He closed his eyes.

"That's right, Father. Sleep. And pay no attention to what I will whisper now to the men who guard you."

He opened his eyes only long enough to wink at her. Then he closed them again.

She zoomed the vision back. Now the guards were visible.

"Shame on you," she whispered. "Shame on you."

Both men at once grew alert.

"Did you hear that?" one of them murmured.

"Hear what?" the other one lied.

"Dimitri made you do it," she said. "Dimitri is in the service of the Vile Widow. She comes to him by night and tells him what to do. She gave him the spell that keeps King Matfei silent. He is the servant of the enemy. But you are the servants of Christ."

Both men crossed themselves.

"I am Katerina, and I will return. I will have my husband, Ivan, with me, and he will teach you the wizardry of his strange and powerful land. All those who stand with Dimitri will be destroyed. All those who stand with me will live, and we will free our land from the shadow of the Widow. You have heard me. As loyal men, true Christians and sons of God, you will keep faith with the oath you made to my father. Prepare the others as well. Let no man move against Dimitri before I come, but let no man stand beside him when I do."

"Yes, Princess," they murmured. "I promise, Katerina."

"And let no further harm come to my father. Mercy will be remembered."

At once one of the men moved to Matfei's side and unfastened the bands that held his wrists together. The other quickly set to work on his ankles.

"Now I see you are true friends of the king, and true Christians. I watch you sometimes, from afar; Jesus watches you always, from inside your heart." She took a deep breath. "Look up, into the air above you, and see the face of her whom you will follow."

At once Esther stepped back, uncertain of what Katerina was going to do. She had never heard of such a thing.

Katerina spat into her hands, rubbed her hands together, then smeared the saliva on her face, rubbing, rubbing. Then, before it could dry, she lowered her face to the water and gently pressed through the surface tension. Esther leaned in, looked over her shoulder. The water shimmered, but the vision held long enough for Esther to see how the soldiers looked up and saw the face of their princess.

Then Katerina lifted her dripping face from the basin. The water spilled and sloshed. There was no more vision in it. Katerina raised her skirts to her face, wiped away the water and the spit. And then wept again into her skirts.

"It's a monstrous enemy you're fighting," said Esther, putting an arm around her daughter-in-law's trembling back. "But you're luckier than she is, for she has to face you, and I have never seen anyone so fierce."

Katerina only wept louder, and buried her face in her mother-in-law's shoulder.

Ivan stood in the front yard, waiting for Ruthie to arrive. The twelve-year-old boy across the street was fumbling with the string on a new kite. Not the most mechanically gifted of children, Ivan concluded. But there was a good breeze this morning, so it wouldn't be as oppressively hot out in the back yard as it had been yesterday. The forecast was thunderstorms late in the afternoon, and then clear again—hot and muggy, in fact—for the Fourth. Today, though, there was a breeze, and that called for a kite.

Katerina has never seen a kite, Ivan realized. They were a Chinese invention and they didn't come to Europe until... well, until later. Before Benjamin Franklin, but after Baba Yaga. So much for my future as a historian.

The boy across the street—what was his name? Terrel Sprewel. Never Terry, just Terrel, even though the name Terrel was clearly invented as a back-formation to allow the nickname Terry without saddling the kid with a really geeky name like Terence. Though you might as well tape a kick-me sign on your baby as to give him a name that was not only weird but rhymed.

Terrel used to try to follow Ivan, back when Ivan was in middle school and he ran through the neighborhood instead of around the lake. Back when it was still faintly ridiculous in the neighbors' eyes that a Jewish kid should be jogging. Terrel was a toddler then, and Ivan had to stop and make him go back. What's he doing in the front yard without a parent watching him, anyway? Once he had to take Terrel to the front door, the kid was so persistent, and his mom acted as if Ivan had somehow committed a crime by suggesting that she ought to prevent the child from following Ivan on his five-mile run. Maybe she thought I should take him along. Maybe she wished. That would be sad, to grow up with a mother who kind of hoped you'd run away.

Maybe you'd end up all by yourself, trying to get a string tied onto a kite so it has some hope of flying.

Ivan's impulse was to cross the street and lend a hand, show the kid how it was done.

Then he remembered—it wasn't safe for him to cross the street by himself. Who's the toddler now?

The string was tied. It wasn't in exactly the right place, but it would probably do. Terrel carried the kite to the end of the block before he started his run. Ivan wondered why he would do that. Why not start running from his own front yard? The answer was obvious, though. Terrel wanted to get the kite flying just as he reached his yard, so he could stand there in front of the windows with the kite in the air where his parents could look out and see him. Maybe they were better parents than Ivan thought. Maybe they would be looking. But he thought not. They never watched. Terrel was always alone. No applause. And yet it still mattered to the kid. He was still hungry to have his mom or dad tell him he did OK, or even watch him without a word, just to have their eyes see that he could get a kite up into the air.

Ivan practically willed it up. Run faster, he thought. Let out more string as you go. Let it catch. Rise up! Faster now! Good, it's working. It's caught! Let the string bleed out now, a little more.

He wasn't doing it. He was keeping the kite on too short a tether. It was going to fall.

"Let out more string!" Ivan called.

Terrel didn't even look over. He just obeyed. The string spun out; the kite staggered a moment, but the breeze caught it, carried it up. Terrel stood there, letting out a little more. A little more. Only when the kite was definitely up there, quite high, did Terrel look over at Ivan and grin.

It wasn't his parents he wanted to have watch him. It was me.

"Good job!" cried Ivan. "First try."

Terrel held up the string in his hand, offering Ivan the control of the kite. Ivan waved it back. "You're the kite-flyer, Terrel. It's all yours!" Then Ivan pointedly turned to look up into the sky, watching the kite, so Terrel wouldn't try to insist.

I can't go to your side of the street, Terrel, or the witch will get me.

The gusty wind was making the kite dance. Ivan wondered what it would be like, to be up there himself, in a hang glider, for instance, and catch one of those downdrafts. Drop like a stone for fifty feet, then recover and soar again.

Hang glider. That's something they could build in Taina, definitely. It wouldn't be paper, but Matfei had some silk, it had been part of his wife's dowry. Light dry wood for the frame—if Ivan learned enough about the aerodynamics of it, surely he could build at least one. That might be useful, to get someone inside Baba Yaga's fortress.

Someone alone and unarmed—how useful would that be? Because there was no way that someone carrying a heavy sword and buckler would be able to fly in a hang glider.

Oh, well. Never mind.

The front door opened. Terrel's mother came out onto the porch with a woman from up the street. For a moment Ivan thought, with some relief, that his assessment was wrong, that Terrel had indeed earned some applause for getting the kite into the air. But the women ignored the boy, continuing an animated conversation.