Azovka and I gathered the Christmas Eve divination supplies and went to the banya – as many cups as there were attendees, each separately filled with a ring, a coin, an onion, some salt, a piece of bread, some sugar, and cold water. We wore our hair loose and unbraided, with long white cotton gowns gracing our bare, steaming ankles. The coals of the banya boiled the bucket of water, scaring away evil cherti, and I could almost sense the bannik of our dacha smiling dreamily at two beautiful maids come to visit his quarters.

I tied a blindfold around Azovka’s pale mint eyes. She laughed, hugging me, then chose a cup to determine her fate. I fastened the blindfold atop my eyes too and chose a cup that felt warm to my palms.

We lifted them up through the sauna steam and our eyes shared knowing looks.

“What did you get?” I asked Azovka, hesitant.

She puckered her lips. “The onion. Tears. You?”

I felt mist prick my eyes – was I crying? “Salt. Difficulty lays ahead. Hard times.”

We promised to tell no one.

Praying it wouldn’t be our fate.

But that’s the funny thing about divination –

It is always

Right.

___

We woke early the next day, all of us dressed in our Sunday best, and readied for the Christmas Ball. A beautiful festival put on by the Popovas for all of Podentsky, it was a fabulous, mirthful, day and night long feast where ladies debuted when they came of age, and men made marriage proposals.

Azovka and I were in my room at the French toilette dedushka had picked up on one of his trips bringing malachite to Paris. She frowned like a clod of garlic as she tried to fix rouge on her cheeks.

“Makeup does not agree with my skin tone,” Azovka sulked. “Katya, can you apply it? You have such skill for painting faces. I will braid our hair into Saint Lucia crowns like a Swede. I saw it in a fashion magazine from Moscow. They carry candles in their hair this time of year in the Swedelands – can you imagine!”

I set to lining Azovka’s eyes with kohl and using a tin of Moscow mascara on her fine black lashes. “Wouldn’t wax ruin their dresses?” I mused, warming the pot of rouge on a smudge on the back of my hand and rubbing the pinkish blush onto her light green cheeks. “There, as sweet as a strawberry!” I kissed her forehead, laughing.

She froze. “You kissed me.”

“I – I kiss you often!” I protested as she set to braiding my hair into a Swedish updo. Azovka smiled secretively. “Do you think Misha will propose? Ugh.”

Azovka, ever the stylish one picking up European and American fashions, placed small white tapers and ivy and holly berries into my thick blonde braids. My gold curls struggled to escape like they were raging circus lions misbehaving against their ringmaster. “I talked to Landlord Peter.”

I stifled a gasp as I did her hair up into matching black-red-green braids. “You what!”

“You do not like him, so under my queenship, I forbade a match. I said, you are to wed Danilo. Like you planned.” Azovka winked, running her slender fingers over my tan, muscled knuckles. “I suppose it is impractical to run away to Mount Azov after all.”

“But Azovkalisha, that isn’t okay!” My cheeks turned red. “The Copper Guard needs Landlord Peter’s money! What will we do without it?”

“Danilo pledged half of Prokovitch’s estate as your Bashkir bride price. Did you not think I asked Danilo?” Azovka winked. “If I cannot have you, our best friend will.”

“I’ll have what? A living ‘will’? Am I to die? Have I lived well, my dears?” came Danilo’s voice. He opened the door, dressed in a fine waistcoat with coattails, brown loafers, and pinstripe pants. A black bowler hat was jaunty atop his gaunt face, mismatched nose, and dreamy blue eyes that seemed almost laconic and teary, like Danilushko had been half-erased.

“We are talking of how we saved Katinka from stinky, grubby Misha,” Azovka decreed, standing in mock-royalty. Danilo bowed, kissing her hand, and handed her one of the bouquets he was holding. It was of hothouse flowers – yellow daffodils that matched his boutonniere. Azovka doted on them, the pollen brushing her copper nose.

Danilo gave me the other – irises. It matched his eyes.

“But why did neither of you tell me?” I grumbled, snatching the flowers from him. “You two miscreants, half of Prokovitch’s estate to the Copper Guard? We’d never need to send tithes to Bailiff Flogger from Gumeshky Mine or Snake Hill ever again! No more lining the pockets of the Romanovs! I reckon Prokovitch has a fortune of five million rubles!”

