subtle, but even he could tell they weren’t talking about strzygi anymore. He’d already pieced the story together from the others: Jakub had gone looking for another creature to research, and Ren had punished him for it. He did not have any interest in reliving that moment with either of them.
“So,” said Jakub instead. “Shall we read?”
And suddenly, Lukasz realized that he had even less interest in looking like an illiterate fool in front of the queen.
“I have to go,” he said abruptly. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“But—” began Jakub.
“The strzygi—” warned Ren.
Lukasz got to his feet. His arm was numb, and inside the glove his fingertips were cold. Fear twisted within him.
“See you at camp,” he said shortly, and strode away.
Jakub’s story had gotten under his skin, as surely as that damn queen had gotten under it. The possibility was horrific. After all, if a strzygi bite could transform a man, what could a nav do . . . ?
He glanced back, but Ren and Jakub were already far behind him. Confident he was alone, Lukasz shrugged off his coat. Maybe he just had a little nick, catching on the seam of his shirt. Maybe, he thought wildly, he’d slept on some kind of poisonous plant. Maybe—
He dragged the shirt down off his shoulder.
The skin was no longer smooth. Five claw marks traced the same lines of the nawia’s blow, now bubbling like burns. He ran his fingers over one cut, and a sheet of skin peeled back.
“No,” he muttered. “No, no, no.”
At the touch, pain shot down his arm. Lukasz stumbled back, catching his foot on a root and almost falling.
He’d had his share of scrapes and burns and impalings, and he didn’t want to admit it to anyone, but this was worse. Wounds were supposed to heal. Not disappear and reopen and blister and burn. He cringed at the thought. . . . But, then again, what was he supposed to do?
Franciszek was the expert on these things. And Franciszek, God help him, was probably dealing with some monsters of his own at that moment.
This couldn’t be happening. Not when things were working out so perfectly. When he had a plan. When he was finally learning to read. When he’d met her—
He punched a tree and immediately regretted it. Pain splintered across his knuckles.
“Careful,” said a familiar, nasal voice. “I think that one was on our side.”
Lukasz swore again.
Koszmar was leaning against a tree a few feet away, smoking. He had one foot crossed in front of the other. He wasn’t as much watching Lukasz as he was staring off into space. In fact, he was so quiet and still that between the fog and the dimness, Lukasz had mistaken him for another tree.
“Have you been there the whole time?” he demanded, pulling his coat back on.
The mist gave everything a dreamlike quality as Koszmar turned slowly. He used his tongue to pivot his pipe to the edge of his mouth, and the click of the stem against his teeth echoed in the darkness.
“Yes,” he said softly. Then: “Do you need help, Lukasz?”
Lukasz hung back a moment longer. The night played tricks on a man in the best of times; this forest, at this time, was a death trap.
“Oh, come now,” said Koszmar in the same soft, almost musical voice. “It’s just me.”
Lukasz drew level with him. Cautiously, he leaned against a neighboring tree in an identical position, only reversed.
“Got a light?” he asked, casting a wary glance at the alternating blue and black before them. “Left mine by the fire.”
From the corner of his eye, he watched Koszmar fish around in his pockets. A languid grin stretched around his pipe.
“Luring you to my vices, am I?” He produced a lighter with amber inlays, and the expensive trinket passed between them, silhouetted by the eerie blue fog. “What a delicious possibility.”
Lukasz rolled his eyes, cupping his hands around the cigarette. He promised himself it would be his last. Especially if that girl—Ren—really was the princess. He wasn’t especially keen to find out what happened to those who disobeyed her rules.
The tip of the cigarette glowed orange in the blue, blue world. Fine tobacco, with a soft peppermint taste.
“We’ve got a problem,” he said in a low voice.
“Did Rybak tell you his theory about her being the princess?”
Lukasz started. For some reason, he’d assumed Jakub would have told him first. In fact, a small part of him was a little insulted that he’d gone to Koszmar before him.