Page 38 of Foul Days

He scratched the stubble on his chin. “I don’t know, Kosara.…”

“You want me to go away, don’t you? You don’t want me here in Belograd. You don’t want me to show up at your wedding. Or to your first child’s christening. No one wants a witch at their first child’s christening, surely you’ve read your fairy tales.”

Sevar sighed deeply. “You won’t give up, will you?”

Kosara shook her head.

“For the record, I think this is a spectacularly stupid idea.” He sighed again. “Wait here.”

He disappeared for a few minutes. When he returned, he wore a big fur coat which covered him from neck to ankles. A lit cigarette hung in the corner of his mouth, quickly disappearing with every long pull. “Follow me.”

Kosara gave him a bright smile. He didn’t return it.

She could barely contain her excitement. At last, she was going back home. Back to find her shadow.

Back to the monsters. Back to the Zmey.

The smile fell off her face. One problem at a time, Kosara. One at a time.

Sevar led her along the street, to a rickety shed resting against the wall of a taller building. He unlocked it and gestured to Kosara to enter.

She frowned as she took in the dusty workbenches and the tools hanging on the walls. The smell of engine oil filled her nostrils.

“Why are we in your shed?” she asked. For a second, she considered whether she ought to be scared: she was an unarmed, magic-less witch trapped inside a shed with a criminal.

Then she dismissed it. It was just Sevar, after all.

He didn’t answer her question. Instead, he began moving the tools on the wall—he turned a screwdriver ninety degrees and rotated a set of pliers. Kosara narrowed her eyes, trying to see a pattern in his actions, but she couldn’t spot any.

Finally, he stepped back and examined his work. A second later, with an earsplitting creak, the workbench in the middle of the shed started to turn. It sank into the floor, revealing a spiral staircase.

“Ta-da,” Sevar said without any humour.

Kosara raised her eyebrows at him. His operation was obviously a lot more complex than she’d expected. The only place she’d ever encountered such secret passages were romance novels set in ancient castles.

Sevar impatiently waved at Kosara to follow him, and she did, now even more apprehensively. Being a defenceless witch in a shed was one thing; being a defenceless witch in an underground tunnel was completely different. If something happened to her, no one would find her body down there.

“Are you sure about that?” she mumbled.

“This is Belograd, Kosara. Nothing more dangerous than rats lives underground.”

“That’s not making me feel much better.”

“Honestly, you’re fine with crossing the Wall, but you’re afraid of rats? Come on.” He gently pushed her forwards. Before she kept walking, Kosara checked if the knife she’d hidden up her sleeve was still there.

Sevar had a lantern with him, but it was only bright enough to illuminate his own steps. Kosara rummaged through her pockets until she found her miniature flame. In its light, everything looked flat—the stairs were bands of black and white dashing beneath their feet. She didn’t realise they’d reached the end of the staircase and nearly tripped on the suddenly level ground.

They walked through what seemed to be an old sewage tunnel for a while, their feet splashing in the puddles. Occasionally, small shadows darted past Kosara’s feet. Just rats, she reminded herself. Back in Chernograd, they’d be lucky not to meet a rusalka crawling on the moist floor, or a karakonjul driven half-mad by hunger.

Finally, Sevar unlocked another door, and they were outside again. Kosara breathed in the cold air, trying to dispel the smell of mildew stuck in her throat.

They stood in a small courtyard enclosed by the backs of four tall industrial buildings. No windows overlooked it. The hot-air balloon was tied in the middle. It was easy to spot among the snow: both its envelope and its basket were dyed dark grey, so they would be invisible in the Chernogradean sky. Without saying a word, Sevar switched on the pump to start inflating it.

Kosara turned around, chewing on her lip. The pump was making an awful lot of noise. If Bakharov had somehow managed to track her …

No, that was nonsense. He couldn’t have possibly counteracted her anti-tracing potion. She tried to ignore the way the back of her neck prickled, as if she was being watched.

Only a few minutes later, the balloon looked ready to go, bobbing in the wind between the buildings. Kosara wondered if there was any magic involved in powering it—compared to its puny little burner, it seemed too large.

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