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It was after the third successive nightmare that Katerina decided sleep was a lost cause. Instead, she decided to abandon the morphine and slip out of bed.
Alexander’s hands were dry and flaking; they were easy to escape, and he was left sleeping while she pulled a coat over her nightclothes. She gave herself a customary look in the mirror before leaving into the night — but turned away once she saw buttons for eyes and sackcloth for skin. Some dreams followed her into the waking world.
In the morning, Victoria and Nina spoke to each other, gathered at the riverbank where the most twyre bloomed in autumn. Despite not being invited, Katerina arrived there in her best clothes — and, oddly enough, saw less pity in their faces than she expected. Both of them wore practical outfits, with separate legs and flowy blazers; Katerina stood to the side, odd in her black dress against the vibrant gold of the Steppe summer.
Katerina asked, as she always did, “Are you happy to see me?”
They did not answer; mistresses could not lie. “We’ve chosen today to meet as it is the solstice,” said Nina, sweeping her hands into the air, as if framing the sun between her white palms. “It has power. Man forgoes winter lethargy when summer arrives, and in turn, paves the paths for all great inventions.”
Both Victoria and Nina were about two decades older than Katerina, who was only nineteen herself. Sometimes, she caught the feeling that they entertained her only because of that difference; likely, they saw themselves as educating the youth.
“But summer designs must take into account winter weather,” Victoria returned, dressed all in white, which rustled airily on the breeze. “You cannot be too rash with these things. It is myopic to believe construction can take only a single season.”
Katerina opened her mouth — but found herself lacking anything to say. She listened.
“And what if I employed a thousand architects, each with their own forces of men, to work on a single house? What then?” Nina challenged. “It may well be conceived in June and completed in August. And then I would have you be quiet; allow my plans to go whenever I say.”
“No matter how many men you have, a foundation of concrete cannot be hurried into setting quicker,” Victoria laughed. She sounded like tinkling bells; a windchime, buffeted by warm wind. “You would still have to wait the days. And then the cement for the tiles — that cannot be hurried either! And what of the time needed to allow glass to set properly, as I’m sure you would want this hypothetical house to have stained windows! You are always so extravagant.”
They laughed together, their hands brushing as they began out into the Steppe. Katerina hurried after them; the cereal-grasses caught at her ruffles.
“Have you spoken with the Kin lately?” asked Nina. “I’ve heard they’re becoming unsettled. Your husband’s constructions are unnerving them.”
They looked vaguely in the direction of the Abattoir, where its face was hugged by scaffolding.
“I trust he’ll do what’s best,” she responded airly. Then, suddenly, she remembered Katerina behind them, floating along like a dark cloud. “Katerina, dear? How did you know to meet us here?”
She considered that. “Intuition, I believe.” Then, she lied: “I had a vision, where an orb of light and a shard of darkness met in a field of twyre.”
Nina’s red-painted lip twisted into her typical, unfeeling smile. Victoria’s was more genuine.
“Perhaps you are a true mistress,” Victoria said. “It may still be too early to tell. I don’t remember the last Saburov mistress — perhaps you all present late.”
“I presented at a raw nine years. If it is visions that you see now, Katerina, I envy you.” Nina laughed gently. “Nine was too young. I hadn’t even begun my menses, and I was already presented with visions of abominations; monsters that reached beyond the horizon…”
“Always on about your buildings!” Victoria laughed. “Goodness; why did you marry Victor if your true love was the material! Go build yourself a man out of stone and see if you love him more, I beg of you.”
“A stone man cannot give me a child! Maria and Kaspar are much better as real people.”
“What about you, Katerina?” Victoria asked kindly, looking over her shoulder. “Come here, girl, don’t be shy. Are you thinking of children? I imagine you are — there aren’t other Saburovs to continue the line.”
“I would love a child,” she said, trotting to catch up with them. The women were physically small, but energetically huge; standing between them, she felt like she was sandwiched by giants, one in purple, one in white. “I’ve been contemplating names since I was ten. Perhaps one after my father, if there’s a boy — but not my mother; she was quite a witch.”
“How many would you like?” Nina asked. “Two was enough for me. Kaspar cracked my pelvis — which is why my pace is slower than it ideally should be.” She looked down glumly at the fabric wrapped around her middle, which Katerina only just noticed was medical.
