Plain Kate

“You can survive it,” said Taggle. “And that is all I want. You do not need me. You can find your own place, with your strength alone.” Behind him, the wings loomed. “Katerina, Star of My Heart. Be brave. Lift your knife.”

Kate met his golden eyes.

She lifted her knife.

And Taggle, who was beautiful, who had never misjudged a jump in his life, leapt toward her with his forelegs out-flung. He landed clean on the blade. There was a sound like someone biting into an apple. And then he was in her arms, with the blade sticking out of his back.

***

Kate folded up. Taggle was curled in her arms, with the knife handle sticking out of his chest like a peg. She put her hand flat around it; it stuck out between her fingers. Blood came between them too, dark heart’s blood, bubbling like a spring. Drina tried to tug her farther from the fire, and Kate batted her hands away. “Taggle,” she sobbed.

The cat stirred, flinched—and smiled. Not a quirk of whiskers, but a human thing, turning up the corners of his mouth. “Katerina…”

The rusalka was coming toward them, its wings beating steady as a heart.

“Taggle,” whispered Kate. His heartbeat slowed under her hand.

“More…” His voice was only breath.

“More than a cat.”

“And I do not regret it.” His eyes clouded. “Could you…this itchy bit…”

She scratched his favorite place, where the fur swirled above the hard nub of his jawbone. The heat from the fire lifted tears from one side of her face.

Taggle took one more breath.

The rusalka’s shadow wings folded closed. Taggle’s heart fluttered. The rusalka took a step forward, shrinking, and the wings sagged. Another heartbeat. Another step. The darkness trailed from the white woman’s shoulders like the train of a dress. Another heartbeat, and the shadow-wing dragged itself against the cobbles.

And then it was a shadow. And Taggle’s heart was still.

Kate pulled her knife out. The cat didn’t stir. No new blood came.

She put her knife—her knife, her knife—down where the fire could take it, and she thought about lying down beside it.

Beside them, Linay was breathing, eyes open, calm as a man asleep. Below them, in the square, a woman stood. Her witch-white face was stiff with horror. Her shadow jittered behind her as the pyre blazed. The woman lifted a hand against the awful light, squinting. She spread her fingers and shouted something.

The fire went out.

Drina flung herself down the steps and into the woman’s arms.“Dajena!” she shouted, and then she was crying.“Dajena…” She buried her face in the woman’s shining shoulder.

“Mira cheya,” the woman muttered.“Drina. What are you doing here? Stay out of sight, I must see to this poor soul.…” But Drina wouldn’t move from her side. So she held the sobbing girl in one arm and tilted up her chin at the stone pillar. Then she stepped forward, dainty as a deer but grim-faced, and climbed the steps, Drina stumbling along beside her.

Kate stood up.

It was surprising, how light Taggle’s body was. All the substance of him seemed to have gone into Kate, into the bloody smock that stuck to her front—into her knife hand—into her body itself. Taggle was thistledown. There was nothing of him left.

And then Lenore and Kate were standing face-to-face, with Linay at their feet. He sprawled with arms and legs bent like a tossed puppet. He looked up first at Kate, then at Lenore, and then—blankly—at the clearing sky. “I feel strange,” he said. “I think I’m dying.”

Kate, with the little body in her arms, answered,“Good. We don’t like you.” But she knelt beside him and took his raw hand.

“Let me,” Lenore murmured, crouching beside them. Kate felt human warmth in the brush of her arm. “Who are you, brother? Tell me your name and I can help you with the pain.” Kate heard her voice slip halfway to song. “Who did this to you?”

“Oh, no,” Linay sang back. “I did it to myself. Don’t you see? A life for a life—how magic must be.”

“Linay?” Lenore’s voice broke with shock. “By the Black Lady—what have you done?”

Avenged your death, thought Kate.Undone your fate. Traded his life for yours. But she couldn’t say any of it.

“Lenore,” Linay breathed, “I love…” But his breath quavered and he could only blink at her. Lenore smoothed what had been his hair back from his forehead, singing. The life-tension was going out of him, like a frozen rope thawing in a puddle of water. Kate watched, with Taggle’s body stiffening against hers. “He’s dead,” said Lenore, holding the limp body in her arms. “My brother is dead! What is happening?”

“The guard will be coming,” Kate said. “Listen.” It seemed to her she could hear the whole city, thousands of sounds jumbled into the pounding in her ears.

“Who are you?” Lenore stood and seized Kate’s arm. Kate jerked away, twisting to keep her body around Taggle—but Lenore didn’t let go, and Kate’s arm was pulled straight and her sleeve fell back, baring the cuts of the bloodletting. The woman who had been the rusalka shivered. “Iknow you.”

“Dajena…” Drina tugged at her hand.“She’s my friend. Let her go.”