The words were a shock. Lukasz didn’t quite know what to say.
Even after Tad and Henryk had disappeared, Rafa? had continuously deferred to their authority. He was twenty-one years old; he did not want to be the eldest. Tad and Henryk were coming back, he’d insist. Until then, they just had to kill dragons, make money, and enjoy themselves.
And so, for a few precious months, they had run wild.
Perhaps that was Raf’s secret, Lukasz thought. He had a gift of total and absolute self-destruction, and it was intoxicating. The past year had been the wildest, messiest, most enjoyable twelve months of Lukasz’s life: Rafa? lay upon the beds of Miasto tattoo parlors, Eryk bought a vodka distillery, and Anzelm drank most of it. In the chaos, no door was closed upon Lukasz. No tavern was too rough. No alcohol too hard. No woman too dangerous. In the spring, they rented out palatial hotel rooms. In the summer, they dined on white-sand beaches in the north. They slept in gutters and stretched out on barroom floors, shrouded in the eternal night of underground taverns. Once, in a grotty little village nicknamed “Skulltown” by the locals, the twins met an upiór in a crypt and almost died.
They were rich. They were handsome. And, as they kept telling themselves, they were happy.
“You know,” said Rafa?, and Lukasz was horrified to see tears in his brother’s eyes, “I have been a terrible brother.”
For some reason, Raf had never seemed more unpredictable—more dangerous—than he seemed in that moment.
“You did the best you could,” offered Lukasz.
It was a lie. Part of him was tired of hauling Rafa? out from the monster’s jaws. Tired of how he only seemed happy when he was dragging the rest of them down with him. He was tired of the fact that Rafa? wasn’t willing to care for them in the same way that Tad and Henryk had cared.
Rafa? got to his feet and picked up the book that Franciszek had left open. Lukasz followed. The mavka in the picture stared out at them. At sixteen, Lukasz was already taller than Raf.
“I know how they feel,” murmured Rafa?.
“I don’t understand,” Lukasz faltered. “What are you saying, Raf?”
Rafa? leaned in, held the book up.
“These monsters. Trapped between two worlds. Doomed to wander. I know how that feels.” His eyes were no longer poetic. They were feral. Animal. A thousand years of blood and gore raged behind them. “We’re exiles, Lukasz.”
“Raf.” Lukasz laughed, and it was brittle. “Stop being weird.”
A ghostly smile hung on Rafa?’s lips.
“I don’t want to be an exile anymore,” he said. He licked his lips. “I want to go home.”
“We can’t,” said Lukasz.
Without answering, Rafa? pulled Lukasz close and hugged him. His strength was bone-crushing. Lukasz could feel him shaking. He felt cold, as if he were already dead.
“They’re calling me,” he whispered. “The Mountains call me back.”
The next morning, Rafa? was gone.
He left no note. No explanation, beyond his words to Lukasz. He left nothing but foggy nights and disastrous hunts and dark gutters. Nothing but five words. Five words to hold on to, to fear.
The Mountains call me back.
And outside the windows of their hotel room, paid for by the mayor of Kwiat, the snow began to fall.
14
AS SOON AS LUKASZ WAS back on his feet, they ran.
They ran until Król’s black sides ran white with sweat. They ran until the pink sky turned to blue, until the forest grew warm again, until the roots stopped snatching at their heels. Until the evil fell away, until the smell of rot faded. They ran until Lukasz’s blood dried to a crust on his skin, until even the pain of the nawia’s cuts was barely a memory. They ran until the big black wolf collapsed in the dirt, sides heaving, tongue lolling between white teeth. Eyes blue as a Wolf-Lord’s.
Lukasz wished they could run until Rybak stopped weeping. But even after they had slowed their exhausted horses to a walk, his shoulders kept shaking and his single eye produced enough tears for two.
None of them spoke.
Lukasz pulled his cap back over his head and turned in the saddle, trying to get his bearings. It looked like they were heading east, because the queen—whether she realized it or not—was leading them in the direction of the Mountains. But beyond that, he was lost. The trees looked random to him: mostly spruce, interspersed with oaks and Scots pine. Here and there, a linden tree sprouted. There