When Aksana got back a week later, she didn’t have any time to answer my questions. I tried to remind her of my existence at least long enough for her to lift the guards on my door by sending Alyoshka to her door over and over again. I stopped that when Alyoshka came back with a red palm print on his cheek.

Sometimes, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

I had been good all summer, respecting Aksana’s rules and listening to Nikita Aksanevich yammer all day long, barely ever pitching a fit about it and never getting visibly intoxicated during our lessons, but this had gone on long enough.

The palace was mostly on stilts, close as it was to the water, so crawling out of my window was a little more difficult than it could have been. The ground underneath was swampy. Not only did my boots and trousers get muddy, but it was hard not to slosh around and draw the guards’ attention.

Fortunately, a summer of uneventfully guarding one teenager’s door had made them lazy and complacent, and I thought I heard one of them snoring as I waded my way to a convenient place to climb up.

By the time I got to the great hall’s doors, I was sopping wet and dripping all over the boardwalk.

Aksana’s pet guards did not even look at me, which was impressive. “Good afternoon, Agafya Aksanevich. Nestor Aksanevich,” I said, bowing dramatically. “I don’t appreciate you slapping Alyoshka. If anyone should slap my servant, it’s me. If anyone should be slapped for irritating you, it’s also me.”

Neither of them responded.

I sighed. “Would you let Knyaz Aksana know her nephew is here to see her?”

I didn’t expect them to bite on that, either, so when they didn’t, I continued: “If anything, she’ll want to see me now because I’m disobeying her direct orders. But if that’s not important to you, I guess I’ll go. Beautiful day for fishing, don’t you think?” I started to walk away.

“Wait, Iyu Aksanevich,” Nestor said.

I turned, smiling brightly. “And if I don’t, will you slap me, too?”

Nestor pressed his lips together, looking like there was nothing he’d rather do, but Agafya just raised her fist and knocked on the door.

A few moments later, the door cracked open, and Agafya exchanged some whispered words with whoever was on the other side. The door closed again, and I had time to get impatient before it opened again and Reskov’s kind, owlish face peered out.

“Come, my lord,” he said, beckoning me in.

As I stepped over the threshold, he clucked. “My lord is soaking wet. How did he manage that?”

“You've noticed that big body of water just to the east of here, haven't you, Dyadyushka?” I said, gesturing at the ocean.

“My lord will have to take his boots off,” he said as he shepherded me through the antechamber. “Where’s Alyoshka? This servant will have him fetch some clean clothing.”

“No need.” I pried my boots off with my toes. “I gave him the day off. And don’t get him in trouble for it; I was very insistent. He never would have let me leave my rooms otherwise.”

“This servant would not blame a miryanin boy for not being his lord’s match.”

“Will you tell that to Aksana’s guards? I doubt I’ll be long enough to get anything wet. She’s going to hang me out to dry, anyway.”

“This servant would not presume to speak for Knyaz Aksana, but if that were the case, Her Majesty would not have invited my lord in. If this servant may offer a word of warning, Her Majesty has quite a lot on her mind and is not in the mood for frivolities. Please exercise good judgment, my lord.” He looked worried.

I patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Dyadyushka.”

“My lord, that does not inspire confidence,” he began, but I’d already opened the inner doors.

Inside, the curtains were drawn tight and the air was thick with sweet-smelling smoke: typical of Aksana’s throne room when she was in a dark mood.

I was ready for a confrontation when I walked in, so it was a good thing Aksana spoke first.

“Yushka!” she said, rising from where she’d been curled up at her low table. She almost never sat on her throne if other people weren’t around. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” She was smiling, and I was not so great a fool that I would ruin an apparently warm welcome just because I had prepared for a fight.

“Tyotya,” I said, hurrying across the room before she could change her mind. I gave her a big hug. “I just hadn’t seen you since you’ve been back.”

“It hasn’t been so long,” she said, dropping me and picking her pipe up from the table.

“Three days,” I said. The smoke grew thicker around us as she puffed.

“Has it? I’ve been so busy, it’s all run together.” She rubbed her forehead. The table in front of her was cluttered with books and papers, and there was a samovar sitting on a tray on the floor next to it, as though she’d moved it off when the papers began to expand.

“You need to rest,” I said. “You’ve been gone so long, and I doubt you got a decent night’s sleep while you were away.”

“You sound like Reskov, and I’ve been telling him he sounds like my mother. Who is the knyaz here?”

