his chair and left the room. The mayor ignored him and gestured to the cage:
“If you can resist her.”
Eryk stood up. He’d already lain in the arms of all the beautiful things in the world. He’d had everything, was invincible to anything. The vila didn’t stand a chance. He circled the table, and very slowly, he crouched down before the cage.
He whispered something to her. She lifted her head.
Lukasz put down his glass.
A ripple of awe raced through the guests. She wasn’t just beautiful. She was enrapturing. None of them knew it, but even as they looked, her eyes were slipping into a different shape for each of them. For some, they were big and innocent. For others, narrow and sly. Her lips bent and unbent a dozen times, her hair flowing into a thick straight mane, then back into gentle waves. And if it was what they wanted, then she stopped being a woman at all. None saw what the others saw; they saw only what they wanted. What they needed. In that moment, she was all things to all people.
Afterward, Lukasz wondered what Eryk had seen.
He unlatched the cage. The vila trembled, weakened. Afraid. She knew, probably. Knew that he was invincible. He alone impervious. In his own way, Eryk had her enchanted. He leaned inside, put his arms around her, and drew her out.
To Lukasz’s surprise, she came willingly.
Her long arms wrapped around his neck, and she buried her face in his shoulder. A sheet of silver-blue hair fell over the black of his uniform. As her face disappeared from sight, the enchantment evaporated. The room let out a breath. Cutlery tinkled, gowns rustled, and voices sounded.
“What are you doing?” asked the mayor.
Eryk ignored him, crossing to the window. The vila had wrapped her legs around his hips, tightened her arms around his neck. He unlatched the window, flung it open. Black sky and cold air rushed in, almost snuffed out the candles. Still, she clung to him. Looked helpless. Nothing like the powerful spirits Lukasz had always secretly dreamed of meeting on a dark and lonely road.
“I said—” The mayor got to his feet. His voice had gotten dangerously low. “What are you doing?”
The vila looked up.
The room went still again. Maybe they were under her spell. Or under Eryk’s. He was too lupine, too magnetic. He carried his own magic in his hypnotic eyes. Pulled you in. Didn’t let you go. And when he spoke next, it was in a voice so harsh and so thickly accented that even Lukasz barely understood him.
“I don’t hunt things in cages.”
“That’s a vila,” sputtered the mayor. “Vermin.”
Eryk leaned back, enough that she turned that gorgeous face—a face Lukasz wanted back—to him. He smoothed down her hair. Lukasz had never seen him look like that. He looked sad, wistful. He looked like a boy. He looked like every moment thus far had led to what he saw in the face of that wraith.
“Everything wants to live,” he whispered.
“Don’t you bloody dare—” began the mayor.
Eryk did not answer. The vila was growing mistier at the edges, pieces of her floating away on the wind. He stared at her, and she at him. They were entangled, enraptured. She had Eryk, only Eryk, in her spell. Or maybe he had her.
“She’s calling,” whispered Eryk. “She’s calling me home.”
And suddenly, Lukasz knew what he meant to do. And deep down, he knew what Eryk saw in her.
And then he was gone.
Taken away by wind and night and the vila’s magic. The window was a gaping black square in a wall of amber and gold. Eryk’s words hung over them. Danced in the amber-tinted shadows overhead, settled in their hair. Lodged in their hearts.
She’s calling me home.
Lukasz never saw Eryk again.
26
LUKASZ STILL HADN’T COME BACK. Koszmar settled on the other side of their tiny fire, propped up on one elbow. The others were fast asleep, full of the Leszy’s food and the hope of reaching the Mountains.
For a while, it was just Ren and Koszmar.
As the darkness pressed in, he appeared brighter: hair so luminescent it seemed to glow. Sparkling eyes, as pale and icy as a vila’s skin. Long blond eyelashes. Face no longer a muddy tan, but corpse-pale, with an undertone of gold. Immersed in the darkness surrounding them, he burned with light.
“Do you think he’s going to be all right?” asked Ren.
She’d been shocked by the sight of Lukasz down at the river. In just a few days, he’d aged ten