‘Liev,’ she shouted with delight and broke into a run toward him.

He stood there as solid as the trunk behind him, opened his arms, and folded her into a big hug. It was like being swallowed by a woolly mammoth.

‘Thank you, Liev, spasibo, thank you,’ she whispered into his chest.

Her cheek was pressed hard against his overcoat, the same one that had sheltered Chang from the rain that day at the quayside, and it felt cold and wet and stiff, but she didn’t care. She was so happy to see the big Russian again. Still clutching her bag of hot food, she wrapped her arms around him as far as they would go and squeezed tight. Suddenly from nowhere a great rush of emotion erupted inside her. Everything she’d been keeping a hold on broke loose and she was shivering uncontrollably. It turned her bones to water and her legs would have collapsed if Liev Popkov had not been pinning her to his chest.

He growled, soft and comforting, while the snow swirled silently around them.

As abruptly as it came, it was gone. Her bones came back. She hugged him tighter, then stepped away and offered him a shaky smile.

‘Luchshye?’ he asked. Better?

‘Gorazdo luchshye. Much better.’

‘Good.’

And that was all they said about it.

‘Will you come in and meet Chang An Lo? He would like to… to thank you too.’ Her tongue struggled with the Russian words.

‘Not dead yet then?’

‘No. He’s alive. Poydiom. Come.’

She tugged at his arm, but he did not move.

‘No, Lydia Ivanova. I care nothing for your Chinese.’

‘Then why did you help him?’

He shrugged his great shoulders. ‘For you.’ He lifted from his pocket a bundle of banknotes and thrust them into her coat pocket. She knew it would be the two hundred dollars.

‘No, Liev. It’s yours.’

‘I do not seek payment.’

‘But you helped me so much. I don’t understand. Why risk your life searching the docks?’

His black beard twitched as he pushed out his chin. ‘Because you are the granddaughter of General Nicholai Sergei Ivanov.’ He raised his huge right paw to the brim of his fur cap and saluted.

‘What?’

‘It is my honour to serve you.’

‘Wait a minute. Are you saying you knew my grandfather?’

Before he could reply, the sound of an explosion ripped through the air, a loud whoosh of solid noise that made Lydia’s ribs rattle. In the heart of the town a column of black smoke rose up over the snow-covered roofs and merged with the heavy clouds.

‘Bomb,’ Liev Popkov said instantly. ‘Bomba. Go home. Quickly. Bistra.’

‘Wait.’

But he was gone, his long lumbering stride carrying him away down the street. Lydia turned and ran to her house.

Chang expected her to come in looking frightened, but she didn’t.

‘Your friend Alexei Serov spoke true,’ he said. ‘The bombs have started.’

‘You heard it?’

‘The whole of Junchow heard it.’

She had hurried into the room with an energy he envied, and instead of carrying fear in her face she brought with her a positive rush of chi. She glowed with it. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes sparkled. She was focused.

‘Lydia,’ he said with a smile, ‘you make the room vibrate. More than the bomb.’

She looked at him on the pillow, uncertain for a moment, and then laughed, tossing her flame hair at him. ‘For us it’s good. As long as the Black Snakes are at war with each other, they’ll leave us alone.’

‘A world lies outside this room, Lydia. You cannot ignore it.’

‘Today I can.’ She grinned at him. ‘Here, eat this.’

He dreamed. And always the dreams were of fire. Sometimes the fire was in her hair, bright and flickering, but other times it was in his blood, burning him up. The fire of pain and the fire of hatred. Together they consumed him.

‘Chang An Lo.’

He opened his eyes. Instinctively he flinched. A hand was coming at his face. But it was only a damp cloth that touched his skin, cool and fragrant. Not a hissing red poker.

‘It’s all right.’ Her voice was low. ‘You were having another nightmare.’

His heart was hammering. Sickness rose in his stomach but he fought it down. He knew he had already lost all face in front of this girl, he was so weak and helpless, his dignity gone, but he refused to vomit noodles over her bed and watch her clean them up.

‘Here.’

A cup brushed his lips. He sipped. Tasted the bitterness of Chinese herbs. They calmed him. The fires and sickness receded. He sipped again and knew the time had come.

‘Lydia.’

‘Hush, don’t talk. You need rest. I’ll read aloud again if you like.’

‘The tales of Shere Khan are strong. But you must read of Mulan. She is famous in Chinese legend. You would like her, she’s a lot like you.’

‘Poor and skinny, you mean.’ But she smiled.

‘No. A risk taker. And brave.’

She blushed and hid her pink cheeks behind a fall of hair. ‘You are mocking me, Chang An Lo. Be careful what you say or I might drop this cup of what smells like shark’s gallbladder or something equally noisome all over you.’

He gazed up at her, at the challenge in her eyes, at the exquisite roundness of them and their colour of warm honey. How could she possibly think he was mocking her?

‘Lydia, I must walk.’

He walked. Though he would barely call it walking. His weight was all borne by the fox girl, not by his own worthless legs, which crumbled the moment he asked them to do anything more than stand there. They felt as weak and unstable as the noodles in his belly. He was ashamed of them.

But she made it easy for him. First she brought in one of the long striped shirts that belonged to the new husband of her mother, and though it was too large for his fleshless body, it reached down over his thighs and gave him a sense of decency. It smelled of lavender, which surprised him, but she told him many people kept sachets of lavender in their wardrobe. Second she lit the second bar of the gas fire, so that the air grew warmer and his muscles less stiff. And lastly she slipped an arm around his waist as he pushed himself off the bed, and drew him to her, close against her own body, as naturally as if they were two halves of the same whole.

With his arm across her shoulders he dragged his feet into motion. Together they shuffled toward the door and back again, over to the window and back again, past the fire and back again. Walk. Foot. Move. Heel. Toe. Turn. Lift. Progress was unbearably slow. His head was spinning in a grey spiral and at times he lost his vision, seeing nothing but blackness in front of him, but he kept walking.

‘Enough.’ Lydia spoke firmly. ‘Or you’ll kill yourself.’

‘My muscles are weak, Lydia. I must give them strength.’ His voice was barely a whisper.

‘What is the point of my healing your body, if you then make yourself ill again?’

‘I cannot stop. Time is short.’

‘You must. Stop now, please. And we’ll do some more after you’ve had an hour’s rest.’

‘You’ll wake me?’

‘I promise.’

He collapsed onto the bed and instantly slid down into a tunnel of fire.

‘You have a visitor, Chang An Lo. A guest.’

Before his eyes were even open, his hand slid to the long carving knife that lay beside him under the sheet. He had asked her to fetch one from the kitchen after that time her Russian visitor came, the one with the knowledge about the Kuomintang. If that man was back now, Chang would not die without a fight.

‘Say hello.’

Chang blinked in surprise, frowned, and started to smile. He never knew what this fox girl would do next. She was standing beside the bed holding a white rabbit. Its pink nose was twitching frantically at the scent of herbs in the room and its eyes were wide with excitement, but it sat happily in her arms and made no attempt to escape.