Deathless

“But I will not. It would be sweeter to pay him back with the same currency.”

“I do not wish to be dragged back and forth between the two of you like a bone between two dogs. You promise the same things, and neither of you delivers.”

* * *

Ivanushka, it will be difficult for you to keep this promise. You will have to build the keeping of it like a chimney.

Tell me what I must do.

* * *

Ushanka leaned forward, putting her notepad aside. She had a long, Byzantine nose with a bump in the middle of it. “We already know, Comrade Morevna. There will be no punishment if you simply admit what is already a matter of public record. It is too late for Geroyev, but no blame need attach to you for this incident.”

Marya blinked. “What is it you think you know?”

Ushanka shrugged luxuriously. “Who is to say what I know? Maybe I know something now that I will not know when I leave. It all depends on you, Comrade.”

The queen beyond the sea tried to remember how Naganya liked to play this game. No, no, Masha! You can’t avoid my eyes like that! Then I’ll know you’re lying! You’re doing it wrong! Now, tell me you’re innocent, and I’ll pretend to pull out your thumbnail.

“I assure you that whatever you think I have done, I am innocent of it.”

“Do you now?” Ushanka tapped an unlit cigarette on her knee. “I am absolutely certain you’re right. Do you mind?” Marya Morevna demurred, but the young officer flicked a brass lighter anyway, waving around the terminus of her cigarette. “Which is why you and I can be so convivial. We are just having a conversation in the afternoon, as ladies will. A cup of tea, a cigarette? All these little niceties, and no lies between us. Now, Comrade Geroyev reports that he met you in the vicinity of Irkutsk, near the Mongolian border. Is that correct?”

“That sounds right.” She had no idea. Geography was fungible, fluid, unreliable.

“And what brought you to such a distant city, when you say you were born in Leningrad, in this very house? And why have you no traveling papers? No identification? You see, I know you, Comrade Morevna—or is it Geroyev? I notice you did not answer my previous question. Silence, is of course, its own answer, and I will not embarrass you further by repeating myself. You see how quickly we progress!”

Marya smiled faintly.

“Something amusing?”

“You remind me of an old friend, that’s all.”

* * *

Ivanushka, I know you will break your promise.

I will not.

* * *

“Take it,” sighed Koschei.

It weighed so heavy in her hand: a black egg, embossed in silver, studded with cold diamonds.

“You rolled this over my back. To soak up my nightmares.” Marya stared at it, how it caught the light.

“It is my death. Oh, my volchitsa, don’t you see? I have always been in your power. I have always been helpless.”

“What about the butcher in Tashkent?”

The corners of Koschei?

?s mouth quirked. “He sends his regards.”

Marya turned the egg over in her hands. The diamonds pricked her; blood welled. Down in the dark of her, a door opened. She stood, her eyes blank, imperious, as strange as he had once been. She knew, finally. What she could become.

“Come with me, Koschei.”