He shrugged. “I’m not someone you want as a friend, trust me.”
I didn’t need a friend. I only knew that I was hungry and tired and my emotions were wrung out. I couldn’t risk missing the turn and ending up walking straight back into Rusakov and his men. It wasn’t in me to ask for help, or really to ask for anything at all, but I had to convince this boy to help me.
I considered offering him some sort of bribe or payment, but when I looked in my father’s bag, hoping a few coins might have magically appeared, I saw nothing … except for magic. Papa had let me practice with his tricks all I wanted, though I’d never tried the tricks on anyone but him and Mama. Did I dare to test a trick on Lukas?
No, but I also didn’t dare to return to the woods without him as a guide. That would be far worse.
I reached into my father’s bag and pulled out a deck of cards. “What if we make a bargain? You can pick any card from this deck, and if I guess what it is, you have to take me to Venska.”
Lukas grinned. “And if you don’t guess it?”
“I’ll show you what’s in this package.”
He cocked his head. “You’ll give me what’s in the package, you mean.”
I nodded, trying to look as if this were a fair game. It wasn’t.
“Any card I choose?” Lukas asked.
Technically, it’d be the exact card I wanted him to choose, but this was a trick my father had taught me years ago. I could do it in my sleep, and as tired as I was, I might almost be doing that very thing.
I fanned out the cards facedown so that neither of us could see them. Lukas pulled a card from the deck.
“Look at it,” I instructed him. “Then return it to the pile.”
He did, and then I shuffled the cards back together. He watched me carefully, thinking he had gotten the better of me. I held up one random card for him, a jack of spades. “It isn’t this one.” Then held up a second, a red seven. “Nor this one.”
Lukas smiled. “Are you going to tell me all the cards it’s not, or the one it is? Because our bet—”
I held up a third card, the ten of clubs. “It was this one.”
Lukas’s smile turned to amazement, and when he recovered, he bowed low. “I don’t know how you did that, but you win. Where in Venska would you like to go?”
I opened my mouth but realized I’d forgotten the full name of the woman I was supposed to find. “Er, I’m looking for Milda …”
“Sabiene?” Lukas grinned.
“You know her?”
“I do. She always has a treat for Pasha when we come.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Pasha?” In Russian, it meant “small and humble.”
Lukas nodded toward his donkey, then added, “The name is to remind this animal who is in charge.” He tugged at Pasha’s rope again but to no avail. “It obviously is not me. My father is away on business. I suppose he won’t know that I’m not going to be home tonight … again.” He cocked his head at me to follow him. “Let’s go.”
I began following him away, then asked, “What do you mean ‘again’?”
Lukas chuckled to himself. “You’ve heard the story of the fool son?”
I shrugged. “No.”
“Ah. Well, the name tells you all you need to know. My father considers me a great fool, and he may be right. I don’t need to go home to be reminded of that every time he speaks to me.”
“I’d give anything to go home,” I whispered, too low for him to hear. Which was a good thing, because I could never explain to him that I understood exactly what he’d meant. I would not be going home tonight either. I would likely never go home again.
I’d ridden my father’s horses before, of course, but always with a saddle. Lukas’s donkey was bareback, which made riding him somewhat like staying balanced on two logs floating down a bubbly river. By the time we reached Milda’s home, the bruises on my backside would match those on my ankle and I’d neither sit nor walk for a week.
“Where did you come from?” Lukas asked.