It was not that I was jealous of Danilo. But he and Azovka were growing closer. It was like he was stealing my precious Malachite Maid from me. With a lazy glance full of warmth, he would summon butterflies in my usually iron stomach. But now, he turned that same flirting gaze on Azovka. I wanted them to be happy – but I wanted both all to myself. It was three days until the county fair, where Danilo would sell his moldavite thornapple and demonstrate that, for the first time in a thousand years, there was a new Stone Singer.

I was out back in the dacha, Igor chasing the warren rabbits by my feet. He did not attack them, just gently chased the bunnies around in circles, herding them back to their forage.

My jade dragon I was carving, shaped like Zmei Gorynch, looked ugly in comparison to what Danilo could do. Was that what I was, an afterthought in my own story? Danilo had the gifts of Veles, a literal godsmark, and Azovka had all the strength of the Urals’ fiery bellies and stone magick of Mount Azov.

All I had was a hunger. A hunger in me to be more than a footnote in a Russia that was fast turning to revolution. It was 1911, and war was swimming up the Adriatric, through the Caspian Sea, knocking at the borders of our door. The Japanese to the East with their old Sino-Russian War, the Germans to the West with the Great War. It was a time of crumbling dynasties and rising military power. The town over from Yekaterinburg had just got electricity. I wondered what our dacha would look like lit by anything but gas lamps. Strange bulbs like fireflies, chasing Koschei’s golden egg of illumination, with a pin needle inside of the Deathless One’s soul.

“Igor, come,” I said. I went into dedushka’s study. He was still with Alexei Popova in Yakutia, enchanting the diamond mines. Dedushka’s malachite spear gleamed. I unlocked the protector in stubborness, then went out to the garden and fishpond. I focused on the point of green stone. “Fire,” I said softly.

Nothing. “Fly!” I screamed, tossing it. It levitated.

Suddenly, something rustled in the bushes. Frightened, I steeled myself – all 5’7 of me – and aimed the spear at the intruder. “Who goes there?”

Out floated a hag of rood and daydreams, mange in her hair, skin dark soil wrinkles, on a mortar and pestle. I bowed quickly, crossing myself, tugging at my malachite belt. “Baba Yaga? To what do I owe the honor?”

The hag of the iron teeth smiled like a warning. “I sniffed prey. Are you, girl, the prey, or is it a tasty rabbit? You are rather fat. Perhaps you will go in my stew pot. I do not like freckles though. They taste too much like Hungarian horseradish.”

My stomach dropped. Baba Yaga had yellow eyes, metal teeth, and long rags of white hair. Her pendulous breasts hung bare over a half-open musty brown dress. “I do not think I would taste very good, but if you would like, babushka, I can make rabbit stew and carrots. We even have smetana fresh-pressed from the morning.”

Baba Yaga set her pestle down and hopped off her floating disc of a mortar. She towered over me, though her back was hunched with age. “Yes, my girl. Call me your babushka. I was out hunting Koschei the Deathless. Feed me, and I will watch over you. I give favors as freely as I give curses. But if you are a bad cook, and will make a bad wife, I shall kill you.”

So that was that. I trapped a rabbit from the warren with Igor’s help, skinned, washed, and degutted it, used the seven-day stovetop stew as a beef and root stock base, then boiled the hare with some butter and carrots. Babushka, the wind, mountains, and rivers of hungry Russia given life, watched with a wizened eye. She picked her iron teeth with a baby bone. Limbs were in her rucksack – tiny, doll sized. Children. It stank of burnt fat. Still, silently, I bowed deeply, and served her the best portion of the rabbit stew, poured black tea, then waited as she ate it ominously.

Her face was stone. All that shone was a hunger. She ate it, chewed, swallowed, then spit out bone into the fire. I nibbled at a hind leg and cheek jowl, fished around a carrot. I thought of the wish I wanted. Vasilissa had made good use of hers – a skull lamp that never went out, and enough riches for Anastasia.

