Chapter 23

Anya woke the following morning, disorientated and fighting her nightmare. In the dream, she was twelve years old, hiding in the hayloft while Trajan was in the barn arguing with Eikki.

"You can"t sendme away, Eikki, not now that her magic is getting stronger. You are too old to hold back the people that the Darkness and Illumination will send to try and recruit her," Trajan said. "I swore an unbreakable oath to Ilya to protect his family."

"And you have served that oath. I"m releasing you of it. Do you think Anya will believe she"s normal if she has a protector shadowing her every step? She is already too attached to you, and she"s becoming a woman. That will confuse her more," Eikki argued. He put a hand on Trajan"s shoulder. "Once her memories are gone and magic suppressed, we won"t have to worry about anyone coming for her. I"ll make it known that she is like her father with no magic. They won"t want her. You won"t be needed to protect her. It"s a chance for you to have your own life. That"s what you wanted to be free for, wasn"t it?"

"I don"t agree with this, Eikki. I respect you, but locking away this part of her is wrong. She"s a magical child. She won"t know who she is!"

"But she will be safe."

"If you don"t send me away, she will always be safe. I swear it, Eikki. I won"t let anything happen to her."

"My mind is made up. Go, Trajan. I release you of your duty," Eikki said, his voice stern enough to make Trajan step back from him.

"Very well, gatekeeper. Just promise me that you will reach out if you ever need me."

"I will, old friend."

Trajan left the barn without looking back, long coat streaming behind him in the wind. Anya leaped out from her hiding place and tore after him across the paddock.

"Trajan! Wait!" she called and latched onto his waist to stop him from going any further. "You can"t go."

Trajan crouched down beside her. "I have to, little one. I"m sorry, but your grandfather thinks it"s for the best, and I have to obey."

"You"re going for good? Like forever?" Anya had been taught not to cry, but the thought of never seeing her friend again hurt too much. Trajan took her hand in his.

"You"ll see me again one day, I promise. In the meantime, you listen to your grandfather, and you stay safe." Anya nodded and then wrapped her arms around his neck.

"I"ll miss you," she said.

"I"ll miss you too, little one. Be safe for me."

The dream toreaway from her and jolted her into wakefulness. Anya"s cheeks and pillow were damp with tears. She slowly sat up and placed a hand over her aching chest as the lost memory settled in her mind.

Trajan. Her special friend. She had barely talked to Eikki for weeks afterward until something had happened, and all memory of Trajan faded away. Oh, Eikki, why did you take my memory of him away?

Memories and feelings were rushing back over her, a floodgate of emotion for the thanatos she only just met. He had always been her friend. That was why she felt safe with him and knew she could trust him in her bones.

Anya got out of bed, showered, and dressed in clean clothes. Her mind was on fire from all the stories from the previous night, but something had also calmed inside of her. She knew that the strange bunch of people she had fallen in with weren"t going to let her figure out her new and confusing world for herself.

Anya"s need for coffee drove her out of her room and downstairs. She could smell the coffee and opened the door to find Yvan, Trajan, and Izryal already awake. Trajan was brewing coffee in a plunger, and when he smiled at her, her flush of memories came back to her.

"I had a dream about you last night," she blurted out excitedly.

"Oh, a sexy dream?" Izrayl asked from where he was scrambling eggs at the stove.

Yvan stopped buttering toast next to him and smacked him in the back of the head. "Don"t talk to her like that."

Trajan offered her a steaming mug, his smile widening a little. "Don"t mind them. Was it a good dream, at least?"

Anya shook her head, and his lovely smile slipped. "No, it was horrible. It was the day you left." She accepted the coffee and sat down at the table.

"If it was horrible, why are you so excited about it?" Trajan asked, taking a seat beside her.

"Because it was a real memory. That must mean whatever Tuoni did to me is working, even if it"s going slow. In a few days, I"ll hopefully remember who you are properly," Anya said, resting a hand on his arm.

He looked down at it curiously, and as she went to move it, he put his warm palm over hers. "That is good news. It"s been rather terrible having you look at me like a stranger," Trajan admitted. Heat flushed her cheeks, and Yvan interrupted them by placing a plate of breakfast in front of her.

"You better eat, Anya. We need to talk about a plan for leaving here while we still have a lead on Vasilli," he said, sitting down on the other side of her.

"What plan?" Cerise asked, coming into the kitchen and looking like a million dollars with her vibrant red hair in a long, intricate braid. "I don"t want to have to deal with Vasilli any time soon."

"Baba Yaga gave us a drum, and she said it would show us the way through Skazki if I cast Yanka"s rune stones on it. I haven"t tried it out yet," Anya admitted.

"I"ve been thinking about Paris," Trajan said. "I have a townhouse, and unlike Skazki, you will be able to hide your magic there."

"That"s right, because that red magic trail is everywhere you go," Izrayl reminded her.

"But won"t Mir make it harder for Anya to learn her magic?" Yvan asked.

"Not if Tuoni really did something to remove the blocks in Anya"s memory," Trajan argued, turning back to her. "You were already so natural with your magic before Eikki hid it away. It was like you could use it intuitively. If you remember those times, you might be able to sense the power and use it more easily."

"I have Eikki"s journals, but I can start with the runes and the drum," Anya said, sounding way more confident than what she felt.

"Baba Yaga said that the drum would give us safe passage, and if we decide to go to Paris, hopefully, it will lead us to another gate close by," Yvan said. He cursed suddenly and started squirming in his seat. He quickly undid his shirt, gritting his teeth. He breathed a sigh as the firebird stretched and moved his wings along Yvan"s skin.

"Are you okay?" Anya asked, her hand reaching for his shaking shoulder.

