The Black Mass went off without a hitch, and I was made Witch Mother of Podentsky - but I was distracted all night long by Azovka’s state of disarray. By the day, her bones solidified, no matter how much oil I rubbed into her stony skin, and how much Danilo stone sung. As my witching powers grew, I experimented with dedushka’s malachite spear – he was gone so often, dedushka was none the wiser.

The day of the County Fair came. Azovka was doing better – I had found a spell in her old spellbook that worked! It took crushed Yakutian diamonds and settled them into her joints like butter, milking suppleness out of her flesh, restoring collagen and tendons. She was rosy-cheeked and gay as Danilo showed off his moldavite fern flower with entwined, wedded siblings to Bailiff Flogger, dressed in the folk outfit Azovka and I had made him.

“The look of you good-for-nothing boy!” Bailiff Flogger gruffed. “I’ll take the fern flower – seems Danilo Nestrokoney is finally good for something. Perhaps I should raise your quit-rent. A stone singer, the likes of which not seen since time immemorial. Here, two hundred rubles. This will give you tickets to St. Petersburg.”

We celebrated afterward with vodka, at a bar.

“Did you see the look on Bailiff Flogger’s face when he bought my work?” Danilo teased, holding our hands. “I’ll never be taken to the flogging post again – drink!”

We all took shots, laughing over beef stroganoff. I blew on the noodles to cool them, then ate it all in one sitting.

“We are going to the Summer Court!” I exclaimed. “And Azovka is all better, thanks to that spell book and Baba Yaga’s instructions! It was quite lucky I discovered my magick when I did.”

Azovka smiled secretively, squeezing my hand under the table. We took dinner, just the two of us, on Copper Mountain that night.

We made love like an old wives’ tales. Copper Guardian and Malachite Maid, entwined.

We never did find out about Danilo’s godsmark. Faberge was so impressed by Danilo’s gift to the tsarina – a living thornapple of moldavite – that he gave us a Faberge egg for Azovka’s shelves. It always sat on our living room wall for decades after that, the three of us living in wedded bliss under Copper Mountain, our children – Mitya, Tanyushka, and the rest of our six sons and one daughter – all Copper Men and Women, half-begat upon me by Danilo, and half-bespelled by Azovka – to carry on our legacy.

The Romanovs fell, and times beyond the Malachite Walls grew hard. We had more refugees, but Azovka ruled with an iron thumb, long after Prokovitch passed away, and Alexei and dedushka retired. Danilo finally got to see the Stone Flower – some said, Danilo the Stonesinger never left the Copper Mountain after that, trapped in gardens of stone. But those were just tall tales, rumors, skazes – my sweet little hunch-backed Mitya and Danilo, they loved to carve moldavite at dedushka’s dacha, under the sun, and make berry pendants out of claret stones, slag, and serpentine. I took to carving malachite brooches with lizards, serpents, and birds.

Podentsky stayed the same, full-bright, eternally the prosperous Copper Kingdom. And I took my place as Azovka’s Copper Guardian. I came home after long days of traveling - hunting and summoning ore with my Azovka. Danilo would shepherd, carve, and watch our children – and Azovka would fix dinner, and Danilo and her would warm my bed.

They say I won Danilo from Azovka. That the Mistress of Copper Mountain does not take kindly to women. That I once lived a husbandless lie.

But I had my Azovka, long ago in Russia, and to this day, you can still hear stone sing in the Gumeshky mine.

Venture down deep enough, and you’ll find two Copper Women – our daughter Tanyushka following Azovka like a shadow. She takes after her the most, and will someday be the Copper Queen, long after we have become but dust.

And oh, how our gem garden blooms.