All three of us embraced, and the pearl Danilo had given me rubbed against my breastbone. Azovka squeezed my side.

“I’ll marry no one. I will keep house with you two – Danilushko the best stonecutter since Prokovitch, Katinka my Copper Guardian,” Azovka decreed. “Father can take his arranged marriage ideas to the grave! I’d rather turn to stone!”

Danilo flinched. “Azovka, I do not want you to be alone.”

“Me neither,” I agreed.

“Rubenya is fine! She has no husband. And I will be the Copper Queen, traveling all Russia to summon stone,” Azovka said stubbornly, clapping us on the back. Her hands clinked like copper windchimes, and her lizards frolicked at our feet.

“Well, that settles that. Shall we, my ewes?” Danilo asked, smiling dreamily. He helped us into thick fur coats over our gowns – Azovka’s dress purple, mine red – and walked us down and out the door.

The ball had been a headache – all day and night! And soon, spring was here. Azovka and I were dressed in Parisian designs Alexei had bought us for a pretty penny: corsets, crinoline, and Gibson Girl skirts. We teetered about in high heels as the sun shone down like a melody. We window shopped at the market. Yakutian traders sold horse meat and frozen fish, carved into thin bits of foodlings. A vodyanoy plied us with cherry soda, and Azovka was laughing like dynamite.

“Look, a rose seller!” Azovka cried out, teetering in her violet dress and silver buckled heels over the cobblestones. She pulled me along.

“I am allergic. No, Azovka, take me anywhere but a flower stand, to the pure green stone of your home.” I laughed, and we danced, buying penny crowns and putting the anemone and irises atop each other’s hair.

“Do you like my stones, Katinka?” Azovka shyly asked. “You know, I could make you one. I know the way you and Danilo carve stone is different, in the vein of Prokovitch, more methodical. But I can make stone sing. It blossoms at my touch. My bones are diamond, my brains are malachite. But unlike my Aunt Cecilia, I will not give into the hard heartedness of stone. My father Alexei is a kind man. He is nothing like the kings that crowd our castle underground, carved into pillars at their wickedness.”

We sat down at an ice cream shop and placed orders. I got caramel sea salt. Azovka got rose water.

“You are nothing like those wicked men!” I egged her on, the ice cream melting on my cheek. Delighted, I slurped it up, and kicked my brown heels under my velvet skirts.

Katya flinched. “I… want you all to myself, Katya. I know I bargained your marriage to Danilo. Still, I am half-sick of shadows, cried the Lady of Shallot.”

I placed a hand over my heart in promise. “You have me all to yourself, Azovkalisha! I am your Copper Guard! Want to see what I’ve been practicing at the dacha? – achoo!” I sneezed on a flower. The petals fluttered down, my flower crown broken.

Azovka’s eyes narrowed, almost haunting. I was entranced. How green they were. How gloomy.

“No, Katya. I mean… we could still run away, if you end up not liking him after all.”

My heart sunk. Danilo.

“But Katya, I want children of my own. And I’m not that bad of a cook. How about we marry the same man!”

Katya’s eyes brimmed again with mirth. “Oh Katinka, the words that come out of your mouth! A marriage like an Ottoman! Okay, fine, it’s a promise!” she near screamed in delight, holding out her pinky. I joined mine with hers, and we sealed the deal. “Danilo will make us both a fine husband.”

Later that day, we were reading in the Copper Palace library, an ancient thing that went all the way back to Kievan Rus. I had a book of Orthodox Saints – I was stuck on Saint Clementina. It was she who had mined the Popovas out of Mount Azov. She had a great pickaxe and red hair. I wanted to be like her.

Azovka was doing homework, but she had a strange book about her. It was an old tome with patina on the lock. Azovka had the key. She would glance at it secretively, murmur to herself, then scribble down a note in her math book.

“What is that, Azovka?” I finally asked, florid with curiousity.

She smiled widely. “A book of magick.”

