Page 7 of Foul Days

She couldn’t stop herself from glancing out the window, half-expecting to see his pale face framed by the dark street.

He wasn’t there. Of course he wasn’t there yet. The Zmey always arrived last.

Sometimes, Kosara wondered if he did it just to torture her. If he waited a tad longer each year because he knew she’d let herself hope that, maybe this time, he wouldn’t come.

But surely, the Tsar of Monsters had more important things to do than to torture her?

“What’s so special about him?” the stranger asked. “That Zmey of yours? Is he the biggest and most monstrous of them all?” He giggled nervously.

I’m glad you’re finding the humour in the situation, Belogradean.

“No.” Kosara gripped the talisman in her pocket even tighter. “He’s the most human.”

2

Earlier that day, Kosara took out a lock of the Zmey’s hair, carefully pressed between two sheets of paper in an old spell book. She’d kept it on her bedside table all year, worried that if she let it out of her sight for too long, it might disappear.

It hadn’t been easy to obtain. Kosara and the Zmey had developed an annual ritual in the last seven years, ever since she’d left his palace. Every year, she did her best to avoid him. Every year, he found her. He’d smile his handsome smile and ask in his sweetest voice, “How about a game of cards?”

The wager? A lock of hair.

It wasn’t simply a sentimental keepsake. For a witch, a lock of hair had power. It meant that if she won, Kosara would finally have a weapon she could use against him. Not strong enough to hurt him, but perhaps strong enough to keep him away.

Which was why the Zmey enjoyed the game so much. He always won—until last year.

Kosara walked downstairs to the kitchen and hung her cauldron over the hearth. The room was aglow with the light of the fire, reflecting in the copper pots and pans hanging on the walls. The brighter it grew, the darker the shadows became, her own swirling and whirling around them.

Sweat beaded on Kosara’s skin, the droplets mirroring the flames, as if she were covered in hundreds of small fires. She’d stripped down to her underwear, and her chemise clung to her wet skin. Instead of subduing the hearth, she stoked it. She needed all the power she could get.

It wasn’t as if anyone else was around to complain about the heat. Kosara lived alone.

There was a loud bang from one of the upstairs bedrooms.

It wasn’t as if anyone else alive was around, Kosara corrected herself. The ghost of her sister haunted a bedroom upstairs.

A few more bangs followed. Strange, Nevena wasn’t this active usually. Perhaps she could feel the heat after all, or the magic Kosara wielded.

“Nevena!” Kosara shouted. “Will you please stop it? I’m trying to concentrate.”

The banging continued. Kosara sighed. No point trying to reason with kikimoras.

First, Kosara fished inside a bucket of salty water for two rusalka ink sacs. She pierced them with her knife, letting the dark liquid drip into the cauldron, hissing as it hit the copper surface.

Then, she rummaged for the rest of the ingredients among the many jars and bottles scattered around the kitchen. Aspen tree sap served as a binder, a rusty nail used to kill a karakonjul as a mordant, thyme oil and soda ash as preservatives. Finally, she threw the lock of the Zmey’s hair into the cauldron.

The mixture came to a boil fast, large bubbles rising to the surface and popping, splattering the walls with sticky black liquid.

As she watched it, Kosara wondered if she was making a mistake. What if her attempt to keep the Zmey away angered him too much?

He’d told her before that if she ever tried to defy him again, he’d take more than a lock of her hair. He’d take her. He’d force her back under his control. He liked her knowing that her freedom was conditional on his goodwill.

No, she decided. She was toeing the line, but she wasn’t crossing it. He’d see this as a challenge—a part of their game of cat and mouse. Next year, he’d arrive prepared to fight her spell, but by then, Kosara would have devised a different one to throw at him.

Or maybe her spell wouldn’t be strong enough to stop him. He’d laugh that annoyingly pleasant laugh of his, like hundreds of chiming bells, and then she’d have to sit through another card game. She’d squirm under his icy stare for hours, as he threw stronger and stronger cards on the table. Finally, she’d chop off a lock of hair to give him, and the missing chunk would remind her of him whenever she looked at herself in the mirror.

Kosara sighed. She had to make sure her spell would hold. She’d spent all year preparing it: a ward strong enough to keep the Zmey out. She’d read every book on the subject she could get her hands on. She’d practised all the runes. It would hold.

Unless someone invited the Zmey in, that was. But who would do that?

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