horror—Franciszek burst into tears. Great wracking sobs like thunder, huge for such a slight man, shaking the whole Mountain.
Lukasz sat up immediately.
“Fraszko, what is it?” he asked.
He crossed to the other side of the fire, and Ren watched them through the haze of heat. It reminded her of all the nights that had come before. He reminded her, terribly, that Ry? was dead.
Lukasz was still talking, ineffectively. “It’s all right—”
“It’s not—it’s not that,” sobbed Franciszek. “I’ve failed you.”
Through the shimmering heat, Ren saw Lukasz draw back.
“What?” he said incredulously. “What are you on about?”
“I shouldn’t have left you,” said Franciszek brokenly. “You were right all along, Lukasz. I came back because it seemed easier than staying out there. And now that I’m here, Lukasz—I’m so scared. I can’t do it. After finding their uniforms, their swords—” He looked suddenly at his little brother. “Lukasz, I can’t do it.”
Ren was completely frozen. She didn’t want to be here.
“I’m a coward.”
“No,” said Lukasz helplessly. “No, you aren’t, Franciszek—you are brave—”
Ren wanted to leave, but she was rooted to the spot.
“I just can’t,” said Franciszek, still sobbing. “I just can’t do it. I can’t go any farther.”
“That’s because we’re a team, Fraszko,” said Lukasz. He put an arm around his brother’s shoulders. “You do the planning. I do the killing. It’s how we work. We can’t do it separately. Just like with the Apofys. I didn’t plan. I can’t plan. Not without you.”
Franciszek had put his head in his hands. Lukasz put his arms around his brother, the younger comforting the older. She’d never seen him like this: not with Koszmar, not with Jakub.
Maybe with her, once, in a black river in the rain . . .
“You did it this time,” said Franciszek at last, in a muffled voice.
Lukasz laughed. He didn’t take his arm from around Franciszek.
“No, I didn’t,” he said. “I needed help from everyone. I asked another soldier. I asked Jakub. Ren—” He looked at Ren suddenly, meeting her eye. She realized, too late, that she had been staring, and blushed. Lukasz kept talking as if he hadn’t noticed. “Ren’s saved my life so many times. I should have died days ago, Fraszko. I didn’t do this on my own.”
Ren reflected that even in that river Lukasz hadn’t said what she needed to hear. But now—now he seemed to be saying the right things to Franciszek.
“Listen,” said Lukasz. “You were right all along. I was stupid. I was irresponsible. I was a jerk—”
“I never thought that,” interrupted Franciszek, gulping a bit. He looked totally bewildered. “I didn’t leave because of that.”
Lukasz’s eyebrows shot up. Then they came down again, and even though he didn’t say anything, Ren knew she was watching him finally forgive himself.
“Let’s just go back to Miasto,” said Franciszek at last. “Let’s live out our days in peace and forget about this Dragon. Forget about the monsters, Lukasz. All of them. It’s like I always said—don’t go looking for trouble. Don’t go calling the wolf. We’ve had enough nightmares for one lifetime.” Franciszek broke off, looking desperate.
Lukasz put his elbows on his knees and ran his right hand over his burn.
Ren’s heart began to quicken. She wouldn’t have blamed him if he broke the deal now. She understood, and she wouldn’t have hated him. This wasn’t his fight. Not anymore.
“I can’t,” said Lukasz, in the same low voice.
Franciszek was nonplussed. Ren held her breath.
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t forget about the monsters,” said Lukasz, a bit indistinctly.
“What—what on earth are you talking about?”
Lukasz ran a hand over his mouth, down his neck. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse, and the words hung in the cold air and Ren watched them cut, like a knife, into his brother’s heart.
“I’m in love with one, Franciszek.”
Franciszek’s eyes flickered to Ren.
“Lukasz,” he said, “we’re the only ones left. We could survive. We could go back to Miasto. Or—or we could go to Hala Smoków. We could—”
“We will,” said Lukasz firmly. “But first, we have to kill that Dragon.”
Franciszek’s face fell.
“Lukasz,” he said, “no one else has done it.”
Lukasz met Ren’s eyes over the fire.
“No one else brought her.”
47
THE QUEEN AND THE WOLF-LORD were long gone when, a few hours later, there was a knock on the Baba Jaga’s door.
She crossed the cabin, her wraithlike dogs barking and the hands trying, unsuccessfully, to shush them. She hadn’t always moved this slowly. Hadn’t always felt this frail. Millennia of power, and all it took was some nameless demon underground to pull