Anya and the Nightingale

by Sofiya Pasternack

  “No.” Misha shrugged. “But he will.”

  His words made her skin prickle. Last year, before she really knew Håkon, when everyone was hunting him, that argument was thrown at her by men much older and wiser than she. The dragon hasn’t attacked anyone here, right? she had asked Ivan’s papa. Not yet, he had said. Every dragon in Kievan Rus’ had died because one had hurt the tsarina. Every Drevlian had died because some had assassinated the Grand Prince.

  The Nightingale hadn’t killed anyone, even though he could have. Easily. She had seen the power he held. Why hadn’t he used it for real damage? What did he really want?

  * * *

  The guards nodded to Misha and stood aside for him, and soon they were back in the hallway Anya recognized. They walked past Håkon and Ivan’s door, and she wondered how her friends were doing.

  Misha opened her door for her, stepped back, and said, “Gospozha.”

  Anya rolled her eyes and laughed as she passed by him. Her skin tingled, but in a good way? Was that a thing? “Thank you for inviting me to dinner.”

  “I’m sorry my family is so nosy,” he said, a blush rising in his cheeks. “And that, um, apparently my sisters were trying to be matchmakers.”

  Anya shrugged, embarrassment sizzling in her chest. “That was Ilana, mostly. Nava told me how unworthy I am.”

  “Nava is . . .” Misha pursed his lips. “She has opinions.”

  Anya nodded. “You should tell Ilana you think she does a good job mending your clothes.”

  Misha lifted one eyebrow. “I should?”

  “It would mean a lot to her.”

  He laughed. “Okay, I’ll do that.” He smiled. “Good night.”

  Anya smiled back. “Good night.”

  Misha bowed a little and left. Anya waited until he was almost gone, and then she leaned out of her door to watch him go. His long coat danced as his calves hit it, and his dark hair shone in the torchlight. She liked him better with his kippah on. He fiddled with his gloves, tightening them on his fingers as he rounded the corner. She imagined him as she had met him, mounted and firing flaming arrows with such precision. So good that the warlike tsarevna had asked for him personally. Jewish. A future rabbi, or captain of the guard.

  She realized he was the first Jewish boy she had ever met.

  Anya leaned back to make sure he didn’t look and see her blushing.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Anya changed out of the nice dress she had worn to dinner and Misha’s home. Her old dress was still on the bed where she had left it, so she pulled it on. It was worn and shoddy in comparison to the resplendence of the castle, but it was comfortable, and it was her. She pulled the necklace that Lena had given her out from under the dress fabric, appreciating the smooth weight of the key. She wondered if the key would open a door in the castle. Maybe that’s why Lena had brought them here. But was it to rescue Papa? Why would he be locked up in Kiev? When he answered his letters, he never talked about being in Kiev. He talked about the horses, and how he was still not very good at sword fighting, and about how the camp food was fine but he really missed Anya’s challah.

  Maybe Papa wasn’t in Kiev at all.

  But then why had Lena sent them there? And if the key wasn’t to find Papa, what was it to find? She studied the key for a few more seconds, stuck it back under her dress, and walked out of the room.

  She knocked on Ivan and Håkon’s door, and Håkon answered. He was much steadier than he had been when she had . . . yelled at him. A couple of hours ago.

  He didn’t look mad, exactly. But he didn’t look happy. He looked the way Mama did just before she said, I’m not angry, Anya. I’m just disappointed.

  “Yes?” he finally said.

  “Can I come in?” Anya asked.

  He narrowed his eyes. “How was dinner with Misha?”

  Now he looked mad. Anya clenched her jaw and said, “Better than dinner with you.” And she shoved past him into the room.

  Ivan was in his nightclothes, lying upside down on the bed with his feet in the air. He cranked his neck to look at Anya when she stomped in.

  “Anya!” He rolled over and slid off the bed. “How was—”

  “I’d rather talk about how we’re going to do what we need to do with the Nightingale,” Anya said.

  Ivan flicked his eyes to Håkon, who shut the door and crossed his arms. Then Ivan looked back to Anya, smiled cautiously, and said, “I think we figured out how he took my magic.”