"It wanted to see," Yvan said apologetically. "Damn bird won"t shut up in my head." The firebird"s feathers gleamed softly. Its eye blinked and turned its head, so Yvan looked as if he had a bird"s head growing out of his chest.

Izrayl laughed when he saw it. "I thought I was a freak. That"s just gross."

"It"s draining having an extra voice in your head. It"s like having a wife again," Yvan complained.

"Then it"s settled. We head to Paris," Trajan interrupted them. "Anya, you should have a look at the drum and the runes this morning to see if it gives you some useful directions while we pack."

Anya bit her lip. "I can try, but I can"t promise anything magical will happen."

"Of what I have seen of magic, you only need talent and instincts, and you have both," Yvan said. "Have you felt any different since crossing over?"

"My hand still burns sometimes where Tuoni zapped me, and sometimes I feel like I have static running under my skin. Vodka dulls it down enough, so I don"t want to scratch myself to pieces."

The magic is building inside of you, child,the firebird"s voice touched her mind. You must release it, or it will start releasing itself.

"That"s not helpful," Anya told the bird on Yvan"s chest. "It says it"s the magic trying to get out." The firebird stretched its wing down Yvan"s arm, curled out his skin, and brushed against her, sending warmth flooding up to her arm.

"Wow," Anya whispered, stroking the feather with one finger.

"Using the drum could help release some of your magic," Trajan said, making her look up.

"You don"t think using magic will attract Vasilli?"

"If it does, at least you have some fierce protectors," Cerise said. "And a sexy guard dog."

Izrayl snorted. "Don"t push your luck with the dog jokes."

"You should try using the drum outside, so if you release too much power, you won"t destroy the house," Trajan suggested.

"That"s probably a good idea. Just don"t expect any miracles," Anya said quietly.

Cerise clapped her hands. "We have a plan. You get started on the drum, and the rest of us will focus on packing what we need for when the miracle arrives."

The forest wascold and damp from the rain the night before, the scent of sweet pines and the thick earthiness of rotting leaves filling the air.

Anya held the drum in one hand, the runes in the other, and Eikki"s journals were in a bag beside her. Warm and dry inside her thick coat, she had been sitting on a rock for an hour trying to find the courage to try out the drum.

Yvan hadn"t been enthusiastic about letting her out of their sight, but she couldn"t handle the thought of people watching her fail. She hadn"t wandered far in the forest but just enough to be out of sight of Trajan"s house.

Anya turned the drum over in her hands. It was shaped in a rough oval painted in the symbols of the Sami nojd drums. She had seen such drums when Eikki had taken her to the Midsummer celebrations. There had been joik singing, which Eikki loved and had left her brain buzzing.

In the center of the drum was a large cross with a reindeer in the middle of it. Scattered around the drum were small drawings of churches, birds, stick figures, trees, a wolf, a bear, and more reindeer.

I know I"ve seen these markings before. It took Anya a few minutes of flicking through Eikki"s journals before she found a small sketch of a drum and read out the scribbled note.

"The drums are read from top to bottom. The top is north, most often crowned with a cross shape—the Northern Star. The next three layers represent the Heavenly Realm, the Earthly Realm, and the Underworld. Ask it a question and cast your bone to see your answers."

Anya re-read it twice while checking her drum. There was a cross, encircled with antlers on one of the four arms of the larger center crosspiece. The north, the heavens. She didn"t know what all the other symbols meant, but she understood how a compass worked. Maybe it would work that way too?

Anya placed the drum in front of her on the ground, took out her runes, and randomly picked one. It was smooth in her hand and had a scratching in it like a slanted L. Her fingertips tingled as she sorted through them to find the one that Yvan had shown her.

Baba Yaga had said to drop Raidho on it, and Yvan explained it looked like a crooked R. She finally found it and turned it over in her palm until the stone turned warm. Silencing all the voices in her head, Anya stretched her hand out over the drum.

"Show me the path to Paris," she said.

Heat rushed through her, making her ears pop, and she dropped the runestone. It bounced once on a bird, then jumped to land on a string of crosses before stopping on a stick figure wearing a dress. She ignored the thrumming under her skin and tried to imagine it landing on a compass. Southeast.

"Okay, maybe that"s the way…" Anya breathed out, picked up the rune, placed it into the bag, and tucked them into her coat pocket. She had just stood up when a deep growl echoed through the trees. A gray wolf appeared in view, not ten feet from her, and her heart stopped.

"The Master wants you," it rasped through its teeth.

"So which one are you? Vischto or Vischtan?" Anya stepped backward carefully, and the wolf growled.

"Vischto, and I"ll be the one that is honored for finding you."

"My friends know where I am," Anya said, taking another step.

"The Master knows where you are too, and he"s coming for you." Vischto crouched down, and Anya turned and bolted.

In the same instant, something huge and black sped past her, followed by a yelp. She stopped and turned as a giant wolf wrestled with Vischto with brutal ferocity. Vischto bit viciously at Izrayl"s back, making him buck as he tried to throw him off. As panic built up in her, Anya"s body tingled, and searing pain streaked down her arm.

"No! Stop!" Anya held out a burning hand, and the heat rushed thick and fast from her. It hit Vischto in the side, sending him to ground screeching and howling. Izrayl fell back as the wolf transformed into a skinny, naked man with black eyes filled with agony. He writhed, scratching deep red gashes in his pale flesh. His breath hissed out of him as his body exploded, showering them in ash.

Anya"s hand was still outstretched as her legs gave way, and she crumpled on the ground. Izrayl morphed back into a human body covered in Vischto"s bites and scratches. She felt him lift her, but she couldn"t move or speak, her face and lips completely numb.

"Bloody Yvan is going to kill me," Izrayl muttered, moving quickly through the forest towards the house.