“Two would be a dream,” she replied. “Two girls — twins, even, if I can afford to be picky. I know it’s the man who passes down the name, but do people really care, in this age? Even my grandmother passed her name to her husband; it’s not a new idea.”
“Certainly not. I think that’s an excellent idea, if it turns out that way,” Victoria said sincerely. “Should we head back now, Nina, dear? You’re hobbling.”
“Let’s,” she sighed.
Nina died first — due to some complication or other with healing — with Victoria following only a week after, without any obvious cause.
The Olgimsky and Kain men managed to remain civil for the ceremonies. Victor and Vlad were even seen shaking hands before returning to their sides of the crowd; the younger Vlad held his baby sister close, and allowed the two small Kains to stand around his legs.
Suddenly, Katerina found herself under more scrutiny than she’d ever felt in her life. With the two mistresses gone, the Town turned to her to fill in the gaps; she couldn’t keep up with the strain, as her visions were short-lived and not noteworthy when they occured — but still, she tried.
First, she had tried to replace Nina, heartily accepting the role of a short-sighted woman of power; while the Light Mistress was still alive, she prodded Victoria endlessly with questions and invented prophecies, until finally the woman snapped at her to leave her to grieve alone, tears down her cheeks.
Katerina’s enthusiasm was tampered; if Victoria didn’t continue assuming the role of mediator, then the Town was missing one of its pillars — and the people soon realised that, as they began to accost her for prophecies, for the ear of the Kains, for where Victoria was—
She could appease nobody, she realised quickly. Her worth was measured by her temperamental and unfocused prophecies — which were vague enough that people favoured asking little Maria about their problems, barely ten years old, over her.
She felt unneeded. The Kin said she resembled the excess flesh that Boddho repurposed to create new babies for the Worms. Alexander maintained that she was his wife, and she didn’t need to fulfil a purpose in order for them to be happy — but he still organised hearings where groups would come and ask her, methodically, which of them would be married next… what would await one in the Capital… which day was best to plant flowers—
Victoria died soon after, leaving Katerina to discover truly how much of the Town was controlled by the twin Mistress’ rule; within the first day, she complained to Alexander that she was too small to keep everything together, crying.
Riots broke out in the Maw, Stone Yard and Chine, with Alexander sending out patrolmen to stop their advance to the Tanners. Some well-aimed bricks made it over the river to shatter their north-facing windows; Vlad Olgimsky took care of the Maw (violently, some said) while Georgiy locked away those in the Yard. When they were delivered to the prison, Saburov took the opportunity to, very sternly, inform them of the powers his wife held, and that it would do them well to acknowledge her as herself, rather than a stand-in for Light and Dark Mistresses.
Meanwhile, Katerina lay, skull cracked, in the Cape; after attempting to meditate at their graves, she’d passed out and hit her head on the concrete — even after their deaths, she tried to meet with them.
She wondered if the task she’d set for herself — to be a Mistress in her own right — was impossible to fulfil.
Alexander took her hands in his. They sat together at the table, heads tipped towards the other’s, with a candle the only light. He breathed first, then she followed; when she trembled, he reached out to sweep her hair out of her face.
An hour passed. “Anything?” he asked.
“No.” She felt fragile.
“Let’s try some more,” he suggested, and closed his eyes again.
Another hour. “Anything?”
“No.”
“Let’s do something else,” he said, and kissed her hand. “Do you still need to reply to your grandmother? The trains are departing in two days. I could help you draft the letter.”
“That would be nice,” she conceded, and allowed him to lead her to his office.
He pulled out a vial of black ink and one of the fountain pens gifted to him by his father, engraved with the Saburov seal on its lid. He planted it in her hand, closed her fingers around it, then set her hand on the page.
She stared at it listlessly. “What did she say to me?”
He didn’t need to look at the letter; his mind was a perfect copy of his shelves. “It was short — she wanted to know if you want Capital perfume for your birthday. She said they restocked the sort you like.”
“Do you like it as well?”
“Yes,” he answered honestly — so she wrote:
Dear grandmother,
Thank you for your letter. I would appreciate the perfume for my birthday; both me and Alexander enjoy it lots. Should you find a vial of writing ink, could you send that as well? All of his are running out, and he forgets to put in an order for more every time. Just let me know how much it cost you.
