“But this wasn’t the Wawel dragon!” exploded Lukasz. “This was an Anglan ?ywern! Didn’t you look at it? It just needed to be killed, fair and square, no tricks—”
“Lukath.” Eliasz shook his head warningly.
Lukasz sat down on the empty bed. When Eliasz took the rag away from his mouth, a few broken white stubs glittered in the dark. He was missing most of his teeth. Lukasz suppressed a cringe and glanced sideways at Franciszek.
His older brother looked pale and drawn.
“Sorry,” said Lukasz awkwardly. “It’s not your fault. It was a good idea.”
Franciszek swallowed. His eyes were a bit shiny.
“I made a mistake,” he said. “?ywerni have formative memory. It may have known the story of the Wawel dragon and figured it out.”
Lukasz nodded.
“You couldn’t have known,” he said.
Franciszek didn’t look convinced.
“There,” said Eryk, stepping back. “All done. Best stitches I’ve ever done. Come and admire, Lukasz.”
Micha? reached up and gingerly touched the side of his head. Lukasz stared at the gash beneath the black stitches. It twisted like a serpent, animated by its venom, undulating and iridescent on the left side of his skull.
He made a face.
“Is that . . . normal?” He glanced at Franciszek. Usually eager to share, Franciszek was avoiding his eye.
Instead, it was Eryk who answered. He did not look especially concerned, but then again, this was Eryk. He did not rattle easily.
“Strange things leave strange wounds.”
“Will it get worse?” pressed Lukasz.
“It’s done, Lukasz. We can’t do anything about it now.” Micha? shrugged. “Now go get us some vodka. We need to celebrate your victory.”
The truth was, Lukasz didn’t want to look at those injuries a moment longer than he had to. He didn’t know what was worse: Eliasz’s missing teeth, which might disfigure him, or Micha?’s poisoned wound, which could very well kill him.
Lukasz descended the tavern stairs. He’d been lucky with the Faustian. One clean impaling, and he had a neat little scar above his knee that had healed well and didn’t look . . . well, didn’t look like that.
Lukasz pushed past the spectators to descend the staircase to the ground floor. The main attraction was a raised boxing ring in the middle of the tavern, and the rest of the building had been designed around it, with the upper floors opening onto the center. Balcony after balcony, the spectators rained beer and gold upon the prizefighters, taking and making bets, everything lit with an enormous wooden chandelier, swaying and dripping hot wax on them all.
When he’d finally pushed through the crowd, Lukasz ordered five vodkas from a bartender so tiny he could barely see over the counter. He waited for the drinks, regretting his fur vest. The tavern was hot.
“That your brother?”
Lukasz turned away from the bar.
The man had blond hair and a single premature line between his long eyes. He wore a black uniform that seemed to give off its own shine, despite the dirty light. And everything was covered with golden embroidery: collar, cuffs, even the hem of the spectacular greatcoat. His black cavalry trousers were trimmed in more gold embroidery, and his black boots had golden tassels.
In that moment he struck Lukasz, raised on empty roads and in black caves, as the most elegant person he had ever seen.
The man spoke again.
“Never seen Wrony before?”
Despite his smile, his voice verged on aggressive. Lukasz tapped the emblem stitched, rather badly, to his linen shirtsleeve. They’d been knighted the year before by King Nikodem. The Brygada Smoka was an official brigade of the king’s army.
“I am Wrony,” returned Lukasz. He heard his accent rumble.
The soldier raised his brows over silver eyes and took the pipe out of his mouth.
“If you say so,” he said idly.
Then he shifted gracefully against the pillar, put his hands in his pockets. Lukasz hated himself for it, but he envied that practiced air.
Then, the elegant Wrony gestured to the throng of people.
“You scare them, you know.”
Lukasz’s grip tightened on the broadsword, the dragon blood flaking a bit at his hip. His eyes raked the room.
“They going to give us trouble?”
When the Wrony didn’t answer, Lukasz glanced back at him. Even gleaming with the heat of the tavern, he looked inescapably aristocratic.
“They wouldn’t know how,” said the soldier in a lazy voice.
Looking back at the crowded room, it was as if he were seeing them for the first time. Three of his brothers were at the bar, the light lost in their dull leather vests, bringing out the dirt in the pale