across the chest. His ruined face registered surprise.
The force sent him skidding across the mountaintop. He careened straight over the side.
But for a moment, he hung on. The clawed fingers scrabbled, carving bloody lines in water and glass. His shredded face leered over the edge. A crack was spreading, splintering up from under his hand.
“Help, Lukasz, help me—”
His old voice. His human voice. The voice that had made plans, had paid compliments. The voice of a strange, reluctant friend.
The crack gaped wider. Lukasz almost went for him. He almost hauled him back. Almost tried to save this second soul, when he had already abandoned the first.
But Lukasz didn’t move. He couldn’t. However many souls Koszmar had—whatever horror had brought him here—whatever bit of his friend was still inside, still trapped, still trying to get out . . .
Koszmar had killed Franciszek.
A rumble, and the ledge loosened. Koszmar was slipping.
Koszmar had killed Ren.
“Please, Lukasz, please—”
Glass screeched. The ledge came away. Koszmar screamed, disappeared, and then all that was left was his screaming, getting fainter and fainter, disappearing into the fog and rain. The Mountain was silent.
Lukasz walked slowly to the cliffside. Glass stretched downward as far as the eye could see. It disappeared into gray clouds and oblivion.
Koszmar was gone.
Lukasz turned away. He was suddenly aware of his pounding heart. No longer in time with the dragon’s wingbeats, now hard and painful and constricting his throat.
Ren.
Queen Dagmara was hunched over her body amid the wreckage of the forest. The trees had been destroyed by the Dragon’s tail. Golden trunks lay on their sides, the last bits of strzygi still twitching on the glass. A single severed foot hopped in a circle.
Ren was still a lynx. She had not changed back. Lukasz fell to his knees beside them. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t feel.
“It isn’t working,” the queen repeated to herself, over and over. She hugged her daughter’s soaked body. “It isn’t working.”
Lukasz saw the golden apples on the glass, most of them wet with blood. One with a bite out of it.
Queen Dagmara was sobbing. Lukacz touched Ren’s head. Then, carefully, took her from Dagmara’s arms. She was heavy. Her fur was waterlogged. Her lynx eyes were closed and her shoulder was matted with blood. Her whiskers were bent. Blood and water swirled on the glass around them.
“No,” he said hoarsely, smoothing back her wet ears. “Not like this.”
It wasn’t right. She was the queen. She’d conquered rusalki and banished mavka. She’d befriended the Leszy and charmed the Baba Jaga. Even the Dragon was on her side, for God’s sake! To him, she had been untouchable. He had never worried, not for a single moment, that she would have—that she would be the one—who— While he held her, she began to change. The fur disappeared and her ears changed to dark hair. She grew lighter in his arms, more fragile. The glass slithered up over her body, re-forming the gown. It trapped the blood from the bullet wound underneath, turning the gown crimson instead of silver. She had always been pale, but now she looked paper-thin. Nearly colorless. The blue veins of her throat stood out starkly. Blue circles hung under her eyes. Blue veins even spread out from her lips. Her hair was wet, flat, draped over his arm. It was lifeless.
This was his fault. Their fault. The villagers had thrown rocks, the soldiers had kidnapped her, and in the end—
When he took her face in his hands, her skin was cold.
Koszmar had killed her.
He couldn’t tell if she was breathing. Intending to listen, he lowered his head. But he was worn thin. He wasn’t thinking straight. His mind was full of blood and strzygi and everything they’d lost, everything he’d lost, and for some reason, hands shaking, he bent still farther and found her cold mouth.
For the last time, he kissed her.
A hand pressed into his shoulder. Then it transformed, fingers to claws and back again, and it took him a moment to realize what was happening. Ren’s eyelids fluttered.
“Oh my God,” he muttered. His trembling hands ran over her cheeks, through her soaked hair. Hope soared in his voice. “Oh my God, Ren—”
Her eyelids fluttered again. And then those cold lips twisted and smiled, and green eyes looked into his. A bit hysterically, she began to laugh.
And then, beneath branches of gold and upon glass washed clean by rain, Lukasz kissed her.
57
ALIVE.
Ren couldn’t help it. She laughed, and Lukasz’s mouth was on hers again. Her hands found his