Page 75 of Foul Days

“Listen to me, you silly foreigner. I know my monsters. Their magic is like nothing you’ve ever seen before—”

“Which is exactly why I won’t leave you to face them alone. I need your help to catch my murderer, and I can’t let you get yourself killed. I’m coming.”

I can’t let you? Since when did he expect her to ask him permission?

Kosara sighed with exasperation. “You know what, fine. But it’s at your own risk.”

Stupid, stubborn copper. He’d get enchanted, and she wouldn’t waste time trying to save him. She’d leave him there to be a slave to the samodivas, and it would be his own damned fault.

And, if he insisted on coming, he could at least be useful. “Can you dance?” she asked.

“I’ve been told I’m not bad.”

“You’d have to be pretty good to keep up with them. They’re very fast.”

“I’m sure I’ll manage.”

“There are some rules. Make sure you remember them. Following them might be the only thing that can save you.”

“What rules?”

Kosara made her voice a tad more sinister, just to telegraph the seriousness of the situation. She realised she sounded a lot like Vila. “There are three things you should never do when you meet the samodivas, if there’s to be any hope for you to escape their magic. Firstly, whatever you do, never look them in the eyes.”

“Seems simple enough.”

“Secondly, no matter what, never tell them your name.”

“That one’s easy.”

“Thirdly, and this one is the most important, never drink from their wine.”

“All right, no problem.”

He still looked completely calm. Stupid, stubborn foreigner.

Kosara chose one of the big kitchen knives hanging on the wall and tucked it in her boot. If only she had a silver-handled dagger or an ivory sword—something a tad more dramatic than her dad’s carving knife, thinned from years of sharpening. Not that it wouldn’t do the job.

“Come on,” Kosara said. “Time to go dancing.”

14

Day Six

As Kosara and Asen approached the samodivas’ square, the street changed. In place of the grey cobblestones grew grass: tall, dark green, heavy with dew. Ivy enveloped the city chambers, hiding the building’s severe granite and sharp edges. Tall oaks rose instead of streetlights. Here and there, a moonbeam broke through their canopy and fell at an acute angle, like a spotlight.

The air grew suffocatingly warm, but Kosara refused to take off her coat. It wasn’t really warm—it was simply part of the illusion. Another one of the samodivas’ tricks. Except knowing that didn’t stop her body from sweating or her skin from growing red.

Asen still shivered in his coat. Perhaps he’d been right, and magic didn’t work on him. Or perhaps he was being a soft Belogradean. After all, they never saw a proper winter on the other side of the Wall.

The samodivas’ pale figures floated out of the mist. One of them had pulled the moon down, as if with an invisible rope. A second held it in place with both her hands. A third milked it, squeezing pieces of it in between her long fingers. They collected the glistening moonlight into a large demijohn.

They wore simple dresses, white and made of linen, hanging loosely from their shoulders. Semi-sheer veils hid their faces. They’d pass for people, if it weren’t for their bright, impossibly white skin, and their gleaming hair the colour of moonlight.

When they heard Kosara and Asen approach, they looked up. Something wild glinted in their eyes, like predators who’d smelled prey.

They let the moon go. It flew up to its place in the sky as if it were a large balloon.

Kosara walked past the samodivas and placed the gramophone in the middle of the square. As soon as she dropped the needle, the sound of quick drums and flutes filled the silence. A multitude of female voices rose, some low and throaty, some shrill, harmonizing about their husbands’ death at war, or death at sea, or death in the mines.

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