someone ripping up an enormous weed. The earth shivered beneath them. Shadows rearranged in the sky. It took him a moment to realize: the cabin was moving.
Lukasz turned his head, just enough to make out a blurry outline. The cabin began to rock back and forth.
It lurched violently, and a single, scaly foot poked out from underneath. He heard Ren gasp. The foot clawed at the ground with three gigantic talons. The house heaved once more, sailed into the air, where it blocked out most of the sky. What was left of the sky was purple behind it, lit by a glowing moon and filled with swooping crows.
Too tired to be scared, Lukasz watched the cabin bend over them, peering down with murky, spotted windows.
“The last of the Wolf-Lords,” said a voice somewhere above him. “What an unexpected pleasure.”
40
LET HIM LIVE, REN PRAYED.
She straightened. Lukasz half lay on the ground, moaning. His eyes had sunk back and his gray skin gleamed with sweat. His hands curled above his chest, black with blood.
Let him live. Please.
Reluctant to take her eyes off him, Ren turned around. The cabin watched them, tilted slightly to the side on its leg, like a gigantic, inquisitive magpie.
Ren towered over the old woman. Loosened skin bagged over every pointy bone in her face. Her chin protruded and her nose drooped, and it was long and crooked and covered from bridge to tip with sores and warts and other things Ren didn’t want to think about.
Ren could hardly believe it had come to this. Stranded in the Mountains with Lukasz dying beside her, facing—
“Hello, Baba Jaga,” she said.
The Baba Jaga wore beautiful clothes: a black-and-red-striped skirt, a heavily embroidered black vest, and a soft white blouse sweetly gathered at her puckered neck. What little hair she had left was covered by an embroidered black kerchief.
“Who are you, little girl?” asked the Baba Jaga.
“My name is Ren,” said Ren.
The Baba Jaga emitted a guttural laugh. She had a basket under one arm, filled with what looked horribly like slabs of meat. Her arms were bloodred to the elbows.
“I did not ask your name,” she said. “I asked who you are.”
Anger flared dully in Ren. Ry? was dead. Lukasz was dying. Her forest, his town, these Mountains—it all lay crushed under black claws, and this woman dared ask who she was? Dared mock her?
Ren’s fury burned. But when she spoke, her voice was quiet.
“I was born in a place where the sun never set and the monsters stayed out of sight,” she said. “Where the birds sang and the walls were whole. Then came the Dragon, and the flowers died and the branches closed overhead and I became queen of the woods.”
The Baba Jaga smiled. Her teeth were abnormally long and blunt, yellow covered with red-brown stains. The chicken cabin tilted to the other side, and even though Ren didn’t dare take her eyes off the Baba Jaga, she could have sworn the windows blinked.
“Bold words from a small queen,” murmured the Baba Jaga at last. “Especially as I hold your lives in my hands.”
“Not for long,” offered up Lukasz from the grass.
The old woman grinned down at him. He was still lying in the grass, his hand clasped over his wounded shoulder. She took in the blood smeared over his skin. The sweat on his cheekbones, the damp hair across his forehead. The longer she looked, the hungrier her expression became.
“You smell like death,” she said, as if relishing the idea.
“Why does everyone keep saying that?” he muttered under his breath.
Ren stared from Lukasz to the Baba Jaga.
“Mavka, was it?” asked the Baba Jaga. “You’re Wrony. You should have known better—”
“Not like I did this on purpose.”
Black blood dripped from between his fingers.
“And yet,” said the Baba Jaga, “you came here on purpose.”
“The domowik from Hala Smoków said you would help.”
Ren blinked. She hadn’t heard any domowik say that.
“I would never help a mere human,” said the Baba Jaga. “Especially not some pretty, arrogant man who thinks he can kiss rusalki and mavka and walk away. You have charmed one monster too many, Lukasz Smoków. I will not help you.”
“I didn’t kiss any mavka,” he said, struggling to sit upright. He held his shoulder so tightly that his knuckles had gone white. “And this isn’t asking for help. This is offering to trade.”
He coughed again. Blood, thick and black, trickled down his chin.
A shiny tongue protruded from the Baba Jaga’s mouth and ran around the edge of her lips.
“NO!”