  That was good news, anyway. “How?”

  “Well.” Ivan laced his knuckles together. “I—we, Håkon and I—were trying to figure out how Håkon can get his magic back. And we . . . didn’t. But we still figured some things out!”

  He jumped off the bed and ran to the stand with the bowl of water on it. He pulled a ball of water out, floating it in the air, and Anya scooted away. She was about to get soaking wet. She could feel it.

  Ivan walked the water nearer to Håkon and said, “Håkon described to me how it’s possible to take magic away from someone.”

  Håkon nodded. “I used to take metal threads away from my da sometimes, as a joke.”

  “See,” Ivan said, “when I threw the water at the Nightingale, I let go of the threads. And he picked them up to stop the water from hitting him.”

  “What if you didn’t let them go?” Anya asked. “What if you held on to them?”

  Ivan snapped his fingers. “Right! If I don’t let go of the strings, then he won’t be able to control the water!”

  Anya put her hands on her hips. “What if he tries to take the threads that you’re holding? Can he take them even if you don’t let go?”

  Ivan looked unsure. He said slowly, “Nooooooo?”

  “Yes, he can,” Håkon said. “I’m not as strong with metal magic as Da is. So he could always pull the threads back from me eventually. I had to surprise him.”

  The three of them exchanged worried looks. The Nightingale seemed pretty strong. Could Ivan overpower him if he had to?

  Anya tapped her fingers against one another. “Håkon, you have no magic at all?”

  He shook his head. “Ivan says he sees threads in the air, and I don’t see anything.”

  Anya knew that feeling. “If only someone could practice stealing threads from you, Ivan. So if the Nightingale tried to steal yours, you’d know how to stop it.”

  Håkon said, “It’s not about knowing anything. It’s about being strong enough.”

  “You get stronger with practice,” Anya said, annoyed. “I know you’ve never had to practice any magic in your whole life, but that’s just how it is when you’re a human.”

  Håkon’s face got red. “I’m not a human.”

  “You’re human enough for now,” Anya argued, spinning toward him. “So act like it.”

  “Should I act more like Misha, then?” Håkon spat. “Your precious soldier boy?”

  Anya stuck a rigid finger at him. “He’s not my precious anything. But sure, why don’t you act more like him? He’s responsible, and he’s noble, and he’s good because he tries and he . . .” In her anger, her mind was going blank. She struggled to find another thing Misha did. “He reads!” she finally blurted.

  “I can read!” Håkon yelled.

  Ivan scooted between them, hands up, water still hanging in the air over him. “We can all read.”

  “That’s not what this is about!” Anya leaned around Ivan so she could speak directly at the annoying dragon-turned-boy glaring at her from the fool’s other side. “We’ve got to figure out how to stop the Nightingale so we can get my papa back, and you’re just focused on Misha for some stupid reason. He didn’t even do anything to you!”

  “He would!”

  “He wouldn’t!”

  “Hey,” Ivan said, putting his hands up higher. “You’re being really loud.”

  Anya stomped past them both. “I’m going to bed. Get over whatever problem you have with Misha and figure out how to keep the Nightingale fro
m stealing Ivan’s magic. Or else . . .” Or else they wouldn’t be able to survive a fight against him. Or else they wouldn’t be able to bring him to Vasilisa. Or else Papa would stay in Rûm even longer. Or else Papa might never come home.

  She couldn’t bring herself to say any of those, because she didn’t trust herself not to burst into tears. So she turned away and wrenched the door open, leaving it ajar as she hurried down the hall to her room.

  They couldn’t afford to fail.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Anya slept fitfully, even though the bed was the most comfortable thing she’d ever touched in her life. She dreamed that Håkon was a dragon again, and that he and Ivan were with the Nightingale in his tree. Vasilisa and Misha were at the base of the tree, and they set it on fire. As flames licked up the sides, Anya stood by, unable to help.

  Then, in the dream, someone grabbed her shoulders and spun her around. Sigurd. With blood coming from his eyes and ears and nose, just like when he had died. He grinned, his teeth pink and bloody, and then laughed as Anya’s friends screamed for help from the fiery tree behind her.

