Babayaga

Will looked at his watch, happy with the feeling that things were beginning to sort themselves out. “Looks like we have a couple of hours, maybe we can meet up with the girls for a drink first?”

“I’m sure the girls are fine; if we’re lucky they spent the whole day shopping for lingerie at Victorine. We can catch up with them later. I say we get some oysters and wine over at Le Chat Noir, it’s on the way.”

XVI

Zoya woke after the sun had set. She pulled herself up in the bed and tried to piece together the last twenty-four hours. What had happened? Why had Elga attacked her? What was the meaning of the disassembled clock? How had she possibly escaped such a perfectly designed attack? She remembered the small girl who had been there, trying to trap her with a spell. The girl’s presence was easily explained: needing to make the killing stick, Elga had found a malleable little urchin and pulled her into the scheme. Zoya realized that this was why she had survived the attack. Elga worked fast, but she was an unreliable and brutal woman who would as easily cut a hungry soldier’s throat as hand him a cold potato—and she was the same with the girls she trained, pulling their hair one day, gently combing it out the next. Zoya knew such inconsistency made for poor training. If it was rushed, the girls would pay the price. Along the way, she had seen Elga try to train a few others, but the old woman’s uneven methods made for shoddy work. There might be some out there still on the road, thought Zoya, but she doubted it. She had seen most of these unlucky students fall before her eyes, either from forgetting precious words or from sticking out too far for suspicious eyes to find.

Zoya knew she had been on a razor’s edge of losing the skirmish, and if Will had not shown up she doubted she would have lived through it. She still could not believe the sight of his sweet face with its quizzical expression popping in the door at that fortuitous moment. That was too odd a twist of fate; she suspected those ghostly witches were pulling strings again. But to what end? What were they weaving? It did no good to guess. All Zoya did know was that being saved by a man was not an entirely comfortable feeling. Normally it was her task to pull them back from the abyss, confusing the auditors, poisoning the prosecutors, covering her lovers with shades of invisibility as they rode into battle. Men had occasionally tried to aid her as well but they were almost always the worst, appearing later with grim, avaricious smiles that said, “Debts are meant to be paid.” She could not recall ever having been rescued like this by a man before, ever. It annoyed her, for it implied a debt and she did not like owing anyone.

She had to admit, though, Will was different: he had fallen into the situation unaware, like the rabbit he was, once again hopping blindly into the middle of the hunting party. It was not even clear if he had any sense of where he had been, and thanks to her whispering spell, now he would never recall it. So, yes, she thought, I can owe him, for he was not one who would hold her to any obligation. She knew he was happy simply to have been there for her in a time of need. She smiled to herself, recalling how relieved she had felt as they made their getaway, wrapped up in his arms, safe in the taxi, driving off from the chaos of the fight, the world around her seeming to close down into warmth and darkness. She realized that the sense of comforting protection he had given her, held there in his reassuring embrace, was an almost exclusively feminine feeling, one that most men only experienced as babes in their mothers’ arms.

On the bedside table she found a note Will had left: Out on a long errand, be here by dinner, rest, kiss, Will. Putting on her clothes, she went out to the kitchen. She was startled to find Gwen sitting by the stove, wearing one of Oliver’s oversized shirts and reading a slender novel. “Oh, good day, lazybones. Oliver left a note saying you’d be here. He wants to take us all out for dinner in a bit.” She looked up with a pleasant smile. “There’s a pot of Earl Grey there if you want a cup.”

Zoya gave her a polite smile in return. “Thank you.” She poured herself some tea. She looked out the window and saw that it was dark. “What time is it?”

“Nearly eight, you two must have had quite the boozy night.”

“Mmmn.” Zoya nodded to herself. So much sleep and she still felt weak. She knew it would be a day or two before she was fully recovered. “So, you are with Oliver now?”

The British girl smiled. “I never like to say I’m with a man. It sounds too much like I’m sick with the sniffles or down with the plague.”

“Yes,” Zoya said. “I suppose I should have asked, ‘Are you having sex with Oliver?’”