“Is that all she said?”
He checked again. “Yes. She also asked if she could visit, of course.”
“As she always does,” she sighed. She added:
As I always say, please don’t trouble yourself with the journey here. It took me almost a week from Petrograd, and I know how much you need your comforts. I’ve found myself becoming quite important in the Town, so I’m not sure when next I’ll be able to visit, but it shouldn’t be too long. Perhaps a year at the very most.
Yours, Katerina
She sealed the letter, and stamped the wax with the pen’s lid. Alexander slipped it into his pocket, ready for the morning, and took off his coat altogether. He changed into his nightclothes while Katerina stared at the wall.
“Let’s go to bed.” He stroked his hands through her hair, untangling it. “Maybe you’ll get a vision during the night.”
He began to braid. “Perhaps I will. But — Alexander,” she said, reaching backwards to grab his forearm; “what if I don’t get a vision? What if I’m not fit to be a mistress at all.”
“Let’s not think that way. I have faith that what you see is true — it only makes sense that it would take time to harness that power. There’s still time.”
That night, she had another nightmare. Unlike the others, this one had a face: a small rat, wrapped in a rattier cloak.
It had dark, wet eyes, and a pink, twitching nose. It had whiskers where there shouldn’t be whiskers — including one that grew boldly from the centre of its pupil. Katerina couldn’t look away.
“The Earth Mistress,” the rat said. “That is your title.”
“Yes?” she asked.
“Yes. Mistress of the Earth. Of Boddho. How many times have you tried for children, Katerina? Twenty-four years old, and yet…”
“I’m very used to my dreams mocking me,” she said irritably. “Alexander suspects one of us may be sterile. It’s no wonder that conversation was appropriated for this… taunting.”
“And yet, you don’t look to the Menkhu for confirmation. Scared, Saburova?” he mocked. The rat sounded like a very small boy; she wondered if the cloak was hiding a toddler’s body.
“Terrified,” she nodded, almost boredly. “I do wish my brain would stop with these sorts of dreams. They get tiresome.”
“I could give you prophecies, instead,” he said seriously. “All you have to do is agree to them.”
“This is my subconscious,” she asked, wanting assurance.
The rat tipped his head, in a gesture somewhere between a nod and a shake.
“In which case, I agree. Has it always been this easy? Is that all it takes?”
“That’s all it takes.” This time, he did nod. “I’ll be back, Katerina. Sleep well.”
The next day, her migraine was splitting. She woke up groaning; Alexander had the morphine prepared before she even asked. He applied the tourniquet, found her vein, and depressed the plunger — and immediately, she felt relief.
Once done, she rolled onto her other side, hands clasped over her forehead. “I had a dream — a rat told me I was going to have visions.”
Alexander held back his laugh. “I would say that was a joke, but you don’t have a sense of humour, do you?”
“Not particularly,” she shrugged. “It could’ve just been indigestion.”
He rolled next to her, inching closer until their sides were touching. “Could be the cold, too. I think it’s snowing.”
Katerina sighed. “If it is, then we need to tell the cleaners to go home. Burakh said there will be a storm by this evening.”
They got dressed in matching shades of charcoal and black, taking clothes from the same wardrobe.
“Which coat should I wear?” Alexander asked.
“The one you always do,” she replied. He smiled.
They stepped outside together, Katerina’s arm linked in Saburov’s elbow. The snow had only just begun; it powdered them as they walked along the river, and settled on the ice in great drifts.
She looked at the frosted world. There weren’t any children around — or, rather, the children she did see were only the town’s orphans — and the adults were hurrying places with their heads bowed and cowls drawn. A Bride and a Worm spoke together, huddled under a bare tree; Alexander gently led her away from them.
“I’ve been asked for some help regarding the Kin,” he informed her quietly, once they were far enough away. “They say Vlad is killing them for refusing to work for him.”
“The elder?”
“Who else? The younger is surprisingly more conscious about these things, although I doubt it’s out of kindness. I was considering speaking with him about it, but if any suggestion of our collaboration makes it back to his father, that would be grounds for a fight between our families. I won’t put you at risk.”
“I would gladly be sacrificed,” she replied, looking across at him. “If they’re being killed, then I’d like to risk it.”