  She woke up damp with sweat. Her heart pounded in her fingertips. She slid out of the bed and splashed water on her face from the bowl. Her hands shook as she did.

  “Stupid dream,” she muttered, as if that would banish the fear that still sparked up every part of her. She hated the helplessness she had felt in the dream, and the way it carried into waking life. If she were in Zmeyreka, she would have helped Mama make potions, or ridden Alsvindr back and forth on the roads. It made her feel better to do something.

  What could she do here, though? There was no one to make potions with here, and no Alsvindr to ride. She didn’t even know where the archers had put her bow and Ivan’s staff. So she just stared at her rippling reflection in the bowl’s surface. Babulya said dreams were usually nonsense, but some were God’s way of helping someone with a problem. In Anya’s dream, Ivan and Håkon had been with the Nightingale. Vasilisa and Misha had been hurting them. Since the Nightingale was with her friends, did that mean he was, or could be, her friend too? And why wasn’t Anya with them in the tree?

  Her reflection in the water offered no answers.

  It was dark outside, but she wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep. She got dressed and realized she hadn’t eaten anything the entire time she’d been in Kiev.

  Anya left her room, intending to find the kitchens and get something to eat. On her way, she passed a lot of doors leading off into rooms or other halls. The key felt heavy around her neck. She pulled the chain over her head, wrapping it around her wrist, and went to the closest door.

  The key and the door’s keyhole didn’t match, but she tried to unlock it anyway. She slid the key in as quietly as she could and turned it.

  Nothing. The key didn’t go to this door.

  Anya tried every door in the hall. None of them worked.

  She snorted and returned the key to her neck. Of course it wouldn’t open these doors. What would even be inside them? More rooms for royal guests? Some tapestries? Uncomfortable dresses?

  She made her way toward the banquet hall. The kitchen would probably be somewhere near there. She passed by more doors, fingers itching. Maybe one of these was the door Lena had wanted her to open . . .

  Anya tried to unlock every door on her way to the banquet hall. None of them opened.

  She stopped trying to unlock doors when she smelled cooking. She followed the scent to the kitchen, which was bustling. No one glanced at her as she entered. She snuck some bread and a hunk of cheese, and she hurried off before she got caught. Her hurry turned into an amble, and she eventually found herself at an outer door. As she peered out into the dark morning and chewed on her bread, she thought about her dream.

  The Nightingale had been in the tree with Ivan and Håkon. He was grouped with them: friends. Vasilisa and Misha weren’t. The Nightingale had screamed for help, too.

  Was Håkon right? Would Misha try to kill him if he found out Håkon was a dragon? And why had Anya been standing apart from them all? Had she been standing with Sigurd, or did he appear to her because she was all alone?

  She didn’t know the answer to any of those questions. But she did know fighting the Nightingale wasn’t the answer. If he was a friend—or a potential friend, anyway—the answer was in helping him. But how was she supposed to make friends with an aggressive forest elf who could make trees attack people?

  The dragon hasn’t attacked anyone here, right?

  Not yet.

  The Nightingale had attacked people, but he hadn’t killed anyone. Misha had said so. Even though he easily could have killed loads of people. She thought back on their flight from him on the road. How he aimed around them and over their heads. He knocked them down, sure, but he could have done so much worse. He had jumped through the air like he was taking invisible stairs upward. He could have done that straight over the city walls. He could have used his sound magic to blow up buildings or kill people. He could have made trees walk the streets like invading giants.

  But he didn’t.

  She crammed the last piece of bread in her mouth with resolve. She’d make friends with him the same way she had with Ivan and Håkon. She’d go to his tree. She’d say hello. She’d be nice to him. She didn’t have any magic or weapons. She was harmless. Hopefully he would realize that, and not squish her with a tree.

  The morning was purplish, dark, and still, with the sharp, biting cold that had settled during the night. Anya pulled her coat tightly around herself and marched toward the gate into the city. She passed by the stable and paused, glancing at the grooms and servants going in and out. A trio of goats stood idly by the open doorway, chewing on hay with their eyes half-closed.

  Anya changed trajectory toward the barn. A little detour wouldn’t hurt. She missed Zvezda. She missed Alsvindr.

