thought, Irina who had brought Dusia’s corpse down, then sat frozen for hours afterward. She must be shock-frozen now, Nina thought, shouting fruitlessly at the plane. Shock-frozen the way Yelena had been that time she imagined Messerschmitts where there were none—because Irina didn’t even try to evade the tracer fire. She flew on, straight and slow as a stone lobbed gently into a river, and then she was burning in the air like a sheet of paper.
The next fighter to make its pass would target the Rusalka.
Yelena had already thrown them into a nosedive. “Get under the lights,” Nina yelled through the interphones. They were sinking fast toward the ground, and from the corner of her eye she could see the flaming wreckage of Irina’s plane—charred fuselage, half a wing, a horrendously bright flare that might have been burning hair on a dead woman’s head—settle over the earth in glowing embers. The Rusalka’s altimeter fell, Yelena forcing them down under six hundred meters, five, four—“We’re over the target!” Nina shouted, “keep straight—” Normally Nina would have released the bombs, but they were far too low. Two hundred meters now and still falling. Nina looked back and saw the U-2 behind them tumble out of the sky midway through its own evasive maneuvers, a burning propeller whirling into the night like a star, the navigator’s flares going off in colored bursts even as the plane’s wings broke apart. Nina saw the shape of a German night fighter for the first time, lit jaggedly by the green light of the flares.
“Under one hundred meters,” Yelena called, bringing the engine back to life even as the altimeter needle scraped the bottom. The Rusalka roared, nose lifting as Yelena brought her around still hugging the ground. “I can’t see—”
Nina struggled to get her bearing for the new heading, back to the airdrome. This mission was done. The searchlights were still stabbing the air, but the Night Witches had scattered to the wind, run for cloud cover, turned for home. The ground below glowed with burning fragments. Four planes, Nina thought numbly. They had never, ever lost so many at once. Losses came singly, a plane at a time, perhaps two. Not four.
She could hear Yelena crying in the front cockpit, even as she took them up to a safer height to jettison their bombs. “Tell me where to go,” she was weeping, “tell me the heading. Take me home.”
“HOW DID THE FRITZES know our target?”
“Even they get lucky. Who knows?”
Ten minutes. Eight girls. One moment they were immortal, the Night Witches descending on their targets. The next moment, burning like candles.
“I’ve been promoted to pilot.” Nina mumbled the news into Yelena’s hair, standing outside the schoolhouse that now served as their barracks. “Moved up with three other navigators.” She should have been raging to be moved away from Yelena, but all rage had been drained out of her.
“It’s where you belong,” Yelena said valiantly. “The regiment needs you in a pilot’s cockpit, not steering me around.” But her face crumpled. Nina pulled her closer, openly kissed her wet eyes and her wet cheeks, not bothering to look for privacy. Ever since coming back to the barracks and seeing the eight folded cots against the wall that would not be filled that night, all the women were embracing, clinging, comforting each other. The most disastrous night in regiment history had bloomed into a beautiful summer morning, and they all knew they would be going up again tonight. The word had come down that they’d have night fighters of their own flying, if any German night fighters reared their snouts again.
“They’ve given you a U-2 already?” Yelena asked, wiping her eyes. “For tonight?”
Nina nodded. “Bershanskaia’s pairing you with Zoya for navigator. She’s good—you were right about that. She’ll take care of you.”
Not like I can. But she didn’t say it; this was the time to fill her pilot with confidence.
“Who’s your navigator?” Yelena asked.
“Galina Zelenko.”
“Little Galya? How is that skinny prat supposed to keep you out of trouble?” Yelena sounded unaccustomedly savage. “She looks about twelve!”
“Eighteen, and terrified of me. Am I really that frightening?” Nina’s attempt at levity fell flat. I don’t want to leave you, she wanted to cry. I can’t fly with anyone but you. But this was the way of things: lose a sestra, slot another into her cockpit, keep flying.
They stood in the sunlight, clinging to each other. “I just want this war to be over,” Yelena whispered. “I want an