Page 72 of Nikolay

Bohdan watched me absorb it with altogether too much intelligence. He was kind enough not to smile.

“She did not mention it at breakfast?” he asked.

I gave him a look.

“That would be a no, then.”

“She told me she was going.”

“Ah,” he said quietly. “And you were fine with this?”

The office seemed smaller for a beat after that. Not physically. Emotionally. Or perhaps that was merely what honesty did when one was trapped in it.

I leaned back and scrubbed one hand over my mouth. “I encouraged her to go.”

That, apparently, was the line that broke him.

Bohdan laughed.

Not politely. Not with his social veneer intact. A short, startled, wholly genuine laugh that filled the office and made him look for one moment so much like the brother I had known in private for centuries that I almost resented him for it.

“What?” I said.

He only shook his head once, still smiling as if something delightful and impossible had finally confirmed itself.

“She needs to be around wolves,” I said, hearing defensiveness enter and despising it. “It would be selfish to keep her from that because I dislike the company.”

“You have become alarmingly reasonable.”

“I was always reasonable.”

“Not about this.” He leaned back in his chair, folding one arm across his middle while the other rested on the chair arm. His gaze moved over me with a species of wonder I found deeply insulting. “You love this wolf.”

The sentence landed cleanly. No ornament. No question.

I did not answer.

I suspect my silence was more eloquent than speech would have been, because Bohdan’s expression softened by a shade.

“Well,” he said. “There it is.”

I stood because remaining seated suddenly felt intolerable.

He went on, voice lighter again, though not frivolous. “I guess they say if you love something, let it go... if it comes back and all.”

I stared at him.

“Please do not quote human greeting cards at me in my hour of crisis.”

“Brother, I am trying to meet you where you live now, which appears to be somewhere between tragedy and sentimental nonsense.”

I should have had a reply. I did not. Or perhaps I did and was too tired to sharpen it.

I turned toward the door.

Behind me, his chair creaked softly as he leaned forward again, whatever brief indulgence in humor he had permitted himself slipping toward something darker.

“Of course,” he said, and his voice dropped just enough that the line traveled after me into the corridor like a knife slid over silk, “the human greeting card gets it wrong. If it doesn’t come back, you track down whatever is keeping it and slaughter the entire lot, eh, brother?”