She misses her home, thought Ivan.

"What have they done to Taina?"

"Taina is another time and place," he started to explain.

Then he looked again, as if with her eyes, and realized what had never crossed his mind until now: Cousin Marek's farm was on exactly the site of the village of Taina. His house was on the same spot as King Matfei's house.

In fact, estimating the positions of the two houses, Ivan realized that he had slept in about the same place in both. How could that happen? Mere coincidence? No one in Taina could have known where he slept in Cousin Marek's house. And yet they led him to the very spot.

It could not be. Impossible. And even if it was true, it was meaningless.

Ivan looked around for the high ground where the fort had been, with the practice field where he had been trained—or was it tortured?—by Dimitri. No building stood there now; it was a stand of trees, newish growth with lots of underbrush. But amid the clutter, were the outlines of the walls still there?

"Taina is gone," she said. "We failed. My people are destroyed." She was weeping.

"No, no," he said, pulling her to him and comforting her like a child, letting her cry against his chest. "Eleven centuries have passed. Cities rise and fall, and villages come and go, but it doesn't mean that the Pretender defeated your father, I promise you. If we went back and crossed the bridges, we'd see that nothing was changed. When I went to Taina, all of this disappeared and was replaced by your village. But it was still here when I crossed the bridge. Do you understand?"

She nodded, pulled away from him. "You understand these things," she said. "But to see the land with my father's house gone, replaced by this great castle."

"It's not a castle, it's just a house. We build taller houses in our time. Warmer ones, too. Let's go inside."

"This is your house?"

"My cousin's house. But Marek and Sophia have always made me as welcome as if I had been born here."

"Where is the village?"

"A long way from here, if you're walking. But not far by gruzovik."

"The servants live there?" She pointed.

"No, they keep birds there." Chicken wasn't part of the regular diet in Taina, and Ivan had never learned the word, if they even had one. "Like geese, only they don't roam free."

"To keep them safe from the foxes?"

"Yes," said Ivan. It occurred to him that the new henhouse Marek had shown him so proudly stood exactly where the church had been until it burned down yesterday.

No, it wasn't yesterday, it was this morning. His wedding morning. All of this in a single day? No wonder he was tired and hungry.

They came to the door and Ivan knocked.

The door was flung open so immediately that Ivan was momentarily frightened. Had Marek been watching at the window?

No, it was Sophia. "Vanya's back!" she called over her shoulder. Then she turned back to face Ivan, radiant with joy at seeing him. She opened her arms and was about to embrace him when she saw Katerina.

"What's this? What are you wearing? You must be freezing! And Itzak, you foolish boy, where is your—oh, she's wearing it. What was she wearing before she was wearing your—never mind, come in, get warm, get warm, time for stories in the kitchen, are you hungry? I have a big soup, I made plenty of borscht today, as if I knew you were coming, and cold, come in, don't dawdle."

Laughing, relieved at the welcome, Ivan ushered Katerina into the house. How much of Sophia's torrent of words did Katerina understand? She stayed close to him, her arm around him, as she looked around her at the wonders of the house.

He tried to see the room through her eyes. Dimly lighted by the setting sun through the windows, it was a mass of shadowy shapes, hummocky furniture, and vaguely reflective frames on the walls. A fireplace. A rug on the wooden floor. How did that feel on her bare feet, the varnished wood? Or maybe she was merely looking for the fire that was keeping this room so warm.

They came into the kitchen, and Katerina blinked against the brightness of the electric light.

"You keep a fire on the air," she said in awe.

Sophia stopped cold. "What accent is that?" she asked. "I can't place it."

"It's not an accent," said Ivan. "It's another language... you understood her?"

Sophia ignored his question. "It's not a fire, child, it's an electric light," she said to Katerina.

The word made no sense to the princess. She reached up toward the dangling light.

"Don't touch it," said Ivan. "It can burn your hand."

"But it's not a fire," said Katerina. "It's like a single drop of water, alive with light, and larger than any water droplet ever was."

Ivan could not resist impressing her further. He reached for the light switch, toggled it off. The room went almost fully dark, for the kitchen window faced east, the direction of darkness in the evening.

"Turn it on, foolish boy," said Sophia.

Ivan obeyed.

Katerina turned to him, her eyes full of wonder and consternation. "Why did you not do this in Taina, if you had this power?"

"I told you," said Ivan, "it's not my power. It's a tool." He showed her the switch, made her touch it, then turn the light off and on again.

"So the magic is here on the wall, for anyone to use," she said. "Who ever heard of witches sharing their power so readily?"

Ivan might have tried to explain more, though he was acutely aware of Sophia watching them, her eyes sharp with curiosity; but the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Cousin Marek, freshly bathed after the day's work. "Vanya, you young fool, do you know how worried Sophia and I have been these three days since you went off in the woods and didn't come home?"

So it was only three days that he was gone?

He might have pondered more about the differing flow of time between Taina and the modern world, but he was distracted by Katerina. For upon seeing Cousin Marek's face, she sank to her knees and hid her face in her hands. "What's wrong?" Ivan asked her.

"You have brought me to the land of the gods," she said. "Are you a god yourself?"

"Gods?" asked Ivan. "What do you mean?"

"Does Jesus live here, too," she asked, "or is there another land where Christ and Mary live?"

"This is my cousin Marek," Ivan said. "He has a big voice and a big heart, and he's strong as an ox, but that doesn't make a god of him."

She looked at him as if he were an idiot. "You are his cousin? Why didn't you tell me?"

Ivan looked from Marek to Sophia. "She's saying that she thinks Cousin Marek is a god. I have no idea why she—"

But neither Marek nor Sophia was looking at Ivan or listening to his explanation. Instead they were looking at each other, with a very serious look on their faces. Without letting her gaze leave her husband's face, Sophia said, "Where did you find this girl, Vanya?"

"Lying asleep on a stone in the woods," Ivan said, not sure whether this was a good moment to tell the whole story.

"What's your name, child?" Cousin Marek asked Katerina. It took a moment for Ivan to realize that he was speaking to her in fluent, unaccented proto-Slavonic.

"Katerina," she said. "Daughter of King Matfei of Taina."

"Taina," said Marek. His face grew wistful. "I loved that place. But I stayed away too long." He took a step toward Katerina, reached out a hand to her. She took it, let him raise her up. "Matfei had a daughter. I saw her last when she was two years old, clinging to her father's leg when she met me. But she let go of him, and did me a courtesy such as the one you offer now, and I raised her up like this."

"I was the little girl," said Katerina. "I remember. My earliest memory, the sight of you. When you reached out to me, I stopped being afraid."

"Of course," said Marek. "I didn't want you to be afraid of me. I'm no enemy to such a one as you, Princess."