“There’s no evidence, and my men are more scared of Olgimsky than me,” he breathed, and called out to a factory man: “You, sir! Would you come here?”
He did. He was one of the typical unwashed, smoke-stained men with a cigarette perpetually stuck between his lips. His eyes were red from the tanning-fumes.
“Governor.”
“Please answer truthfully — if you were under threat, would you be more scared to hear it was from me, or from Olgimsky?”
“Fat Vlad. Sorry sir — no question. Rumours are he’s disappearing people, and you’re too nice a man to do that.”
“That’s all, thank you. See? Even if it escalated between us, my men would be more likely to join Olgimsky in hope they won’t be… disappeared. We have to be smart about this.”
They continued on. Katerina grew paranoid; the morphine was wearing off and the world was too sharp. When she blinked, it felt like the land rippled.
Alexander paused when she stumbled. “Is something wrong?”
“I’ve been having a terrible feeling,” she said, throat dry. “Perhaps it’s withdrawals.”
“It can’t be; you haven’t been taking enough medicine for that. We ought to get you inside.”
Greasy saliva gathered on her tongue. She barely noticed Alexander guiding her into a person’s house; her head throbbed, and despite the cold day, her head roared hot.
She was barely sat before she vomited — partly onto the floor, partly onto the homeowner’s neat shoes.
“Oh, dear,” said the woman, and Katerina felt her head be tipped back by gentle hands, a towel dabbing at her lips. Alexander had left somewhere. Every time she blinked, another minute passed; she groaned as she was pulled up, and struggled to stand on her wobbling knees.
She was lain on a bed. Alexander appeared again to pull the curtains shut, and faded from Katerina’s notice when he sat beside her. Her eyes were wide, but unfocused; the ceiling loomed darkly above her, and she traced the patterns of rails and electronic lights in its paint.
“Alexander,” she said weakly, and couldn’t feel his hand take hers; “Is it just me, or…”
“Or?” he prompted.
“Or…” She trailed off, and didn’t pick up that thought again. “There’s going to be a death in this house.”
She turned her head; the Rat stood at Alexander’s side, and Alexander himself gazed at her with round, black eyes.
“And now,” continued the Rat, “say that it will be their grandmother that dies. The homeowner is just around the corner; she will hear.”
“It will be their grandmother that dies…”
“Today! In just a few minutes!”
“…in a few minutes.”
“Splendid,” the Rat finished. Alexander looked over his shoulder, and met the woman’s stare.
“She’s a little distracted,” he told her. “It might not be true. But they say she is a Mistress, and she has never led me astray.”
She swallowed, and nodded. A long blink later, Katerina heard crying. Alexander was ecstatic.
“Well done,” he said sincerely, stroking the hair from her face. Children stormed into the house, and upon racing upstairs, began to wail. “Well done! You’ve done so well — I’m so proud!”
A week later, Katerina woke shivering, along with a restless, urgent need to get out of bed.
Her tangling in the blankets woke up Alexander, who followed her with his eyes; she hopped out of the covers, rubbed her hands down her skinny thighs, and groaned softly.
“It’s not time for another dose,” he reminded when she went for the needle.
“I can’t handle it,” she gasped, but retracted her hand. “If only you knew the dreams I had— of this, this modern world, where we’re all made of fabric, and children move us as they please—”
His big, dry hand emerged to knead circles into her back. “Easy. Breathe as much as you can.”
She turned back to throw a weak smile at him, and locked eyes with the Rat. He stood in the corner of the room, his tiny body nearly shrouded by the darkness. She couldn’t decide whether her brain intended his head to be a mask or an actual rat’s head; when before its whiskers twitched, now they were still.
“Say that, in two days, Roman Immortell will be succeeded by his son,” he urged, tapping his cane on the floor. “He is ailing, and heart failure will claim him swiftly.”
“I– in two days,” she started, and Alexander rushed for his notepad, “Roman Immortell will die of heart failure. Mark will take his place.”
“You could work on making it sound more… mystic; part of the fun of Mistressing is sounding extravagant, after all! Practice with this one: Isidor Burakh will cause the deaths of hundreds.”
“Isidor Burakh will spill rivers of blood,” she whispered, barely heard over Alexander’s scribbling.
“In a year,” the Rat offered.
“In a year,” she repeated. “Isidor Burakh will spill rivers of blood in one year.”
