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" Now you hang from my lips
Like the Gardens of Babylon,
With your boots beneath my bed,
Forever is the sweetest con "
―WE ALL CLEAN and skin the animals Mal managed to get for us to eat, roasting the meat over the fire. I force myself to take a few bites, if only for the sake of what brutality comes ahead. Everyone is mostly awake now and we pass around a flask of kvas as we stare at the flames, talking about who plans on going with us to hunt the firebird, who wants to continue on our mission or give up on this and find peace elsewhere.
I decline the kvas when offered, keeping myself in a tight embrace to ward of the memory of the blood around Nikolai's lips, that dead, merciless sea of darkness in his eyes.
"I should have known Sergei couldn't be trusted," Zoya states suddenly, "he was always a weakling."
"Oncat never liked him," Harshaw says in agreement.
Genya tosses a branch into the flames and they crackle in retribution. "Do you think he was planning it all along?"
"I've been wondering that," Alina admits. "I thought he'd be better once we got out of the White Cathedral and the tunnels, but he almost seemed worse, more anxious."
"That could have been anything," Tamar counters. "Cave-in, militia attack, Tolya's snoring."
Tolya throws a pebble at his sister. "Nikolai's men should have watched him more closely."
I hold my hands near the fear, letting the warmth seep into my limbs.
"Did the nichevo'ya really just. . . tear him apart?" Nadia asks quietly.
I close my eyes, steeling myself through the memory of the horror and fear on his expression, his head and limbs torn apart as easily as paper. I pat Misha's arm as he lays dormant, leaning against my shoulder.
"It was horrible," Alina whispers.
"What about Nikolai?" Zoya asks, and dread pools in my stomach as I open my eyes. "What did the Darkling do to him?"
Everyone turns to me as if watching a ticking timebomb about to explode. I keep my gaze on the flames, unwavering and refusing to let myself mourn. I'm convinced I've shed enough tears in the woods, and I did it alone with the one person I trust most, myself.
"We don't know for sure," I respond calmly. "It might be undoable, but it's hard to say. It's merzost, uncharted territory."
"I could study him," David offers, but the thought of seeing Nikolai in his current state locked in a cage, growling at us like a beast of shadows makes me sick.
