Page 103 of Katya and the Young God

His hands are loose around his coffee cup, and he stares out at the yard, not saying anything, just squinting.

“What?” Katya asks, after a good long time of the faraway stare.

“That Archdemon did something to my wards,” he mumbles, ducking his head, as if embarrassed. “I can’t figure out what, but they’re stronger.”

That does sound like something he would do.

* * *

It’sa good seven more hours until Selene wakes up.

And when she wakes, she wakes with a scream.

Katya’s in the kitchen, and she carefully sets down the glass she was drying on the kitchen counter, slipping into the gloves she’s kept in her pocket.

Pieter immediately races in, hands up, to comfort her, and Selene clings to him, her tiny face immediately buried in the crook of his shoulder.

Making sure as much of her skin is covered as possible, Katya walks in, keeping her steps smooth and even. She might not know how to deal with children, but she knows that panicked people will always respond better to calmness.

“Hey, hey, we got you, we got you out,” Pieter whispers to Selene, as the child grips him, shaking. “You’re someplace safe.”

Katya sits down next to them on the couch, and the dip draws the child’s attention. She pulls away from Pieter, her hands still clutching at his jacket, and she stares, wide-eyed, at Katya.

“Hi,” Katya says, intentionally dipping her language down into something approachable to a kid.

Selene blinks at her, face solemn, but her fingers loosen a bit on Pieter’s jacket. “I dreamed of you?” She whispers, and for a brief, terrifying moment, Katya doesn’t know if something had happened to Selene’s memory. “You came for me in the glass box.”

“That I did,” Katya says, giving Selene her best professional smile. “You remember me from the mountain.”

Selene wrinkles her face, as if to say duh.

“We got you here, somewhere safe,” she says, and Selene leans more into Pieter again, as if Katya’s words are an echo of someone else’s.

“And we’ll be able to take you to all those places I told you about,” Pieter says, his voice low and soothing. “And no one will be able to hurt you.”

At that, Katya holds out her gloved hand, and Selene slowly, ever so slowly, reaches out and grabs it, her hand small in Katya’s.

And her face is wary, her eyes are hurt, but Selene nods, as if she believes them both.

Without warning, Stepan bounds in, skidding to a stop right outside of arm’s length from Selene, tilting his head and flopping his ears to one side, quizzical.

Selene stares back at the dog, an unsure waver in her bottom lip.

Pieter sighs, a deep, weary sigh. “Don’t touch my dog without gloves.”

* * *

They stayin the cabin through the day, with the brief exception of letting Selene watch the snow fall from the porch in the afternoon flurries, and Selene trades off huddling on the couch with sleeping and eating, her face wan and scared.

All they have for her to wear is the kid-sized hospital smock, and if it’s going to continue to get colder, she’s going to need proper kids’ outfits, proper jackets and mittens and gloves, and a whole slew of actual clothing fit for a child.

“We can’t go into Denver or Estes, they’ll expect it too much,” Katya whispers to Pieter, long after Selene has gone back to sleep in the dark of night. “They’ve got to be on the lookout for any of us.”

They’re in her too-large bed, comfortably warm in the center of it, his arm pressed up against her side.

“There’s other places we can go, it’ll just be a drive,” he says, slow, and she can see his eyes thinking about it, see the thoughts enter his mind as he disregards them, one by one. “Colorado Springs, there’s no population of us there. They won’t think to look. Might be a shorter drive to Laramie, there’s only a small Vampire nest there, they won’t bother me.”

“I can’t believe they haven’t come and visited here yet,” Katya says, and her eyes are gritty and her shoulder aches at the idea of driving. “It’s the first place I would search.”

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