The Rat applauded, then swept his hand low in a bow. “Just like his father before him, and the fathers all before that, as well. Will you remember to say the same for Artemy, when he comes back home? Six years to go.”
“I will,” she replied, and opened her eyes again to see the room empty but for Alexander, his leather-bound journal propped open on his pillow, squinting at the ink in the darkness.
Time passed. Katerina was preparing doses much more often than she wasn’t; when she shuddered awake, eyes rolling back into her skull, Alexander was quick to write down every word she said, sorted as neatly as their ledgers. He’d taken to keeping his journal tucked under his pillow and his favourite pen uncapped by his bedside.
She foretold deaths — many, many deaths; the Rat, which she remained convinced was her own mind, told her about the deaths of everyone in the Town, and of the deaths of the Worms and Brides that tended the Steppe on the outskirts, and those taken by Olgimsky to be killed for defiance, and of the cattle across Siberia, and the people starving under colonial rule in the other continents, and the townsfolk’s elderly, and their dogs and cats…
Both Alexander and Katerina kept an eye on Isidor once the year turned, and so noticed when he left to the Steppe. When he returned, they were the first to notice the clouds of sickness hanging about the factories — when the Plague began to rage through the Town, Alexander was the first volunteer to evacuate the healthy.
Isidor came to them on the second day of the outbreak. He was bald, tall, stocky, and with a sharp face; when Katerina and Artemy played together years ago, she remembered Isidor standing to the side like a protective shadow — always too busy to truly engage with his son or the other children, but present enough to keep them safe.
He addressed Katerina with darkness under his eyes and a droop to his shoulders. “Earth Mistress.”
“Menkhu,” she returned, privately delighted at her title. “How may I be of service?”
Alexander left the room, leaving his chair free for Isidor to take. Katerina could hear the man’s knees creak as they bent.
“In truth, my request might be too much for you to handle.” He breathed heavily, testing each of his fingers absently — a habit she knew Artemy shared. “I’m not certain how much power you wield, or even if you know how to use what you have now.”
“The only way to discover that is to ask, I should think,” Katerina replied, leaning forward with inelegant enthusiasm. “What is it that you need doing?”
Matching her, he rested his elbows on his knees. The scent of him wafted towards her, like twyre rustled by a dry wind. “I have created a form. Not a form, really — a body. In fact, I’m still quite ashamed that I’ve done so — creating carcasses is more of the Kain’s purview, particularly yet-to-be-occupied ones. Bodies of dead things not yet alive.”
Then, he caught himself. Sighed deeply. “What I would like to ask, is how far your control over the earth goes.”
She had never tested it, so she didn’t have the slightest idea. “As far as you require, Menkhu.”
Gaze as sharp as a raptor-bird’s, he eyed her. “I need you to bring it to life.”
Hours later, they stood in the darkened graveyard together, Isidor with a small, nearly-finished torch. He took up the shovel laying by the mausoleum before leading her down a thin path to one of the graves.
It was separated from the others by how it was covered only by a loose scattering of rocks and topsoil, and lacked any engraving on its headstone. With a quick glance over his shoulder, Isidor began digging.
It took only a few shallow shovelfuls before a brown hand was revealed — limp, tossed carelessly over the lip of the grave. It wasn’t brown in an organic way, like the travellers Katerina had seen pass through the Capital, but rather like the clotted clay that surrounded the grave in thick veins; it was a wet, malleable substance, and Katerina wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Isidor’s construction was fashioned from it.
Isidor was breathing heavily by the time the body was fully revealed — naked, with legs twisted and skeletal, tipped with sharp bones.
“I ran out of material,” he panted, nodding towards them. “Well, rather — and this might be quite important to whichever process you will continue to do, so listen; I found it laying in the Steppe, mostly-made, wrapped in one of the Worms’ fabrics. Immediately, I thought it was a foreigner who’d underestimated the elements — but then I recognised the lack of the skin’s shine, and the overall unhealthy pallor. I recognised then that it was not human, but rather a form, birthed by Mother Boddho herself.”
With a balled fist, he wiped sweat from his lip. “It lacks life. It was gifted to me by Boddho and the Steppe, and now it is my role as Menkhu to heal it.” He then turned fully to Katerina, gesturing at her hands. “It is also my role as Menkhu to apply whichever tools necessary to do so.”
