“Azovka! You foolish girl! You did not tell me your limbs were stiffening. All this magick must be straining your delicate, divine constitution. Here, turn over, let me see the streaks of ore,” I sighed, her fragile, tiny white and green body floating in the rose quartz clawfoot tub.

She blushed, parting her black-brown hair striated with green and red copper. Her malachite necklaces jingled. “You do not have to bathe me, Katya… even Stepan does not do that to Alexei in the banya, they just hit one another with venik branches.” She sighed, rolling over as the cooled coals from the fire in her room kept the bath warm.

“I’ve been trained to oil you,” I said, massaging castor oil into her back. Castor had the property of working well with metallic, stony skin – it was always in dedushka’s arsenal, on hand for Alexei Popova.

She was gloomy. I loved her. Her lizards peeped over the lip of the tub, some swimming in the foam. I put in rose water, milk, and lavender petals, and drizzled her small breasts in copper honey – the water that came from malachite sheets, copper deposits, and the Azov Mountain, her birthright – the lost Azovka Girl.

“That does not make it right. You are treating me like you are my servant. I detest it. You are my best friend, Katya! I need you! I – I – I am so lonely on Mount Azov and the Copper Mountain, day in and out, taking over father’s duties as he focuses on the trip to Moscow. What is there here for me but pain, and fading into the Stone Workshop, where the dead souls of stonemasons and gemcutters my corrupt ancestors trapped wail each night as I sleep? There is nowhere to go for me in Podentsky but below, into the soil. Why, even now, my bones ache like smashed mica. I do not know why I did not reach out to you, best friend!”

She leaned over and hugged me. I wept too. After I had toweled her off, I helped her dress in a blue caftan and set to polishing her skin. It gleamed – rosy quartz veins, blue green blood of copper like a spider. I combed her hair with a Chantilly baby brush, straight from Provence. Done, I set lilac oil into her body, so that she smelled of spring. Azovka fidgeted as I bathed her. We went to her bedroom and I massaged the oil in. We were two in a queen bed, holding hands, and we closed our eyes, praying to Veles:

“Veles, help my friend blossom into the tsarina of Copper Mountain she was meant to be. Keep her in Danilo and I’s hearts. And thank you for not making me marry the stinking Landlord’s son!”

Azovka laughed, clapping, then looked at me with green moondust eyes. I stared into the jeweled carbuncles, the pupils turning gold, her lashes emerald. Her lips looked like strawberry pastries. Tenderly, I cupped her face in mine.

“Give me Katya’s malachite casket, Veles – I will be her bridal troth,” Azovka breathed.

A wind of God came over me. Heat gathered in my groin, and I cupped Azovka’s face. She kissed me then, with fierce passion. She tasted of copper – mom’s pennies. I loved it. Our tongues were shy, her breath like manna dew and relish sweet, and I was lost in my Azov Girl.

We surfaced, breathless, crimson blush on our cheeks, and I gasped. “What are you doing, Azovkalisha! This – this – this changes everything!”

She smiled knowingly. “I am claiming you as mine, Katinka. Look on your chest.”

I did. A godsmark bloomed. A green lizard with a maiden’s face, wearing a crown, under my breasts. I fixed my shirt back up and blushed wildly.

“You are a naughty goddess, Azovka…” I swooned. It was too much for me. Tonight, I would lead my first Black Mass with Baba Yaga in the costume of the Lapis Witch. Azovka would be there as my right-hand woman. The townies would drink vodka, eat caviar on blini by the fire, and the jade green snow would bloom.

We fell asleep, holding hands.