Page 52 of Foul Days

Kosara couldn’t stifle her sigh. “Home.”

10

Day Five

Dust covered the floor and spiderwebs enveloped the roof beams. The wind whistled in the chimney, banged on the windows, and slammed the doors. The walls moaned, the floor creaked, the roof groaned. It was as if the house was alive, but just barely.

The kitchen was dark and cold, and completely not as Kosara remembered it. Her dad wasn’t busying around, whistling while he chopped vegetables. Her mum wasn’t heating up a pot of yesterday’s soup, stirring and swearing loudly when the hot liquid splashed her.

Bakharov looked around. “Are your parents—”

“They passed away last winter. A freak accident.”

“Monster?”

“Drunk carriage driver.”

“I’m sorry.”

Kosara shrugged. “This is Chernograd. People die all the time.”

She tried to swallow the lump forming in her throat. This is Chernograd, she reminded herself. She’d been lucky to have had them both, alive and healthy, for so many years. They’d seen her complete her apprenticeship and open her own workshop. They’d been there to dry her tears after every heartbreak and bandage her wounds after countless bad decisions. She’d been luckier than most.

Kosara lit up a gas lamp and placed it on the shelf above the fireplace. “What about you? Are your parents still around?”

It was only a second later she realised that was probably not as normal a question in Belograd as it was in Chernograd.

Bakharov gave her a rueful smile. “My mum is. I never knew my dad. I can’t decide who I’m more terrified of finding out I’m in Chernograd: my mum or my boss.”

So, Kosara had been right. He wasn’t here officially. “How much trouble will you be in with the boss once you get back to Belograd?”

He gestured to about a foot above his head. “Up to here. I’m hoping she might never find out if I play my cards right. I managed to apply for annual leave just before I left.”

Of course. Most people would have been in too much of a hurry to cross the Wall illegally in unauthorised pursuit of a murderer to bother with paperwork.

Not Bakharov. He’d filed for annual leave.

“With some luck,” he said, “she won’t ever know I’m not at the hot springs of Hisar to treat an old back injury. If that fails, I hope bringing her the murderer will pacify her.”

Kosara wrinkled her nose. Just how often did the police break the law and get away without any consequences?

Way too often, that was for certain.

As they talked, she lit a matchstick and took it to the pile of newspapers and kindling in the fireplace. It hissed and went off. She lit another one. And another one.

Before she’d lost her magic, she’d click her fingers, and the fire would burn bright. She lifted her hand up in the air and rehearsed the spell, the way Vila had taught her, with a fluent movement of the wrist and precise fingers.…

What am I doing? She cast a quick glance towards Bakharov, to make sure he hadn’t noticed her waving her hands about. He hadn’t—or at least he pretended not to.

She lit another matchstick. At last, the kindling went up. The smell of burning paper filled the room. Kosara shut her eyes for a moment and let the warm air blow in her face until her nose stopped feeling like an ice cube. Then, she placed the cauldron over the fire and filled it with water for Bakharov’s poultice. It came out of the tap freezing—it would take a while to boil.

“Are you hungry?” Kosara swung a cupboard door open and searched through the jars inside. Vila always said one should never brew potions on an empty stomach. “I don’t know about you, but I had no chance to grab something to eat before we left. I’m starving.”

Bakharov hesitated. “I don’t want to intr—”

A loud bang sounded from the hallway.

Kosara looked over her shoulder. Bakharov had already pulled his pistol and taken a defensive position, pressed close to the wall next to the door frame.

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