Then, he climbed into the shallow grave, and pulled it out and onto the grassy ground; its bald head and concave chest rolled around limply, until it settled facing Katerina with glassy eyes. In each were pupils of differing sizes, surrounded by rings of limpid blue.
“I sourced enough living clay to finish its chest and thighs,” he said, patting down the remaining rough edges; “but I didn’t have enough to finish the legs, no matter how much I tried to take from the rest.” Evidence of that laid in its flat chest, stark ribs and veiny arms. “For that reason, I believe it is the inanimate body of a shabnak-adyr.”
Katerina startled. “A shabnak?” She suddenly wanted nothing to do with the body at all. “And you’ve brought it to the Town?”
He fixed her with a weary stare. “Do not presume to know my intentions, Earth Mistress. You’re less than half my age, and know nothing of my schemes. If you’re not able to carry out my wishes, then I’ll kindly request you leave.”
She would never leave; she wanted to feel needed — so, she crouched beside Burakh, and rested her palms on the body’s forehead.
It was damp, no matter how hard she tried to dry it with her sleeve. Its cheeks were malleable, and kept the shape of her fingerprints; she used her nail to push together its cleft lip, spitting into her hand to wet the material properly.
“I was considering that,” said Burakh thoughtfully, watching her work, “but I wasn’t sure if that would interfere with your processes.”
“Not at all.” She moved to correct the curve of its neck. “They sew together clefts on babies, so why shouldn’t we now? It would make her struggle to speak and drink otherwise.”
“She?” Isidor repeated, with some amusement. “Typically, we don’t gender dead things. Makes it less painful if they don’t make it.”
“I have faith,” she said confidently, and pulled away, with the body turned towards the night sky. “What will you name her?”
“Sahba-ötün,” Burakh said. “What will you do now?”
What indeed, she wondered, realising that she hadn’t the slightest clue. Burakh was asking her to give life — she couldn’t just give a prophecy and expect him to be satisfied.
“Can’t you?” asked the Rat, poking Sahba’s lax lip with his cane. Still, he was under a metre tall, with a cloak that revealed only his arms. “Be better than that, Katerina — creativity is a virtue! Here, listen: once the Plague is curbed, Isidor’s third child will be born.”
“It— I’ve already done it,” she lied, voice shaking; Isidor looked at her with reverence. “She will come to life once the Plague has ended.”
“Sahba will follow him like the daughter he never had,” the Rat told her with mock sincerity. “She will love him, and his living son in turn. Deep love runs in this family.”
“Love is your legacy, Burakh,” Katerina said. “She will learn from you, and love you and the Kin both.”
Laughing, the Rat applauded. “Well done, oh, brava!”
Finally, the torch they were working under blew out, leaving them both in moonlight. There was the strong smell of turned earth, carried by the warm wind of summer that blew over them.
“It’s already done,” Isidor echoed to himself, staring at Sahba’s face. “What a delight to hear.”
It was two weeks later when Katerina met Aspity personally. She was high on morphine, and had to be steered to the Burakh house by Alexander’s strong arm. She barely noticed the heat, despite being dressed in all black, but kept her head hung low.
The door creaked when they entered, which was the most Katerina heard until some minutes later, when there was scuffling and scratching on the floor.
When she looked upwards, the body — vitalised, with focused if unequally dilated eyes — looked back. She smiled, showing stolen bones set in her mouth.
“I hear you’re the one to thank,” she said, with a dry, educated voice. “For my life, that is.”
“You’re welcome,” Katerina returned. “It’s a delight to have a daughter, of sorts.”
Sabha barked a laugh, which devolved into coughing. She waved Isidor away.
“She’s a different sort of life,” Isidor explained, offering her water again. “A hot day is enough to make her crumble…”
“Thank you, Menkhu, but that will do,” Aspity said firmly. “Katerina — I’m in debt to you. If you need anything, please come to me, and I will see to it — if it’s within my power, at least.”
“And mine,” Isidor added, drifting away to tend his simmering solutions. Alexander kept a steely eye fixed on him as he worked.
“The Kin will hear of this, of course,” Sahba continued, rubbing her drying hands together; she wore the Worm-cloth Burakh had found her in, repurposed into a chunky dress. It neatly took care of her legs — or lack thereof. “They will be willing to help you as well, Katerina — and that extends to you too, Governor.”
