Andrei got lost on the way back from the lavatory.

  The cave-Thracians had a system of waste treatment that was, Nikolai had assured him, extremely sophisticated and modern. It involved charcoal in some way, and water valves, but the part of the process that concerned Andrei was the lidded chamber-pots that had to be carried to special rooms, dumped into larger vessels, and scrubbed out with lye.

  Andrei only had one patient now, and some extra chamber pots, but he'd learned not to wait for supplies to be exhausted. Better to use the calm time to prepare for the next crisis.

  Finding the lavatory room had been easy enough; no need for his lamp. He'd been proud of himself. Too proud to stop and call out for help when he realized he'd made a wrong turn.

  Andrei berated himself. If he'd brought his lamp, he wouldn't be in this fix.

  But what about next time? He had to learn how to navigate these corridors by memory and touch. Babying himself with light would only extend the time he needed to adapt.

  Why adapt, Doctor? Weren't you leaving?

  "Shut up," Andrei said, and heard a giggle.

  He stopped. He'd been walking as he thought. Again, his attention had strayed.

  "Hello?" he called. "Um. Bréma? Little Vlada?"

  No answer. But he did get an impression of the corridor. Or, at least, there was no space in front of him than to either side. And was there something in the middle? Andrei clutched his chamber-pot tighter. What if someone thought he was trying to escape again?

  "I, ah, have lost myself," he said in Bulgarian. "I tried to pour out this chamber pot."

  A breath of wind flowing past him. The slap of a bare foot on stone.

  "Now, listen, child," Andrei said. "Did you come to—"

  Something grabbed his elbow and pulled him into empty space.

  Andrei fell sideways, past where the wall should be. There was an open door here that he hadn't visualized. A room.

  The lid of his chamber-pot clattered as Andrei stumbled into someone. She bore up under his weight, soft and smelling of soap, musk, and something sharp and herbal.

  Andrei's heart leaped. The half-formed excuses and battle plans in his mind scattered.

  "K—!" he said, before she pressed her hand over his mouth.

  Oh, right. The darkness knew. Andrei found it hard to care with those warm little fingers pressed against his skin. Andrei turned his head so she cupped his cheek, and spent a moment savoring the feeling.

  Vlada's bare feet slapped away down the corridor.

  Kori's hand departed, as if vanishing into black water, and his cheek was left feeling very cold.

  Rather than whimper, Andrei cleared his throat. "I'll just put this chamber-pot down, shall I?" he asked. "Then you can tell me—"

  The hand reappeared to give him another light slap.

  This time, though, his hands were free. When Kori's palm connected with his cheek, Andrei brought his hand up to cover hers, trapping it, warm against his face.

  He dropped his voice to a hopeful whisper. "Or show me?"

  She drew in a sharp breath. Not of fear. Andrei imagined her face. He could feel its warmth from here.

  A pressure on the back of his hand. Kori's fingertip touched him. Poked him, really.

  Thinking she wanted him to let go of her, Andrei backed away. She followed, holding his cheek the way another woman might hold the shoulder of her partner as they moved together on a dance floor.

  Her hand slid down his jaw, his neck, and traced the line of his shoulder down his arm. The skin on the back of Andrei's hand prickled as Kori traced her fingertip across the tendons there.

  N.V.I.E.N.D.R.S.P.S.A.V.C.M.O.I. She wrote. Yu'll nt come wth me.

  T.U.V.I.N.S.A.V.C.M.O.I! "You come wth me!" Andrei tried to emphasize the pronouns without hurting her.

  She shook his hand as if it were a faulty clock.

  Andrei didn't care if she was impatient with him. He could talk to her!

  "I am to ply th prt f Pluto n th Rt f Ascnt," he scribbled on her hand. "Nt so?"

  "Yes," she wrote back.

  Andrei thought furiously, trying to cement his plan and compose it in compressed French at the same time.

  "I play Pluto. You Perseph. You go up. Me too."

  "Pluto stays."

  "I say I go. Ordr. I say…" Now how would he spell Thracian in the Latin alphabet? "Vas ádass."

  He could feel the blood pounding in Kori's hand, still on his cheek. Her finger brushed the back of his hand.

  "Vas em ádass," she corrected.

  "I say I go wth yu in Good. Priests lt us go. It wrks!"

  She hesitated, but wrote, "N wrk. Aftr UnDscnt we prt only fr 6 mnth. I prpare th peopl, nd u th Mntain."

