MARYNKA’S CRIMSON BOOTS SKIDDED IN the snow. Her back slammed against a brick archway. Air burst from her lungs in a violent gasp as a half circle of royal guards surrounded her.
A rapidly shrinking half circle. Half the men were dressed in uniform and half in colorful costumes and masks. They’d formed a protective wall between Marynka and the prince. A bruise was fading from her cheek and her pulse thundered in her ears. But she was still on her feet. Her gaze jumped from face to face as she counted. “Ooh, five to one.”
An angry murmur passed through the guards.
“Try not to sound so excited,” snapped the closest man.
Marynka grinned and licked blood off her scythe. Magic rushed hot through her veins and heat filled her bones like sunlight. Where the fingers of her free hand brushed the brick behind her, they left singe marks.
She could take down five men.
They might be dressed as the monsters from their grandmothers’ tales, as talking bears and frost demons, skeletal sorcerers and fire-eyed gods. But she was a real monster. She was Midday, loyal servant to Red Jaga. No way was she going to lose. She was—
A blade scraped the wall a hairsbreadth from her neck, splintering her train of thought. She twisted sideways, lashing out with her scythe. A guard cried out and staggered back, bleeding. Before she could strike again, they were all on her at once. Five pairs of hands to her one.
Marynka was slammed against the garden archway, the hand that gripped her scythe pinned. Her skull cracked against the brickwork and red sparks shot across her vision. A fist connected with her ribs. The world slipped out of focus. One of the guards was fumbling with a flask of holy water, and Marynka remembered all of Grandmother’s warnings, the reasons why they usually kept to hunting princes in their forests.
Panicked heat rippled off her.
And then light burst forth, sudden and blinding. A brilliant white-gold flare like dawn breaking over the horizon. The scene exploded with it. Blazing sunlight chased back the black of night.
The guards fell back, too, cursing, their hands raised to shield their eyes.
Another hand closed on Marynka’s wrist.
She tried to yank free, twisting violently, but the hand only tightened its grip. A familiar voice spoke in her ear. “This way. Hurry.” She was pulled sideways through the archway, tripping over her own feet, past the men and away from the fight.
Shouts soared over the frantic crunching of their boots in the snow, over the sound of their ragged breathing. “There! That way! Don’t let them go!” another guard in a lynx-skin cap yelled as they shoved through a hedge. Still that hand dragged her on.
Marynka narrowly avoided stepping on a peacock wandering the frozen grass. She lifted her head, staring at Beata’s grim face. “I could’ve beaten them! I didn’t need your help.”
“Oh yes, you definitely looked like you were winning back there,” Beata said, still dragging her along.
She threaded her fingers tightly through Marynka’s. Hand in hand they fled through the falling snow, through the glitter of the winter night, a tattered devil and a star maiden. Through the castle gardens and another brick archway glinting with frost, through a gate and then on, down a narrow side alley, down narrower and narrower streets, through the snow-choked crooks and bends of the royal city.
Beata slipped on a patch of black ice as they took another turn. Marynka caught her by the waist and steadied her, skidding to a halt. Her breath left her lips in smoky plumes. The street was dark save for the silvery gleam of the moon and the constellation of stars glimmering down the length of Beata’s white dress.
They were alone. No sound of pursuing footsteps. No angry shouts.
Ears still ringing with the clash of blades, blood singing from the thrill of the fight, Marynka sank to her knees in the snow and laughed and laughed until her stomach hurt.
Oh, this was just too, too perfect.
Finally. Finally, I’ve met you.
The shadow always looming over had taken shape at last. Midnight was no longer just a phantom presence. She was a person, flesh and blood and real. Marynka knew how her rival moved now, how she walked and how she spoke. She knew her smile and the color of her eyes, knew her figure, so much taller than hers. She knew how Midnight liked to bite the fingertips of her gloves with her sharp teeth to pull them off, revealing long slender fingers and sharp knuckles and the cold blue veins at her wrists that you could see when her sleeves rode up.
Beata was staring at her like she’d lost her mind.
“Zosia.” Marynka hiccuped, trying to stop laughing. “Zosia’s Midnight.”
A beat of silence and then a “What?”
Marynka started laughing again.
Beata rubbed her hands up and down her bare arms, shivering. She must’ve left her cloak behind when she’d rushed to Marynka’s aid, as well as the wispy veil that had been part of her costume. “I knew there was something off about her. I knew it. Of course the girl you’ve been flirting with for days is goddamn Midnight.”
Midnight.