Alexander tipped his head. “That’s very generous; I’ll keep that in mind. How many are the Kin now?”
She raised her eyes as she calculated. “In the Town now, five-thousand. In the Steppe, easily tens of thousands more, all strewn across Siberia.”
Isidor nodded and passed to pat her back approvingly, in a way so fatherly that Katerina’s mood changed immediately; she’s finally made a life, and someone else has claimed it before her. Through the morphine, her anger raged sharply.
She opened her mouth — to do what? Discuss the custody of a shabnak, resurrected through supernatural means? Sahba looked to be easily in her late twenties, or even her thirties; even if her real age was only fourteen days, she was conscious and grown enough to choose where she lived. She had chosen Isidor, and Katerina had no means to convince her otherwise.
Even if Aspity did want to leave with them, Alexander would not let Katerina keep her, she thought. He was still tense by her side, his arm locking hers against his flank, and tensed further still when Sahba and Isidor drifted close. He allowed her a great many things, but sharing the manor with a Steppe demon would not be one of them.
She closed her mouth.
One night, Katerina took the needle out her arm, but didn’t put it away. Instead, she stared; if she were to put it in the wrong place — the thick artery in her neck, for example — and depressed the plunger, she would die.
Just like that, she thought. How simple.
Casting a slice of yellow light on the floor, the door creaked open. “Katerina?”
“Here,” she called softly, so he slipped through to her — to see her sat limply on her bed, skin pale, lips and nails purple, hair greasy. She looked like a corpse.
“Oh,” Alexander breathed, darting to her. “Don’t do that, love —” he saw the needle; “—and especially not that. Do you want me to hide them, the vials? Would that help?”
She wasn’t listening. The Rat paced behind Alexander, tapping his cane on the floor. The little shadows that followed him scurried into the manor’s dark corners. He tutted.
“You’re a false Mistress, Katerina,” he said, keeping a beady eye fixed on her while he spun around. “You’re barren, and you’re not meant for greatness. Isn’t that what you think, every day?”
The emotion that gave her was startling. She loathed it. “More morphine,” she gasped, reaching out a hand that Alexander folded in his own.
“You don’t need any more.” His voice was reassuring; he reached out with his other hand to stroke away her hair. “That’s enough for today, Katerina.”
She bit him.
Saburov increased her dose to three ampoules per day.
Even then, it was not enough to shut out the screaming; the Crude Sprawl was raging with fire and riots, owing to Isidor barricading the district even after the Plague had gone from the air. Alexander approved of the order; Olgimsky trusted the Menkhu, while the Kains haven’t had a say in Earth Quarter matters for decades.
Motionlessly sat on her chair in the Rod was how Katerina spent most of her days, looking into space while afterimages of albinos and rats danced in her periphery. Chants of the Khatange’s ancestral songs underlaid the Prophet’s recountings of the death toll — three dead here, another five there, two to gunshots and eight to fire; the graveyard was bursting and a child was finding her home there, summoned by the wailing of their spirits—
Katerina, intrigued, visited. Waiting for her outside the mausoleum, she found a girl with frail white hair and a thin face; she was clothed in rags.
“Come, girl,” Katerina admonished. “That’s no way for someone to dress.”
Shyly, the girl looked at the floor. “It matches them, though.” She gestured to the bodies awaiting burial, their dry eyes and rotted mouths hanging open.
Regardless of how strange a woman she had grown to become, Katerina was certain she was not so unsettling as a girl. She felt nothing in common with her — with the girl who took great, gasping breaths after each sentence, as if she was struggling to draw air or about to burst into tears — but she recognised an opportunity when she saw one; she clicked her fingers to draw the girl’s full attention.
“Let me buy you a nice dress. One that you can grow with.”
“I don’t want one,” she pouted. “This is good.”
Katerina sighed. “What’s your name, girl?”
“Grace.”
“Do you know what my husband does to orphan children in dangerous places?” Grace shook her head. “He rehouses them.”
“No!” She jumped away — although even in that, she was oddly limp and wavery. “Don’t do such a thing! It would hurt me.”
Exactly,” she said, grabbing her shoulder ungently; “So let’s go to the tailors’, and you can pretend that you go home each night to someone who clothes you. Much more innocuous than a lone girl at a cemetery.”