  "Prpr fr wht?" he asked.

  She wrote the answer in full. "Politics. Scrt. Tll yu aftr rtual."

  Andrei was getting tired of all this hand-writing business. "Aftr ritual run awy." He wrote harder. "B mine. Im yrs! I'll do rght by yu. I swear."

  She snatched her hand away, out from between his finger and his cheek.

  Andrei gasped at the sudden cold and reached out to where her hands had to be.

  He grabbed her wrists. Stopped. How had done that. Andrei still couldn't see a thing, but there her hands were, glowing in his inner vision.

  Andrei held himself still, waiting for answers.

  Kori pulled their clasped hands up, bringing Andrei's knuckles to her mouth. She was smiling.

  Andrei released her hand so he could stretch his fingers across her lips. They opened with a hot breath.

  Andrei was breathing harder, too. As if in a trance, he pushed his finger deeper.

  She bit him.

  "Ow!"

  Andrei snatched his hand back and rocked away from her. Kori made high, muffled coughing noises that he realized where her attempt to giggle quietly.

  "Ow," he said again, and laughed.

  "Shht!"

  "Uh, sorry, Darkness. I stubbed my toe. Humorously."

  She smacked his shoulder, "Shut up, you lumbering oaf!"

  He reached out for her hand and with a few deft taps and tongue-clicks, Kori's fingers found his.

  They connected again, and again her body seemed to flare in Andrei's sight.

  Before Andrei knew what he was doing, he had his hands on her waist. One hand went up, the other down, and both pressed her toward him.

  Andrei still wasn't sure where Kori's mouth was in the dark, but of course her cave-raised instincts were better than his. All he had to do was lower his face, and Kori found it.

  ***

  Kori's ear pricked at the approaching footsteps.

  What she wanted to do was climb on top of Andrei, or perhaps pull him down onto her. Instead, she broke off the kiss and pushed herself away from him.

  "Calm your breathing," she pitched her voice into his ear, hoping their eavesdroppers would have the wrong angle to pick up the words. "Remember the barely-water."

  "Barely-Water?" Andrei gasped and Nikolai burst into the room.

  "What is this?" he demanded. "What is this?" His voice swung like a searchlight to pin Andrei. "After all we have told each other—"

  Pottery clanked on the floor.

  "That's the chamber-pot," said Andrei. "Don't worry, I was on my way back from the lavatory."

  Kori heard Nikolai twitch.

  "I was on my way back and I got lost. K—I mean, the Maiden found me."

  "I brought him here," said Kori.

  "To the…" Nikolai's voice warbled as his face twisted back and forth. "To the Second Deeper Storage Room?"

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "It's where we keep the masks," said Kori.

  Before Andrei could say something like 'What masks?', Kori located his hand and grabbed it. She lifted it and pulled it around. Tongue-clicking to give voice to their movements, she placed Andrei's fingers on the mask of the goddess where it hung on the wall behind her.

  He caught his breath as his fingertips passed over the carved lips.

  "This is improper, my Novitiate." Nikolai ruffled his robes. "But perhaps my suspicions are improper as well. My Maiden, let him feel the other mask."

  It hung next to the first, metal surface cold and slick.

  "She, who makes flowers in spring; he, who makes riches pour from the Earth," said Nikolai. "The Earth she danced upon, he ripped apart. The Mistress and the Master."

  Kori had screamed the first time she'd been made to touch the grim face of the Wealthgiver, but Andrei only said, "Hm," as if confirming a suspicion.

  "Since we're all here," Kori said, hand on pounding heart, "we can continue rehearsing the ritual."

  An excruciating pause from Nikolai. What would he believe? What did he want to believe?

  "You said you lost yourself in the darkness," said Nikolai. "And when the Maiden found you, here where the masks are stored, you began at once to…rehearse the ritual of Un-Descent?"

  "Oh," said Andrei, "Yes. Wouldn't do to waste an opportunity. Learned that on the march."

  "I understand. And how does one prepare oneself for the ritual?"

  "One drinks barely water," said Andrei.

  Nikolai did not say "very good," but he didn't leap at Andrei's throat, either.

  "And at what point," said Nikolai, "were you planning to call for me and include my part?"

  Kori added a smile to her voice. "You came exactly when I knew you would."

  Nikolai clicked to outline the chamber. "We do not need to be here with the masks to prepare for the ritual of Un-Descent. The library would be better. Or the novitiate's cell."

