and ran a gnarled hand down Lukasz’s cheek. She leaned in and whispered, “If you ever hurt this dear girl, I will find you and eviscerate you.”
Lukasz grinned down at her.
“Don’t worry.”
The Baba Jaga cackled.
“I’m not the one who should be worried.”
Ren cocked an eyebrow, as if to say, She’s right. The Baba Jaga lifted two satchels from the kitchen table. She passed one to Ren and Lukasz took the other.
“It’s a straight walk northeast to the Mountain,” said the old woman. “You will find it by evening. It is surrounded by a valley and several hills. Both the valley and the hills are fixed points. They will not move with the tides. Go carefully, for now you tread on bones.”
Ren nodded, looking solemn. She let Lukasz help her into the extra Wrony coat.
“Take care,” said the Baba Jaga. “And Ren—”
Lukasz realized, suddenly, that it was the first time she had used Ren’s name.
“—are you sure you would not like to change your wish?”
Lukasz glanced between them. Wish? Since when had the Baba Jaga granted wishes? He would have to ask Ren about it later.
“No, Baba Jaga,” said Ren, in her soft, hoarse voice. “I want this.”
They left Król in the Baba Jaga’s meadow, promising to return for him once their battle was over. Together, they trekked upward through the hills until the little cabin and the purple fields were far behind them.
As the sun dipped lower in the sky, they broke from cool pathways into a ring of pink-tinted peaks. The Mountains rumbled around them, but their path stayed still. It took Lukasz a moment to realize that they must have reached the enclosure of fixed foothills. He and Ren paused to rest on a ledge, and Lukasz put his arm around her shoulders as they admired the view.
It was amazing. After this, he would never appreciate another sunset the same way. Beneath them, and crested with snow, the Mountains rolled like waves. A family of mountain goats dashed out between the peaks below and began to climb. As the twilight deepened, the cliffs roiled and the goats danced from ledge to moving ledge. The noise was deafening, like thunder in a summer shower, with the goats bleating below. He realized, suddenly, that they were laughing. They were playing.
“It’s so beautiful,” murmured Ren.
Lukasz glanced down at her as the wind tugged at her hair and she pushed it back. The human clothes only heightened that odd, magical quality that clung to her. Then she smiled. The sly smile, the quiet one, the one that rarely graced those downturned, flawless lips.
He leaned down and kissed her. She ran a hand over his cheek, through his hair. Maybe he should have felt guilty that so many tragedies had conspired to lead to this. But he didn’t. He didn’t care.
He would do it all again, because she loved him.
“We should go,” she said, pulling away. “The sun is almost gone.”
They kept on through the hills, now transforming to violet. Then the path led them through a narrow passageway of rock, so tight that they had to stoop and walk single file, and when they emerged, they were in the valley of the Glass Mountain.
Beside him, Ren gasped.
The last of the sun glanced off the Mountains surrounding them. At the other end of the valley, miles away, rose a mountain of shimmering glass. It was so tall that its peak was lost in the clouds overhead. It caught the twilight in orange, yellow, pink, and purple. The sunset ricocheted off its faceted edges, as if the Mountain could not bear to let go of the dying light.
“My God,” murmured Lukasz.
But he wasn’t looking at the Mountain. He was looking at the armor.
The valley was full of armor. Golden breastplates heaped against gauntlets. Pools of chain mail sparkled like mirrors. Amid the wreckage lay horses’ faceguards, broadswords, shields, charred carts with broken axles and missing wheels. Pennants flew from hundreds of pikes, rising at odd angles from the ground. The wind had whipped them ragged and their colors had long ago been faded by sun and rain, but Lukasz could still make out their emblems: bears, eagles, lynxes, and even the wolf’s head of Hala Smoków.
Somewhere out there, beneath a pennant of gold and purple, lay the empty armor of Ren’s father. Somewhere out there was the sword that his own father had once carried. Somewhere out there lay leather vests and broadswords, black uniforms and antlered bridles. Somewhere out there lay all that