Page 132 of Foul Days

“I liked Irnik. Did you know why he came to Chernograd in the first place? Academic research. He was collecting folktales, for crying out loud! That’s how he solved the spell for those shoes of his. That’s how I got him to help: I promised to show him all my trophies, tell him all my stories of glorious monster battles so he could write them down.… He didn’t deserve what happened to him.”

“And what was that, exactly?”

Roksana threw a quick glance over her shoulder, as if she expected to find the Zmey standing there. Then she whispered, “The Zmey came up with the plan to take your shadow. He already had eleven. He knew he needed twelve. He insisted on taking yours—beats me why but, you know, he’s the boss. I’m so sorry, Kosara. I feel like such an arse. I did it for Chernograd, I swear.”

“Wait.” Kosara stopped her before she spouted any more patriotic nonsense. “Let me see if I understand you correctly. You met a random Belogradean wandering about collecting folktales, and you decided he was just the person you needed to complete your mad plan.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘random.’ Irnik and I had been exchanging letters for a while. He wrote to me to ask about the monsters. I only realised later he’d been treating them as semi-mythical beings, not as … well, monsters. He was the one who pointed me to the Devil’s Bridge story.”

“So, you bring him to Chernograd, and you ask him to play cards with me until I gamble away my shadow. Meanwhile, you deal him just the right cards to beat me—”

“Except you wouldn’t do it. I knew you wouldn’t do it. That’s when we moved onto plan B.”

“The Zmey,” Kosara said, and Roksana nodded. “I still can’t believe you trusted some near stranger with twelve witches’ shadows.”

Roksana sighed. “What would you have me do? He refused to share the spell for the teleportation brogues with anyone. Besides, it was only ever meant to be temporary. The shadows weren’t meant to ever leave my sight. He was never supposed to bring them with him to Belograd. He double-crossed me, and I—”

“And you killed him.”

“I didn’t bloody kill him! I told you, I never laid a hand on the man.”

Kosara was getting really tired of her stalling. “What happened to Irnik?”

“Fucking Malamir is what happened!” Roksana raised her voice so suddenly, it made Kosara jump. “I shouldn’t have shown the witches’ shadows to that greedy bastard. He immediately ran off and told his boss.”

“His boss?”

“Konstantin-fucking-Karaivanov.”

Kosara shook her head. Really, really tired of her stalling. “What actually happened?”

Roksana twisted the end of her braid between her fingers. “Irnik was obviously upset with me for not telling him the full story about the monsters. So, he refused to give me the shadows back, like we’d bloody agreed. I followed him to Belograd to talk some sense into him. And then, just when he was finally coming around, guess who turns up? Fucking Malamir. With that goddamned karakonjul of his.”

Kosara’s mouth gaped open. “He brought Button to Belograd?”

“Button? No, I’m sure its name was Pickle.”

Dear God, just how many karakonjuls did Malamir keep?

“Anyway,” Roksana continued, “Malamir demands we give him the shadows. Konstantin wants them, he says. Does he, now? Well, it turns out Malamir can’t control that beast as well as he thought. A few strong words were exchanged, I might have said something unsavoury about his mum and clobbered him on the head.… And then, that karakonjul of his goes bloody mental. I’m not proud of this, but once it got its fangs into Irnik’s face, I scrammed. I don’t know what happened to Malamir.”

“He had to go to the hospital,” Kosara said distantly.

“No wonder. That karakonjul was in a bloody frenzy. I don’t think it liked having been kept on a leash.”

Kosara chewed on the inside of her cheek. Did Roksana’s story make any sense? At the start, Kosara had thought Roksana was simply spinning tales, trying to distract her. Now, she realised what the monster hunter claimed to have happened was possible. Even likely. It explained the broken mirrors in Irnik’s living room, and—acid climbed up Kosara’s throat—the wounds.…

“Were the wounds on Irnik’s body consistent with a karakonjul attack?” Asen asked. His train of thought had obviously gone in a similar direction. He was talking to Kosara, but his eyes didn’t leave Roksana.

“Yes,” Kosara said. “Yes, they were. A particularly vicious one.”

Kosara had assumed Irnik had been killed with a curved knife or a dagger. The idea that a karakonjul could have somehow crossed the Wall hadn’t even occurred to her. Now that she thought about it, it was obvious. It hadn’t been a knife—it had been curved talons, and teeth the size of daggers.

Malamir, you absolute idiot!

A karakonjul couldn’t be trained. Monsters weren’t pets.

Still, Kosara felt as if Roksana wasn’t telling her the whole story. She hadn’t mentioned trying to steal Malamir’s watch. Or the fact that some of Malamir’s injuries hadn’t been caused by a karakonjul.

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