“No way!” I exclaimed. “Gimme, gimme, let me see. Dedushka’s malachite spear will let me do small magick, like open the Malachite Wall, or tell when a mortal lies, if only I had a spellbook.”

“That settles it! I have studied it all day, we can go to the dacha like you said and borrow Stepan’s spear. I can show you how stone sings, and you can try out a spell!”

We danced around in glee, our homework papers flying, then rode her horses – two roans the Copper Men tended – out to dedushka’s dacha, at the edge of town.

Dedushka was gone. We snuck around anyway. Thus was the nature of girls.

“Oh, here it is.” I gloated, undoing the tumbler lock on dedushka’s spear protector and leveling the malachite tip at Azovka. “Duck, Copper Woman!”

“Ah, aho, you got me.” Azovka faked her death. “To hell with any man that tries to tame us.”

We took turns with the malachite spear, and finally after we had had our fill of poking one another on the buttocks and arm pits, went to the training shed and weight room by the dacha garden, where dedushka and I practiced each day.

Azovka spread the old tome of magick on the floor, sticking her tongue out and biting it to draw green blood. She spat it on the binding.

“Ew.” I said.

“I need my blood to read it. Okay, Katya – try this. Wave your spear in an “O,” and say “Fly!””

“Uh, what did you mean, Azovka?”

“Just do it, trust me, okay?”

“Okay…” I motioned an O, then belted “Fly!”

The spear lifted, hovering in the air. We both clapped our hands, appalled and delighted at the sorcery.

“Look, it’s just like Baba Yaga’s pestle,” I said in wonder. I shuddered at the strangeness.

“Wow,” Azovka breathed. “Okay, my turn Katya. Let it rest in air, and I will show you singing stone on the spear tip.”

Azovka cradled the stone point, then sang in a language like bells. The stone rippled, the malachite verdigris folding out like fluid, and Azovka’s skin turned green.

Suddenly, the malachite point became a thistle on the spear’s tip, and it wept amber honey. Azovka tasted some of the wet mineral amber on her finger, then smiled.

I stood green with envy.

“I cannot do that.”

“It’s okay, Katya, you are human. You are still my best friend. Here, try the copper honey.”

“No. I must be better than you!”

“What? That’s quite rude. I didn’t take you as a fool, my friend.”

“If I am to defend the Mistress of Copper Mountain, I must be stronger than you… it is just what I have to do. So – so you don’t… turn to stone”

She softened, her lizard scales shimmering. “I think I understand then. I promise you, Katya – I would never dare betray you by becoming malachite.”

“I admit, my Azovka, I am also jealous of you.” I drank the copper honey off her fine boned porcelain finger. Danilo’s pearl shone on my breastbone. Azovka studied it. I tried to deflect. She was in a possessive mood. “Mmm, quite yummy. Stone syrup. But enough tomfoolery. Read me a spell of protection.”

Azovka smiled wildly. “I like your wild energy, Katinka. It is almost scary.”

I grasped the spear and shook the flight magick, amber honey, and thistle magick out of it. The spear resumed its gravity and shape. “Another spell, my sister.”

“Alright, um, try this: say “Fire” and make a triangle.”

I did. Green flame shot from its tip. “Crap, the workshop!” I bellowed.

Azovka caught the moldavite flame and absorbed it into her body. “Wow, hot. Good thing it’s a stone fire – Rubenya uses that to heat the house, and it’s a part of our domain. We need to be more careful with this.”

“Where did you find this book, Azovka?” I asked in suspicion, excited but scared. Copper Men’s minds were machines. And Azovka was a crafty girl.

“I found it in a locked box in the library, under a fallen over Copper King – when the statue cracked open, it was in his chest. They really must just be statues after all.”

“Let’s not tell our fathers about this,” I said stoically.

Azovka winked. I winked back.

“Not even stinky Danilo,” Azovka said, softness underlying her words. She was in love with him, too.

“Okay, not even Danilo. Swear it on Mother Mokosh.”

“Okay, my Katinka.”

We swallowed dirt, spit it over each other’s shoulders, and practiced stone singing and spells the rest of the day, falling asleep in my room atop the mattress and trundle bed.

It had been a good day.