When Night Falls

part iii| chapter xxiii

SPRING TILTS HER HEAD, eyes flashing earthy hues at every corner. "What will you be doing?"

"How much do you know about the Tsar?" Anitchka cuts in, taking a few quiet moments to think. "We'll have to contain him in the house, but for that we will require restraints that he cannot get out of."

"Only that he has been around for too long," she replies, frowning. "I don't know if he even can be stopped."

Anitchka grits her teeth. "Get me the kikimora, Olga?"

The goblin girl nods, hurrying out, and within the fleeting time of this land, she returns with the creature. It kicks its legs, flailing its arms around. "I have had enough of the human's scheming, let me go!"

"Tut, tut, tut," she mutters, repeating the syllables just as the kikimora had when it first gave her a nightmare, "kikimora of deceit and lies, must you be reminded that you owe to this mansion whatever you have now?"

"You can't use that every time!"

"Then leave," she asserts, crouching to meet its beady glare, "Go on, I won't stop you. Make yourself a home in the woods and eat insects and roots as the goblins do there."

The kikimora slumps in defeat, gnarled fists falling, jaw unhinged and sharp as little knives. "What do you want to know?"

"First," Anitchka begins, "How invincible is the Tsar?"

"He isn't that strong, if that's what you are asking." The kikimora steps towards her, eyes gleaming. "Why don't I show you–"

In her periphery, the Count steps beside her, stature firm and tense. "You aren't going to give her any more nightmares."

"Apologies, Master," it shrugs, looking anything but sorry. "I never intended to trouble the human. The Tsar has no powers of his own, but he remains untouched by death as long as he trades lives to balance the deal between the lands."

"So, I can't offer him poison laced pies in my cottage?" Spring sighs in disappointment. "I would have loved preparing that."

"Or peck him with my claws?" Dmitri frowns.

Olga and Helga turn to glance at each other. "If the deal breaks, he'll become one of the residents of the land of the dead."

The Count grimaces. "I cannot stand him when he lives, and I won't be able to when he dies either."

"Depressing," Anitchka agrees.

"Just lock him up, for the sake of the Old and New Gods!" The kikimora yells in exasperation.

They all raise their brows; an odd group of Collector, human, bat, goblins, and fallen Old Goddess. A winter studded storm brews in the hollow of leaden clouds, dark as the evening seeping into this realm. Anitchka's smile is slow, and the creature backtracks. "Well, I suppose we've found a fantastic purpose for you."

Spring twirls, her flowy white dress fluttering. "You'll be pretending to know the Collector's name."

"And Anna will tip it to the Tsar that you're willing to give it to him at a price," the Count continues.

"You're forgetting that I cannot lie," the kikimora squeals. It scampers underneath the table, knocking the empty cups atop it.

Anitchka crosses her arms. "I will do that. You don't utter a word until the Tsar is in Spring's house."

"After all," Helga mutters, "Everyone knows that kikimoras have information."

"You can leave now," Anitchka says to the creature, watching as it sneaks through the edges of walls, cautious and afraid. It creeps away, and once it's gone; she addresses Dmitri. "Keep an eye on the kikimora. We don't want him speaking with anyone else."

He nods, following the kikimora after asking the goblins to head to the tunnel that encases the In-Between. Spring mutters quietly. "Will the people accept me again?"

"Of course," the Count answers, "They've had enough of me."

She gingerly sifts her hands through her hair, pastel petals cascading to the carpeted flooring. They shrivel as soon as they land, curling into itself as the hues of death course through it. "I miss the time when they revered us. You remember that, don't you, Collector? Your village left offerings even as some of us were being labelled as False Gods. . ."

Anitchka feels the ice seeping through him into the rest of the room. She welcomes, but shivers in its presence. "Winter will end soon."

"I'm putting my faith in you," Spring places a hand on her shoulder, warm as a sun she had never seen, "Anitchka." She proceeds to open the windows, and immediately hail and a punishing sleet rushes into the space. "I'll take my leave now." She is frozen to the spot for some time. Then, the next moment, she dissipates into a breeze that slices through the air, carrying the flowers that were in her hair once.

Bewildered, Anitchka's gaze trails the wind that flows towards the forest. She lets out the gasp she had been holding. Of course, magic swirls through their beings, deep and dark as the lovely woods.

The Count seals the glass shut with a sweep of his arms. "I'll start the fire. You must be chilled to the bone."

She clutches her sides, warming herself when the flames whisper to life. It dances, throwing odd shadows and wicked shapes that remind her of a home at the edge of the world. An abandoned house that she slept in during a faraway dream, its floors cramped with widowed women years later. Kingdoms split, lands run barren, but it is always the people who carry its burden. "Why did you never try finding the boy you loved?" When Anitchka turns, she finds the Count observing leather-bound books on the shelf, glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. Her heart constricts. A little, then so much that she can't breathe. "I mean, he must be in the land of the dead."

It is nearly unbearable to form coherent sentences when he looks at her, whole and as though nobody exists in either of their worlds. "It would hurt too much. He wouldn't remember me, and I don't want that to be my last memory of him." Picking up an old, worn book, he intensely flips through the pages. "The thought of him and I was all I had clung to ever since I became the Collector."

The Count meticulously shelves the book in its place, long lashes fluttering against his glasses. "I hope your plan works. I have begun wanting again, and that's never a good thing." He threads his fingers through hers, raising their entangled, intertwined hands to his chest. "I will not be walking ahead of you, Anna. It will always be with you. Tonight, tomorrow, years later on a snowy night. Perhaps forever if I could."

"I-I don't know how to answer that," Anitchka stutters, finding her words being swallowed by the crackling fire. It consumes them, her syllables, something she had uttered so easily lost to the flames. She almost wishes to snuff the remnants of the warmth and bask in his cold instead. Swallowing audibly, she splays her fingers. "No heart to give, Count?"

"Perhaps someone's taken it already." 

a/n: my christmas break got cut down and i'm fuming now...