Do you know we tell stories about you?” she said, staring at the telegraph knob under her hand. “You are a monster, an ogre. We laugh about you. Be good to your girl, Koschei, or an Ivan will come and whisk her away!. That’s what they like best, Ivans. To seduce Koschei’s wives. It is their number one hobby. Somehow, I forgot that there really are boys named Ivan.”

“I am not seducing you!”

“You are, though,” said Marya, and she heard her own voice fill up with familiarity, with longing. She almost turned. She almost called him Vanya, Ivanushka, as though they were already lovers. Her hip moved toward him a little, as though her whole self meant to fix him with a gentle expression and forgive him, in the beginning, so she would not have to, later. She could not explain it, the pull of him, like Viy pulling at her breasts with his pinprick sting. The dead Tsar had caught her by the death and spun her around. Ivan, oh, just his voice, had caught her by the life.