  "I think it would be best for the doctor to learn both the words and actions of the ritual in the same place. I have not been trained as a teacher, of course."

  "There are pedagogical theories that support you," Nikolai grumbled. "Very well. Novitiate, attend. You will drink the barley water. You will dress yourself in silent robes. You will come to the ritual masked." Nikolai cast an echo off the faces on the wall. "Don yours."

  "Yes." Andrei turned the wrong way.

  Kori prodded him back around and guided his hand.

  "I hear from your unobstructed breath that you have not yet followed my simple directions," said Nikolai.

  "Why even bother to wear masks?" asked Andrei. "Nobody can see them."

  "A mask is the truest face, Novitiate, and behind it is another. Ah, you are ready. First, you will hear the voice of the Rushing Protector from beyond the entrance."

  "The entr—?" Andrei coughed, as if to hide the eagerness in his voice. "I mean, who is the Rushing Protector?"

  "The Shepherd of Men, the Marketer, the Soul-Guide," intoned Nikolai in a tone that creaked with the pressure of his impatience. "He will call to you thusly: ánite! Pleistoré! Palodegm?n, sa e!"

  "What was all that?" asked Andrei.

  "Our god's names of course. Yours as well."

  "I thought the name was á—I'm sorry," said Andrei as Kori and Nikolai both tensed. "Vas em ádass."

  Kori shivered at the echoes.

  "Such it is in the modern, degenerate form of the language," said Nikolai. "In the purer, ancient form, it is," he cleared his throat, "Eintí ánitēs sós, Palodégmōn ke Pleistorós. Of course the Rushing One will address you in the vocative case. ánite! Pleistoré!"

  "You called?" said Andrei.

  "Don't be an ass. Just stand there and ready yourself for your cue."

  Kori braced herself to handle another argument between the men, but none came. Both seemed less prickly, more at ease, open to the possibility that they might spend the rest of their lives working together as Master and interpreter.

  A rustle as Nikolai lifted his arms. "Where was I? ánite! Pleistoré! / Palodegm?n, sa e / k?phēt—"

  "Do I need to remember all this?" asked Andrei.

  "Of course you do."

  Kori reached out to brush the back of his hand. "N."

  She had known how to guide him through that test since Nikolai had proposed it in the library.

  "Wt ur cue," she wrote, and Andrei waited as the hymn rolled on. The Rushing Protector, messenger of the Sky Father, commanded that Grain-Reaper the Maiden be returned to her place alongside the Earth Mother. Kori's classics teacher would have been most amused.

  "K?phēt d?e."

  Be mine, he had told her. And why shouldn't she be his? Why should Nikolai spend the whole summer with Andrei?

  She set herself to watch the petulant jealousy until it passed.

  "T?n opdésedyde." Nikolai lowered his arms. "Now," he said with relish, "for your part, novitiate. Ergeí / Porhēgéntia!"

  "What?" Andrei said.

  I said, "Ergeí / Porhēgéntia!"

  "Oh. I see. I mean, I hear. Is that what I have to say?" Andrei asked, while Kori traced the lines on his arm. "Yes. Right. Uh…Erg…ergeí…no / Po…Por…Porhe…e…guh?"

  Nikolai made a noise like a man trying to lift a boulder off his foot.

  Andrei ground on. "Porhēg…én…tia."

  "We must move on," said Nikolai instead of "well done." "Now, the Maiden will say—"

  "Dēm?thera póra / áskeira pephlóu e ion," Kori sang. This would be her tenth repetition of this ritual and her last.

  "Perfect as always, My Maiden. And now," Nikolai inhaled as if putting his hands back on the boulder. "Novitiate. You say: Mē dé bladymeiê ia."

  "Oof, that's a long one."

  "Do seven syllables fit into your skull only with difficulty?"

  "It would be less difficult if I knew what the line meant," argued Andrei.

  "It means we'll find you unworthy and slit your throat if you don't get the declensions right." Air swooshed around Nikolai's chopping hand. "Mē dé bladymeiê ia. The line means 'Do not mis-smoke yourself.' Figuratively, do not curse yourself. Do not be bad-tempered."

  Kori would not. Andrei had told her he was hers.

  Kori walked Andrei through that and came to her own line: "Sédzōn me tón dymón. Literally, 'I hold smoke.' You remember?"

  "In the infirmary." His hand flexed under hers.