The name was a song to Marynka’s ears. “I wasn’t—you were flirting with that princess! And that was before I knew who Zosia was.” She’d never thought of Midnight in that way. Well, admittedly, there’d been that one dream, but who didn’t have dreams like that about their nemesis? Even Beata had dreams like that.
“You’ve always been obsessed with her.”
“Because I despise her,” said Marynka. “Because she’s the enemy.”
They started to walk again, hurrying, back to their rooms at the House Under the Moon. Beata was babbling on, bemoaning their luck, but Marynka barely registered the words. She was barely conscious of the grand palaces passing, of the silvery ring of distant sleigh bells, of the snow catching in her hair, of her own body moving. Her mind was racing.
Those eyes like two pools of shadow. Those wicked teeth and long night-black claws. Midnight speaking with Zosia’s voice, wearing her cloud shepherd disguise. That flash of something when she’d glanced up after Marynka had summoned that gust of heat to throw her backward. The focused look she’d given Marynka afterward. So intense it had made her skin prickle.
“You’re pale as a ghost,” said Beata worriedly. “You’re trembling. The guards back there didn’t hurt you, did they?”
Thoughts still occupied with Zosia, Marynka failed to answer.
It all made sense now: the way they had been drawn to each other, Zosia’s veiled comments about the prince, her not sleeping, the wide-eyed way she watched the sky lighten as if seeing the sun rise for the very first time. The way her eyes seemed to light up like a cat’s at night, how she looked at the sights of the city with such hunger—Midnight rarely left her dark forest.
Marynka couldn’t believe she hadn’t realized. In hindsight it was so, so obvious.
“Marynka. Marynka.”
Marynka snapped back to the present. “What?” she bit out, frustrated.
“I said,” said Beata with the exasperated air of someone repeating their question for the hundredth time, “what are we going to do now?”
Do? Marynka cocked her head to the side in confusion. “What do you mean? She’s obviously here for the prince’s heart. So are we. I’ll have to take it before she can.”
And when she did, Grandmother would finally see she was just as good as Midnight. A better servant then her even. A stronger servant. The best.
There was a familiar wary look in Beata’s eyes. She was always looking at Marynka like that, like Marynka was about to dive headfirst off a cliff and take Beata with her. She blinked away the snowflakes catching in her eyelashes and asked another question, and again Marynka failed to answer, too busy scheming, lost in thoughts of Zosia again.
Had Zosia known who she was? Had she planned this? She wouldn’t put it past her. What were the chances they would end up sharing a sleigh? Of course, they were often sent to the same place, sent after the same hearts. Hadn’t she often wondered if they’d passed one another in the street, brushed shoulders, not knowing who the other was?
But that they’d ended up traveling to Warszów together. Wasn’t that too much of a coincidence, too much like fate?
Did it even matter, either way?
“Promise you won’t do anything reckless.”
Marynka’s heel slid a little on the icy path as she caught the tail end of Beata’s warning, startled. She’d almost forgotten her friend was there. “What do you mean, ‘reckless’? Do you think I can’t beat her?”
“I’m saying we can’t afford to make a scene. We’re here to very carefully take the prince’s heart so we don’t get caught and killed. This isn’t like hunting in the forest. Promise you won’t chase after her, that you’ll focus on the prince. This city isn’t some Karnawał arena for you to stage a duel with Midnight.”
But that was exactly what this was, Marynka realized, grinning, and she intended to be the victor. How long had she waited for this, the chance to score against the other servant face-to-face, to finally bring her to her knees?
“Stop being such a mother, Beatka. You’re not scared of her, are you?”
“Of course not.” Beata scowled. “It’s just—” She rubbed her arms and blew warmth on her fingers. “You get so worked up when it’s her. You’re never like this when you have to compete against me.”
Marynka shrugged off the long, fleecy black cloak of her costume and, very generously, wrapped it around her friend’s shoulders. She couldn’t find a nice way to explain that it just wasn’t the same. Beating Beata was easy. She didn’t count as a proper opponent.
But snatching a heart from Midnight’s claws. . .Midnight, who was so good at this, so clever, so powerful.
Nothing compared. Nothing could ever compare.
The rare times Marynka had managed to beat her to the prize, she’d felt invincible. Incandescent. And that was even before Grandmother had showered her with praise.
It probably said something about Marynka, that she didn’t find the easy victory appealing, that what she craved most were the encounters that brought her closest to her own destruction.
Beata pulled the cloak closer around her body. “I think—”
“Don’t,” said Marynka. “You always think too much.”
“One of us has to.”
“Relax.” Marynka rubbed her hands together. “I’m telling you, this is going to be fun.” Really, morning could not come fast enough.