  The goats barely acknowledged her when she approached them, but when she scratched one behind her ears, the other two crowded up to Anya. She smiled and scratched each of them in turn, wishing she had more hands.

  Inside, the grooms were brushing down beautiful, glossy horses, or cleaning their polished hooves, or braiding their long tails. A horse near Anya nickered and stretched its nose out to her. She stretched a hand toward him and patted the end of his nose with a small smile.

  Someone holding a bucket of apples rounded the corner and came toward Anya. She snapped her hand away. She felt like she shouldn’t be touching the tsar’s horses, or even be around them. Suddenly, she was struck with the need to escape, but as she turned to leave, a familiar voice said, “Well, Shabbat shalom to you.”

  Misha stopped by the horse’s front leg, the apple bucket dangling from his fingers. He smiled brightly at her, like it wasn’t predawn.

  “I, um . . .” Anya said, then admitted sheepishly, “I just wanted to pet the goats and horses.”

  Misha held an apple out in a flattened hand, and the horse munched it up. It reminded Anya of Alsvindr stealing apples, and she felt a pang. The goats around Anya noticed Misha was the one with the food, and they wandered away from her to the apple bucket.

  “Well,” Misha said, “pet away. What are you doing out here so early?”

  She didn’t want to tell him she was on her way to befriend the Nightingale. He wouldn’t approve. He might want to stop her or, even worse, come with her. “I think the question is, what are you doing up here on Shabbat?”

  “Oh, you know,” Misha said. One of the goats stuck its face into the apple bucket and snatched up an apple. Misha pushed the goat away idly and lifted up the bucket out of their reach. “I have some things to get in order. I’ll be in shul all day once I’m done up here; don’t you worry about that.”

  Anya smiled. “I’m not worried.” The horse nudged her with his apple-juicy nose, and she laughed and patted him. “He reminds me of my horse back home.”

  Misha perked. “The Varangian horse, right? With the strange name.”

  �
�Alsvindr,” Anya said.

  “Right,” Misha said. “What’s a Varangian horse like?”

  One of the goats stretched up toward the bucket, then yelled, “Myah!”

  “Oh, go away!” Misha pushed the goat’s nose, then swatted one on the rump. The three of them yelled their displeasure at him and did not go away.

  Anya shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s really big. Bigger than this horse. He gets really shaggy in the winter. He’s the color of a thundercloud.”

  “So you use him for . . . what? For pulling a plow or something?” Misha asked pleasantly as he pushed away a goat nibbling on his coat hem.

  Anya’s smile melted off her face. “Um . . .” She cleared her throat, trying to mask her upset. That feeling of helplessness welled again. She was just some farmer to Misha. Even though she had showed up with a bow and some arrows, and owned a Varangian warhorse. “Yeah. For a plow.”

  “Hey!” Misha said. “Do you want to come to shul? My mother is going to make Nava apologize to you for being such a brat last night.”

  Anya wanted to go but also didn’t. After last night, she wasn’t sure if she was ready for her very first time in a synagogue. Before she could say anything, Misha lost his patience with the goats swarming him.

  “That’s it!” he yelled. “Go! Get!” He grabbed three apples out of the bucket and heaved them out into the yard. The goats took off, their little hooves thumping on the cold, packed earth, bleating as they ran after the apples.

  Misha looked back at Anya, smoothing his coat down with sharp jerks. “Goats. What a pain.”

  “That’s goats,” Anya said, trying to sound pleasant.

  Misha brushed off his trousers impatiently, and then said, “So, shul? It starts at nine o’clock. I’ll come get you from your room at eight thirty?”

  Anya heard herself say, “That sounds wonderful.” She winced on the inside. There was no way she’d be back from the Nightingale’s tree by then. But she couldn’t tell Misha that. “I’ll see you then!”

  She ran out of the barn, away from the castle, through the frosty predawn streets of Kiev. As she descended the city’s hill, something Håkon had pointed out bounced around in her head: the tsar had wanted the dragons alive, just like how he wanted the Nightingale alive. What difference would it make if the Nightingale was brought alive or killed? It would still be the same result: he wouldn’t be terrorizing travelers anymore.