  Andrei's next line was: "óiyk tóus dessóis / a?eikhēs te eis.'" He would not shame her. He'd do right by her.

  "Sēnséithēs tū / éiseis is tó koú," she sang. You'll be my husband, no matter where you are.

  "Diós Br?thar eim? !'" Nikolai shouted.

  Andrei fumbled as Kori hastily scribbled on his skin. "Diós Br?thar eim? ." The echoes of those words rang off the gold surface of the mask of Pluto.

  Kori called her line like a bird. "Xēthópats eis?!'" You are the Master of Guests.

  "Xēthópania sez?n," Nikolai began. The Guest-Mistress of all…

  "Eis sa serpanth?n," Kori completed the sentence. …I'll be of those who crawl.

  Nikolai tapped his foot. "Again, from the beginning. Now, the Maiden…My Maiden, what are you doing back there? You must stand here, between the Unseen One and the Entrance.

  Kori removed her hand from Andrei's arm. "I thought I would stand here, beside him, like his queen."

  "No, no. This is spring, not autumn. This is the leave-taking. And your prophesy was most explicit: behind the Mistress the Master will stand."

  Kori considered announcing a new prophesy to justify feeding Andrei his lines. Rhyming couplets filled her mouth like smoke, but the mask she wore was heavy, and Nikolai was watching. What could be more terrible, that he disbelieved her lies and lost his faith, or if he refused to disbelieve?"

  Kori moved to stand in front of Andrei, back to him.

  Nikolai came to the cue. Andrei missed it.

  "Your line is Ergeí / Porhēgéntia."

  "Ergeí / Porhēgéntian."

  "Not the accusative! May Madness not take me!"

  Kori sang her part.

  "Mē dé bladymeiê ia." Nikolai clapped the 8-beat rhythm. "Repeat!"

  Andrei couldn't. He barely knew any modern Good, and the ancient form was much more difficult. Because they could not embed Good words in Fool sentences, Kori and Nikolai could only recite entire lines of the hymn, then translate into either French or Russian, leaving Andrei to match words in his head.

  They practiced until sweat ran down Kori's face and her back ached from standing. She could only imagine how Andrei felt. Imagination was all she had, because he had stopped talking.

  "Come now," Nikolai said, tone somewhere between enraged command and desperate plea. "Xēthópania sez?n. Plural genitive masculine. Eis sa serpanth?n. The verb is "to crawl" in the plural genitive present participle. It couldn't be simpler."

  Andrei said nothing.

  "Repeat it!"

  A pot clattered. Andrei's hand slapped against the wall. "Just give me a moment."

  Kori opened her mouth.

  "No," said Nikolai. "No, we will not postpone the ritual, nor will we simplify it or cast someone else in the role of the Wealthgiver. Nor let you live if you fail us." His voice dropped. "Andrei Trifonovich, the equinox is tomorrow. Our spies crouch, poised to act. There can be no delays, no complications or compromises."

  "This is impossible," said Andrei.

  "There is nothing impossible for a god!" Kori heard real anguish in Nikolai's voice. He didn't sound as if he were berating a student or taunting an enemy, but like a suffering man shaking his fist at the sky. "Before, you spoke the words. Words I had not taught you. You told me what you are. Was that a lie?"

  "The lie is the deepest truth," said Kori.

  The priest hissed as if he'd stepped on a nail. Let out a breath. "Again. Repeat the words again."

  "No." Andrei's voice reflected off the floor. "Wait."

  "Wait?" Nikolai's voice, shook. "We cannot wait. We must continue the lesson! The equinox—"

  "This won't work." Andrei spoke with leaden finality. Kori could imagine him straightening from the operating table and turning away to someone who stood a better chance of surviving.

  "Andrei," she said, reaching towards him. "Stand beside me. You will understand then what can be possible."

  "Why?" asked Nikolai, suspicious. Kori cursed her thoughtlessness.

  "No." Andrei's voice moved as he stepped around her. "I need to think."

  Nikolai was first to recover from the shock. "Stop," he said, but Andrei was already at the door. "Don't you dare leave me!"

  Andrei's footsteps receded down the corridor.

  Kori started forward. "I'll lead him."

  "Run after that pig? It's just what he wants. You and I have too much to—oh, may the Madness not take me!"

  Kori turned toward Nikolai in exasperation. "What is it now?"

  "He took the mask of Pluto with him."