They bade good-bye to Sophia and rode with Cousin Marek to the train station. Ivan noticed that Katerina showed no fear of climbing inside Marek's truck. Perhaps that was because her trust in Mikola Mozhaiski overrode any fear. Or perhaps she had believed him when he told her it was simply a tool. Though, given the number of people who died each year in auto accidents, it might have been wiser for Ivan to warn her not to get into any kind of car.

When they got to the train station, Katerina immediately grasped the idea of many cars being pulled along a track by a single engine. "The locomotive is the ox," she said, "and it pulls these houses like sledges across snow." Close enough, thought Ivan.

Cousin Marek walked the length of the train. Only when he was assured that Baba Yaga wasn't aboard did he let Ivan and Katerina get on. "Be alert," he said to them both. "Watch for her, and don't let her talk to you. She can persuade the sun it's a pudding."

"She can't outrun a train, can she?" said Ivan. "Or outfly a jet? So we're safe."

Marek scowled at him. "Don't wear the hide until the bear is dead," he said.

"How will we know her if we see her?" said Katerina. "We might have seen her yesterday, but she can seem to be whatever she pleases."

"Look at her eyes," said Marek, "and you'll know. She can't change those, not without being blind."

"Look at the eyes and see what?" asked Ivan.

"The enemy."

Ivan had long since learned that when Cousin Marek didn't want to give a straight answer, he went in circles, and they were circling now. Rather the way Ivan had led the bear around the chasm till it gave up.

As the train pulled out of the station, Ivan felt a thrill of fear. Cousin Marek was no longer with them—as he said, why leave a trail fifty feet wide for the old hag to follow—and now it was up to him, Ivan the nonfighter, Ivan the scholar with his nose in a book, to keep Katerina safe and guide her through this dangerous world.

What if she gets airsick and throws up on the plane? Did Sophia explain to her about how to deal with her period here, or is Mother going to have to explain that in America? What if there's some disease she isn't immune to? He thought of War of the Worlds, when the alien invader is felled by the common cold.

Katerina was hardly the alien invader, and as for Baba Yaga, he knew better than to count on some microbe-ex-machina to save them from her. For all he knew, the witch had gotten on the train at the first stop, making Marek's check of the train useless. How far did her powers of illusion go, anyway? Could she be on board disguised as a suitcase? How did he know what was possible? The world that only a few days ago had seemed, if not safe, then at least comprehensible, was now fraught with new dangers and possibilities. It made everything new again. New and frightening, the way America was when Ivan first arrived, and everything he said and did seemed foolish, not only to the other children in school, but to himself. Add to this Katerina's insistence on making her own decisions, whether she understood all the consequences or not, and Ivan knew he'd get very little rest, on the train, in the air, or at home.

Katerina tried her best to remain as calm and brave as Ivan had when he came to Taina. She would not be shamed in front of him by showing cowardice. Now she understood how baffling and frightening it was to be in a strange place where the old rules no longer applied and no one knew how to value her. In Mikola Mozhaiski's house, she hadn't really grasped it yet, for she was among people whose language she understood; indeed, it was Ivan who still sounded like the accented stranger. But now in the cacophony of the station and the train, where everything was unexpected and she only understood one word in fifty, she was nauseated with fear. She found herself wanting to cling to Ivan's arm and beg him to come back to Taina with her. Better the known danger than the unknown! But she couldn't ask that, for in Taina it was his life that was in danger, while here, as far as she knew, neither of them was threatened. Her fear was foolish. Ivan would protect her, and if he couldn't, she might be able to help herself with a little magic. And if that didn't work, well, her life was in the hands of God, wasn't it? If he wanted her dead here, then nothing could save her; if he wanted her to live, then nothing could harm her.

The airport was a nightmare, though Ivan assured her that all was normal and safe. The customs official who looked at her with no respect whatsoever, as if she were a peasant with an unpleasant stink, and then rattled off a stream of the strange language that they spoke here—she barely kept herself from bursting into tears. Then Ivan interposed himself between her and the official, said a few words, showed the little book, and the man's demeanor softened. She was just about to smile at him when he suddenly picked up something heavy and slammed it down on a pad of wet blue cloth and then on her blank book, staining it and making a brutal pounding noise. She jumped back and screeched inadvertently before regaining her composure. The official laughed in her face, the swine. She felt humiliated, though Ivan simply hurried her along and spoke soothingly to her that this was a common thing, he should have warned her, he was so sorry, they always stamp the passport.

She wondered how many things in her kingdom might have surprised or frightened him, and she had never thought to warn him or prepare him for anything. Instead she had scorned him for not already knowing what any child knew. But now she knew a bit of wisdom: Whoever travels to a new land is always a child.

She thought back to when Mikola Mozhaiski woke up the gruzovik and made it go forward, controlling it effortlessly with a wheel in his hands and with devices he pushed with his feet. She had imagined herself trying to control this moving house. Impossible. Yet hadn't she expected Ivan to pick up a sword and know how to use it instantly? She wanted to tell him she was sorry for not understanding what he was going through. But as she was about to do it, she wondered whether he really had felt the same fear as she. After all, he had traveled from land to land before, and even learned a new language, so he was used to new experiences. She didn't remember him showing fear in any obvious way, either, except reluctance to do certain things. So to say anything about fear right now would merely be a confession of her own.

As the airplane lumbered over the runway and then rose into the air, she wanted to scream in terror—and in delight, both at once. She was flying! She wanted to look out the window; but when she did, it made her want to throw up, to see the ground fall away like that, everything becoming small. And when the airplane made a sharp turn in the air soon after takeoff, she did throw up.

Oh, the unspeakable humiliation of it! Ivan was there at once with a little bag in case she vomited more, but it was too late, wasn't it? Her blouse was smeared with vomit, and even after the attendant led her to the bathroom and helped her rinse that part of the blouse, the smell lingered on the cloth and she had a cold wet spot that was quite uncomfortable. She had thought that the bra Sophia had bought for her in the village could not possibly be any more uncomfortable, but now she knew better. She could be cold, wet, humiliated, and smell like vomit.

When she got back to her seat, she looked out the window to hide her face from Ivan. By now the airplane was so high that all she could see was clouds below her, and she pretended it was only snow, and this was a huge sleigh gliding along, occasionally hitting an inexplicable bump—no doubt a bird or a particularly thick cloud. I don't want to be here, she thought. I want to go home, where I'm not humiliated every moment, where I can speak and be spoken to, where people know that I'm Princess Katerina and treat me with respect instead of contempt or pity.