Page 95 of Fate and Fury

Normally, Katerina would have stood her ground and fought. But here and now, her magic wavered inside her, a candle flame whose wick was guttering. If she called, she couldn’t trust it to come.

So instead she turned and fled like a hunted rabbit, past the abandoned stalls of fresh-cut flowers and iced cakes and simmering stroganoff, past the fiddlers and the beribboned dancers who reached out taloned hands to grasp her. She ran and ran, her breath rasping in her throat, until she finally arrived at a familiar place.

Elena’s cottage.

The yellow siding, the white trim, the bright blue door…all of it was the same. Only the runes that twined along the window frames and beneath the eaves were different. They spoke of demonic influence, not goodness and Light.

Katerina stood, silently, and listened. She could no longer hear the crowd chasing her. The crowd, she realized now, that had been comprised of Grigori who had likely been ordered to take on the forms of the villagers of Kalach. Sammael had constructed a replica of their village for Elena. As she had left her home behind, he had brought her home to her.

It would have been sweet, if it hadn’t been a fallen angel’s gift to a deluded murderer.

She could see Elena through one of the windows of the cottage, sitting at her table, in front of a samovar and tea set that had been her Shadow father’s wedding gift. She was wearing the gown in which she’d married Niko, her platinum hair threaded with thorned greenbriar vines, in an eerie, sinister echo of her wedding’s roses. She looked remote, and lovely, and…untouchable.

Katerina pulled one of her blades from its sheath. Breath hissing through her teeth and witchfire licking her ankles, she crept toward the house. Through the wavy glass of the window, she saw Elena raise a cup to her lips, one hand resting casually on the head of a black dog that leaned against her side.

Katerina’s breath caught. But the dog was not Niko, with the white streak above his ear that marked him as hers and the wit that blazed in his gray eyes, even in dog form. It was the beast that had accompanied Elena to the clearing.

Where, then, was her Shadow?

Katerina scanned the front room of the cottage, all that she could see from where she stood. Niko was nowhere in sight. There was just Elena, sipping tea from her wedding china like a demented bride, and the black dog, her obedient companion.

The demon Sammael did not need to take a Shadow’s shape. It could have resembled anything: A man, a monster. Yet there it was, impersonating a Shadow, perpetuating Elena’s delusion that she was anything other than an abomination.

Rage swelled in Katerina, and her magic flared, escaping her. One of the windows blew inward, shattering. The shards of glass whipped around Elena, a tornado painting her white skin in blood, slashing her wedding dress, tearing the lace from its hem.

The Vila’s gaze fixed on Katerina. For a moment, her wide blue eyes reflected shock and horror. And then she started to laugh.

“Katerina?” she said, her voice unconcerned, as if she weren’t bleeding from a thousand tiny cuts. “What are you doing here? Come to join me for tea?” She gestured at the table before her. “There’s plenty, after all.”

Perhaps she had gone mad, altogether. “I’ve come—” Katerina began, but Elena wasn’t listening. Instead, she turned to the black dog at her side.

“Did you ask someone to impersonate her, for my entertainment? You are too good to me, my beloved. Let us spend the evening torturing her, and imagine that it’s truly Katerina who stands before us. It will be such fun.”

But the black dog was no more. Sammael stood there, in the guise of the redheaded man. “No,“ he said. “I did not conjure her, Elena, nor yet did I command a minor demon to impersonate her likeness. I called her here, in hopes that the two of you could come to terms.”

Elena’s mouth fell open. “What?” she croaked. “Is this a joke?”

The demon shook his head, his expression grave, and a rageful flush suffused Elena’s features. “I don’t understand. Why would you betray me this way?”

“Think of it as a favor, rather than a betrayal.” Sammael’s gaze lingered on the empty air by the Vila’s side. “You are not yourself. And like it or not, we share a common enemy.”

“Katerinaismy enemy.” Elena stood, advancing toward the window frame, studded with shards of glass. Her cuts were already healing; were it not for the bloodied dress that swirled around her ankles, Katerina might believe they had never been there at all.

The Vila peered curiously at Katerina, as if she were looking through her. And then she shook her head so hard, one of the greenbriar vines came loose from her intricate braids. “That is truly her, and not an illusion or charm? How is that possible?” Her upper lip rose in a snarl more befitting a rabid beast than the demure Vila she had once been.

Katerina’s heart fluttered: a desperate sensation, as if it were trying to break free and flee back above ground where it—and she—belonged. Her magic faltered, the witchfire around her ankles winking out. She forced a smirk onto her face. “Surprise,” she said.

Elena let out an infuriated squeak. It would almost have been amusing, if it hadn’t been accompanied by a burst of the silver-blue flames that had surged from the portal in the clearing, devouring Niko alive. “I will have vengeance on you for this,” she said, turning on Sammael. “You brought the corrupt witch herself to our threshold!”

Thatwas rich. “If one of us is a corrupt witch,” Katerina retorted, “I don’t think it’s me.”

The Vila didn’t spare her a glance, as if Katerina hadn’t spoken at all. “She’s interrupted tea-time,” she said, her fury transmuting to sulkiness with alarming ease and her lower lip protruding in a pout. “Now I’ll have to get rid of her. And I was havingsuchfun.”

What was Elena capable of? Could the Vila vanquish Katerina, send her hurtling back aboveground, before she’d even laid eyes on her Shadow? Fear gnawed at Katerina’s stomach with vicious, razor-sharp teeth, and she fought to keep her voice level. “If you’re so keen to torture me, then invite me in, Elena. Before the demons who chased me through the square and into the streets do it for you.”

Sammael looked contrite. “Sorry about them,” he said. “In truth, I expected you to emerge here, rather than in the square. The portals right now aren’t…” He made a seesawing motion with his hand, as if to indicate everything the portals were not. “But have no fear. My minions know not to approach Elena’s cottage without permission.”

So that explained the demons’ sudden disappearance. She supposed she should be grateful for small favors. “Where is my Shadow?” she demanded.

---