But I was a bad cook, so this could be the death of me. I grimaced at the thought. Finally, Baba Yaga stood up. She straightened her back. It cracked like a pickaxe on ore. She smiled arcanely. Wretchedly. Rabbit grease dribbled down her hairy, gray chin. It pooled on the floor as her mouth gaped.

“I liked it. There was witchcraft in that stew, my witch daughter. Dear Copper Guard’s child, you shall be my witchling.”

My jaw dropped wide open. “That was not magic, my honorable babushka. It was just rabbit stew from our humble dacha. Azovka has a goddess’ magick. Danilo has stone song. All I have are the muscles under my fat, and a knack for fighting.”

Baba Yaga smiled, tickling my chin. I sneezed. She play-nipped my nose. I braced myself, feeling that with one bite, she would swallow me alive.

“You taste of witch. We must train you. Your mother was a witch. Your father did not know. That is why the malachite spear works magick for you. Didn’t you wonder why a cursed tome gave you the power to make a spear fly?”

I blushed, bowing so low, my nose touched the oak floor strewn with hay. “Dearest, esteemed babushka, I had no idea. I thought it would do that for anyone.”

“Up, girl! Witches do not bow – only for the guillotine do we ever kneel. You think I let Ivan Tsarevich eat mouse droppings in front of me?”

I shivered. It was suddenly cold, colder than even the autumn chill. “No, honorable babushka. My mother was a witch?”

“A good one. Queen of the Ural Mountain Coven. Your father had an inkling, but men have no business with witches. The Copper Guard, it is a man’s legion. Mining Mokosh’s golden breasts and diamond milk. Why dig up the mountain under the auspices of Copper Men, when the Malachite Maids do not bless it? Azovka’s aunt was against it all. She lost the will to live, seeing Azov leveled and raped.”

I shuddered. It was true. As electricity came, and the Industrial Revolution wore on, the mining was becoming more exploitative. It left a sour taste in my mouth. And Azovka hated it more. Men like Danilo and Prokovitch made riches off Mokosh, and the Mistresses of Copper Mountain. But Azovka’s lizards were weakening, and it was like a caldera was stirring under her skin – as if she would explode, the deeper they dug.

“But Azovka likes fair mining, done ethically. And I thought her aunt died of heartbreak.”

“You think? You may not have much of a brain, meathead girl, but I think you can see my point,” Baba Yaga inclined, reclining on the wingback sofa. “More tea.”

I served her, and we talked. Magick. My mother’s past as the Lapis Witch. My eyes had tears in them. This secret history. This birthright of Black Masses.

Mine.

All mine.

Babushka promised to come back the next day to the Emerald Forest, near the wolf den, a no man’s land for the leshy tsars, where the witches gathered. I was to go to my first Black Mass.

And so, that night, I opened Azovka’s cursed spellbook, and I practiced the “Fire” and “Flight” spell.

Soon, I was flying on the staff, like a broomstick. And I could shoot fire from it.

Deduhska knocked at the door. Incense was already covering the stench of Baba Yaga’s prey. I’d say the wolves got a rabbit. I locked his malachite spear back, and let dedushka in.

We hugged, hard, and I cried.

“I missed you, my dedushka!” I crowed.

He smiled. “I hear Danilo is buying you two tickets for our visit to the Romanovs. He is a stone singer! The thought of such a miracle not seen since Saint Clementina Popova rattles my bones just so. And Azovka was with him all day on Copper Mountain, enchanting stone flowers. They make quite a pair, don’t they? Don’t get jealous, my daughter, some things are meant to be. She may have to marry him, not you, prior negotiations nonwithstanding.”

A stone sunk in my throat. “You think she likes him? Azovka always gets what she wants. But that is how it should be. She is my lady. My best friend. I – I – I do not know what I want out of life yet, other than to join the Copper Guard.”

He smiled. “Your mother once had wild dreams of becoming an opera singer. She was gone each full moon to Yekaterinburg by tram. Said she was auditioning. There were mysteries about her and Cecilia both, Azovka’s aunt. Now you, you have no mysteries. You are an honest, forthright girl, my Katinka. You make your old father proud!”

We hugged, and I poured him the last of the tea.

Now, I had a secret too.

It felt good to have one, after all.