"What's troubling you?" asked Piotr. "It's not the spiciness of the food."

"No, it's just... it's time to go back."

Piotr nodded, but his eyes teared up. It seemed to surprise him, how the emotion came so quickly to the surface. "Sorry," he said, dabbing at his eyes. "What a baby! But everything is so strange where you come from, this business of witches. Today I faced the worst thing in the world—to see your child die. I keep seeing him out there, like Edwin, limp, cold, empty. I held the dog and I thought, it was supposed to be Vanya. I gave the body to Mrs. Sprewel, and she burst into tears, sobbing, and I thought, that would have been me, grieving. How do I know I'll ever see you again, Vanya, once you leave?"

"You don't," said Ivan. "But here we're easy targets. The Maginot Line."

Katerina had no idea what he was talking about. But Piotr understood. "I know," he said, "it's right to go. And with Katerina's father in trouble—no, you have to go."

"What I don't understand," said Mother, "is why we can't go, too."

Everyone looked at her in surprise. Piotr immediately thought it was a good idea. Ivan seemed to have doubts, but was slow to answer. It fell to Katerina.

"You're not trained for war," said Katerina. "You're very good—but when the Widow is at her full strength, you're no match for her."

"And you are?"

"I'm the princess," said Katerina. "The hearts of the people are gathered in me. When a king has the love of the people, then whatever he does has the power of the people in it. My spells will have that. I've learned from you, Mother, and that's good. But in Taina, when I cast the same spell, it will have many times the strength than if you were to cast it. Do you understand me?"

Mother nodded, closing her eyes. "I understand, but I can't believe I wouldn't be useful."

"You would be useful to her," said Katerina. "She would use her power to overwhelm you, and then rule you."

"She could never turn me."

"She turned Dimitri," said Katerina.

"Dimitri wanted to be turned," said Ivan.

Katerina shook her head. "No. She lied to him."

"Dimitri wanted to be king," said Ivan. "She can only use the desires already in a man's heart."

"When did you become a scholar of magic?" asked Katerina hotly.

Ivan raised his eyebrows. "I've read every damn thing ever written about the folklore of magic."

"But you didn't believe in it," said Katerina.

"I do now."

"And you've never done it."

"No," said Ivan. "And you've never led an army into battle. And I had never fought a bear before. But go ahead, you're probably right, except if the Widow can force people to want what they never wanted, then who is safe? Whom can you trust?"

His argument was compelling. Baba Yaga hadn't turned many people, and Katerina was sure it wasn't from lack of trying. She could fool poor simple folk, like Sergei's mother, but only in fairly innocuous ways—she could get the old woman to spread false gossip by lying to her. But she couldn't have made her kill. She could get information out of people, but she couldn't make them betray their neighbors. Dimitri did what he did because it was already in his heart to do it.

And nothing was certain in life.

"I have to trust everyone," said Katerina, "and yet there's no one I can really be sure of."

"You can be sure of me," said Ivan.

She looked at him, searching his face. I've known you so little time. The others I knew all my life. The others are my own people. You are a stranger, from a strange time and place. I know what they can do, what they will do. I have no idea of what you are or what is in your hands and heart and mind.

And yet when you tell me I can be sure of you, I am sure.

It is myself I can't trust. Because I know that my trust in you, Ivan, my husband, my stranger, is not the result of reason and experience. I trust you because I've come to know you, and coming to know you, I've learned to love you. I've fallen in love with your boldness, your humility, your innocence, your kindness, your willingness. I know that you will stand by me as best you can. But you don't know what my husband needs to know. You can't do what my husband needs to do. I can trust your heart, your king's heart, but your mind doesn't know what it needs to know, your hands don't have in them the skill they need to have.

I had no choice but to marry you. But little by little I have come to long for you to include me within the circle of your arms, of your mind, of your pure love. To embrace me, to give me the babies I was born to have, to help me raise them. And I don't care which world we raise them in, yours or mine or some other that we haven't seen yet. I'm sure of you, Ivan. I want you as my husband.

But as my king? How could I trust you to be king?

Ivan looked at her face and saw... compassion.

It couldn't be clearer. "You can be sure of me," he had said. He hadn't meant it as some kind of declaration. He was only saying what should be obvious to everyone—what his parents already knew about him. She was supposed to laugh and say, Yes, of course, I know that.

Instead, her only answer was this silence, this pity.

They say that love conquers all. They say that because they're idiots. Love can't conquer anything. Love can't make a scholar into a warrior. Loving her can't make her love me.

Now his parents could see how it was between them. They could see that their son offered his life to this woman, and, poor thing, she had no idea what to do with it. The gift was worthless to her.

So he laughed. "Well, there you go." He held up his hands. "Soft. Dimitri told me I had a woman's hands. But the women of Taina, their hands are callused. From sewing, weaving, from endless spinning. What I have are the hands of a princess." He reached out to her, took her hands between his. "And you," he said, "you have the heart of a warrior." He leaned over and kissed her cheek. Like a brother. Like a friend.

Katerina looked down at the table. She certainly wasn't helping to smooth over this embarrassing moment.

"Father," said Ivan, "I hope you have enough room on some credit card to charge two tickets to Kiev." He turned to his mother. "Only two, Mom. Sorry." And then to Katerina. "I'll see if we can fly day after tomorrow. After we've tested the fireworks. Or the first flight we can get after that."

"Thank you," said Katerina.

"Yes, well, it's about time you got home. Though I must say you've done a better job of fitting in here than I did there."

She looked upset. But her words were mild. "I had someone helping me. You didn't."

"Yes, well, you happened to come to the one family in the world where everybody speaks at least a little ancient Slavonic. You'd think someone had planned all this." He got up from the table. "I'll see you all in the morning."

Ivan went to his room. To his empty room. It was good to have a place where nobody else had a right to go. What had he been thinking of, wanting to marry Ruthie—wanting to marry at all? He wasn't afraid of solitude. No scholar could afford to be.

He lay down fully dressed on his bed, not meaning to fall asleep yet. He just needed to think. About what, he wasn't sure.

So instead he thought about nothing. About things in the room. About the athletic trophies in a box in the closet. How much of his life was that? The shelves of books—so much time reading. Neither of them amounted to anything. He ran. He lost or he won. No one remembered a week later. And the books he read—what did that amount to? University people were always so proud of being readers instead of television watchers, but what was the difference, really? It was a one-way transmission. I read, but it made no difference to the writer. He never knew. And when I'm dead, what will it matter the books I read? My memory is where the book ends up, just like the TV show, and when I'm dead, that memory is gone from the world.