She did not give Grace a chance to refuse; she dragged her to the shop in the Maw, ignoring her when she started to cry. By the time they reached the building, she’d fallen silent. Katerina was grateful for it.
Measuring and drafting designs were blessedly quick, with the tailor’s assistant holding Grace when she began to crumple. They were kind people; they gave Katerina many stern, critical looks for how she treated the girl, but they didn’t dare reprimand a Mistress.
Once Grace was released to her, Katerina left her purse with the assistant and marched the girl to the Rod.
“All that fuss, and you didn’t even look at the designs she drew,” Grace sniffed, eyes still puffy.
“Be quiet,” Katerina said, not unkindly. “Here, see? This is where I live.”
That was enough to keep her occupied; Grace was enthralled with the structure of the manor — the dark edges and black-iron railings attracted her fingers, which left little fingerprints in the dust. Katerina made a note of that; evidently, the cleaners weren’t doing a good job.
“It’s such a dead house — nobody will ever grow here,” Grace said, delighted, as Katerina steered her into the bathroom. The tub was full by the time Grace asked, “Why did you bring me here?”
“To go in there.” Katerina jerked her head toward it. The water was faintly green; Alexander used a different bath. “Clean yourself up.”
The tears started again; Grace, distressed, said, “But I don’t know how.”
Katerina barked a laugh — first, she was barren, and now the only child she could source was incapable. She was no child-rearer; if she ever managed to conceive, the baby would go from the womb straight onto the teat of a wet-nurse. She liked teenagers, not toddlers.
Swiftly, she found herself hating the girl. She would not keep her.
“Figure it out.”
She shut the door behind herself.
The next week, Katerina collected Grace’s new clothes; they were a puffy-sleeved white dress and a sensible vest to go over it. Both appealed wonderfully to Katerina’s taste, which made her feel all the more sour.
She found the child crouched by a grave, laying a birthday cake by its side. She looked up at Katerina nervously — like a dog that’s just been taken home, and wasn’t sure how to behave.
“Out of those rags, girl,” said Katerina, dropping the folded pile into her arms. “Into these.”
Grace handled the cloth with knobbly fingers; the skin was tight around her knuckles like that of someone decades her senior — with a faulty liver.
Then, Katerina noticed the smell. “Are you drinking twyrine, girl?”
“Nuh-uh,” she said, and started undressing — hastily, Katerina went to stand between her and the cemetery gates; “Only the water that people leave on the graves. The spirits tell me to have it.”
“That’s never been water, girl.”
Grace shrugged listlessly, then began to struggle with her buttons. Katerina would’ve helped if she wasn’t seeing double herself; still, the Rat pranced between the graves, singing numbers and figures to the sky—
Five years passed in that tedium.
In their bed, Katerina sat with the covers up to her waist, head resting on her hand. Alexander eased one arm into a tourniquet, carefully inserted the needle, then swept away the red bead of blood afterwards.
“What if it never gets better,” she asked him, voice raspy. Alexander pretended not to notice, but the smell of smoke was gathering thicker and thicker around her each passing day. “What if I’m always like this.”
Alexander leant back. “I did suggest you go to the Menkhu.”
“I don’t want a diagnosis.” Katerina’s nose twitched.
“Then we’re out of options,” her husband said unemotionally, face going cold. “I don’t see what else there is to do. Other than complain, of course.”
Untying the tourniquet with practised fingers, Katerina pulled her arm out of his grasp.
“I’m sorry. That was unkind,” he started, but she’d already left the room.
Morphine was no longer enough. Standing half-dressed on the patio, she shivered violently, while the Rat stared at her from his perch atop the fence, one tiny hand grappled onto the metal.
“Let me in,” he sing-songed. “Go on.”
“You already are in, aren’t you?” she hissed. “There’s nothing left of me to take, you foul— disgusting—”
The Rat tutted, shaking its furry head lightly. “I come with a prophecy.”
Katerina, for the first time in years, raised her voice: “I don’t want your prophecy!”
It was loud enough to echo from the surrounding buildings, scattering a flock of ravens from their perches.
“You will have a daughter — daughters, actually,” he said. “Twins.”
“Girl!” called Katerina, knocking on the mausoleum. “Come here; I need a shovel.”