I doubted she’d seen her mother since she’d been back, either. Nastasya Semyonovich (one did not require a knyaz’s widow to take on the name of her own offspring, even after succession) was on a different kind of house arrest and had been for years, since her mind started going. She was rarely well enough to leave her bed, and when she recognized me at all, she thought I was my father. I did not blame Aksana for being reluctant to visit. She often thought Aksana was her sister and once, horrifyingly, her husband.

“I’m sorry. I haven’t had anything to do but worry for three months. Cooped up in my rooms,” I added, in case I had been too subtle.

“Hmm? Oh!” She laughed and sat back down at her table. “I had nearly forgotten.”

“Of course. You have a lot on your mind.”

“Don’t take that bitter tone with me, Yushka. You know it’s true.”

“So am I free?”

“I’ll have to check with Nikita Aksanevich and see how much you’ve learned.”

“Will you check with him?”

“Did you come down here just to pester me about this?” A note of irritation crept into her voice, and she looked down at her papers.

“No,” I lied, sitting down opposite her. “I wanted to see you, and I wanted to talk to you. I talked to Dasha and Semchik about how things went. They said we’re going to Gorakino soon, to pay our respects.”

“Yes, you may come.” She flipped through papers, not looking up. “I dare say your absence would be noted.”

This seemed like implicit dismissal, but I wasn’t going anywhere until she made it explicit. For a moment we sat in silence, Aksana pretending to read and me trying to think how I could resurrect her previous ebullient mood. I probably couldn’t. It had been a quick flash, an outpouring of gratitude for the distraction. I would try, anyway, if not for the mood, then at least for a bit more of the attention. “I’m sorry, Tyotya. I don’t know if I said that before, but I am sorry to have disappointed you.”

“How did you disappoint me, Iyu?” she muttered, voice suddenly thick, eyes still on the pages.

“I—I should never have been in a position to be captured in the first place,” I said, thinking myself a genius for hitting on that instead of getting stuck with the glib and unsatisfying lie: I didn’t try to teach any miryanins Tajna but I’m sorry you thought I did. “I put you in a very difficult position, and none of it would have happened if I’d done my duty and stayed with Semyon Aksanevich.”

She glanced up at me without raising her head. “It’s hard to believe you’re sincere when you use his full name.”

“I was only trying to—”

“I know. You’re trying to show me you take it seriously, which would be easier to believe if you’d ever taken anything seriously.”

“I do. I do take many things seriously.”

“Such as?”

“Such as what happened in Veliko,” I said hotly.

“If that were true—”

“I wouldn’t have done what I did. I know. I made a stupid, childish mistake, and it cost people their lives. I am sincerely sorry for that.” And as I said it, I found that it was true. That was what I had to be sorry for.

“Do not interrupt me, Iyu Aksanevich,” she said, back suddenly straight and eyes fixed on me.

I backed up to the edge of the dais and shifted onto my knees, bowing my head.

I felt her stare on me, as if at any moment I might burst into flames. Then she sighed, and my posture relaxed, though I didn’t dare raise my head. “You know, I actually believed you that time.”

“I take it very seriously. More now than ever before. What happened in Veliko, and what continues to happen. I take what happens to us seriously. I want to help.”

“I believe you,” she said. “You know, if you hadn’t broken my rules and come here begging me to set you free, I might have written you off entirely. You shouldn’t be content to sit here idle for months while your knyaz is off fighting. I might even have forgiven you if you slipped the guards and came to find us.”

That expectation was a bit unfair.

“Come, sit down. Stop kneeling like that; you’re making me feel like a tyrant.”

“You’re not a tyrant, Tyotya,” I said, sliding back to the table.

“Dasha told me you were asking about Gorakino. About your martial service, I mean.”

“Yes.”

“You want to go back?”

“If that’s where I can help.”

“If you want to fight ghosts, you won't have to go all the way to Gorakino.”

“Veliko?”

She nodded. “Sightings reported. It was quicker than we thought it would be. And that’s just one of the many, many problems we’re dealing with now.”

“What else?”

“If we’re going to get into that, I need a drink,” she said. “Chinovnik Reskov. Bring me a jar of yasno and two cups.” After Reskov bowed out, she turned back to me. “Trying to wipe out an insurgency is like trying to get rid of a bed bug infestation. To get them all, you have to burn the whole bed.” She chuckled. “And then the little bastards start popping up in your dresser and bookcase. That’s what we are right now, Yushka. The bed is burning, and we’re the bookcase.”

“They’re in Khorizova?” The muscles in my shoulders tensed.

“If they’re not already, they will be soon. That’s what I’m worried about, and that’s what the other knyazes are worried about, too. If it were up to you, what would you do? Stick around to make sure the bed burns or move the bookcase out of the room?”