still with her. She'd find some way to kill him through some other hand, or at least rend them apart, breaking the spell.
She thought back to yesterday's burning of the church. Such a fine idea! She raised no hand against the princess, but rather simply ignited the dried wood of that ugly magicless sanctuary for the untalented devotees of a distant and disinterested god. Of course the princess got out - whether because of a spell or simply because she was a clever and lucky woman, Baba Yaga could not guess. But even if the church-burning failed to kill the girl and solve Baba Yaga's problems all in one blow, the thing had been worth doing for its own sake.
She'd find other ways in this world; there would be other tools to use. Even if her powers were weaker here, even if there were strong rivals that she dared not provoke, she'd make do, she'd find a way to win.
Or if she couldn't, or if her life was in danger, she'd simply cover herself with the cloth she had soaked with the oil from Bear's fur, speak a single word, and all that was encompassed by the cloth would be carried back home in a moment. If that included the princess or her lackey ur-husband, or both, so much the better. For them to come back to Baba Yaga's house under her power would be sweet indeed.
Chapter 11
Airports
If Ivan had doubted Cousin Marek's magical power, he would have been convinced by this: A genuine passport and visa for Katerina, in her name, and only a day after telephoning a friend in the new passport office in Kiev.
"The independent government of Ukraine is only a few months old, and already you have connections?"
"My connections are older than the government," said Marek.
Katerina looked through the pages of the book. "So much paper, and almost nothing written in it. And these letters - " She pointed to a word in the Roman alphabet. " - I don't know some of them."
"The letters Kirill gave to your language," said Ivan, "are not the only letters in the world."
"And you know all the letters?" she asked.
"All the letters in that book," he said.
"But there aren't very many here," as if his achievement were not so remarkable after all. Was she teasing him, or scorning him? How could he hope to tell?
"I know two alphabets," said Ivan. "The one that's used here, in the land of my birth - the one Kirill invented. And the one that's used in America, where my family lives."
"And which of these lands do you call your own?" asked Cousin Marek. "I'm curious, is all."
"I'm at home in both places," said Ivan. "But more a stranger here, I think, than there. Maybe I'm foreign in every land."
Marek chuckled. "Aren't we all."
Katerina was studying her own passport photo. "This seems a remarkably faithful likeness of the woman," she said. "Who is she, and why is her portrait in this book?"
It took Ivan a moment to realize she wasn't joking. But then, how would she recognize herself? The shining metal of a sword was the only mirror in King Matfei's court, and before modern times no one in Russia had much use for mirrors, since they believed a spirit from another world could leap from a mirror to possess them or attack. She had probably seen her own face in a pool - rippling, distorted, with fish darting between her eyes.
"The portrait is of you," said Ivan.
"When did the painter spy on me?" she said.
"It's not painted," said Ivan. "The man yesterday, who made the light flash - "
"That's what that spell was for? To take my picture from me?"
"Not a spell, a tool, like the light switch and the running water in the kitchen."
"You keep insisting on this, but isn't it time you explained to me why spells aren't also tools?"
Ivan shook his head. "You are being obstinate," he said. "You know the difference perfectly well yourself. You've handled a scythe - it cuts because the blade shears the stalks of grain. But a spell has no such contact between one thing and another."
"Then you've proved my point," she said. She walked to the light switch and turned it on and off. "There - what connection did my action have with that light? And this portrait - the light flashed, but nothing touched me."
"The light touched you."
She laughed. "And when I wave my hands in the air to cast a spell,