy. ‘Did you sleep?’
‘A little.’ I drew my legs up to my chest, cold biting at them like an animal.
‘You should ask your Mira for a blanket.’
‘She’s not my Mira.’ My voice was sharper than I’d intended.
‘What is it with you two?’ said Kizzy. Her voice wasn’t unkind or accusing. She sounded puzzled, which I knew she would not be enjoying. She was used to knowing everything I thought or felt.
‘I feel I know her,’ I said. ‘There’s something about her …’
‘You just feel sorry for her.’
‘I don’t,’ I snapped. ‘I think she’s brave.’
‘For a Settled, maybe.’
‘Are you determined to hate her?’
‘I don’t hate her. I just don’t understand why you like her so much.’
‘I don’t—’
‘It’s obvious,’ said Kizzy, firmly. ‘You do.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘I do. But not because she’s pitiable.’
Kizzy did not reply.
I searched for something to move her on from the subject. ‘How long do you think we’ll be here?’
‘Longer the better,’ said Kizzy. ‘Maybe Malovski will go off the idea of us being serving girls.’
I could make out the dark curve of my sister’s face, her plump chin, full lips. I knew that whatever Kizzy did, short of killing someone – which I did not put past her – Malovski would not let her beauty go unnoticed by the boyar.
My teeth clattered with the fear of what awaited us, but I let Kizzy chatter hopefully into the ringing echoes of the cells, and thought instead of Mira, and how she seemed able to speak to me even without words, how I had not felt such recognition in a person apart from Kizzy, who shared the same body, had the same blood rushing through her veins.
The oats sat warm and solid in my stomach, and my cheek tingled where Mira had brushed it. I had sung to her, without even knowing it, and I didn’t mind. It didn’t make me cringe to think of it. Perhaps if we were ever freed, I would sing to her again.