Chapter 3: The Crone's Echo

The crimson fire died as quickly as it had flared, leaving Dmitry swaying on his feet and tasting copper. Around them, the Veil Market burned in patches, vendors shouting in a dozen languages as they tried to salvage their wares. But Marzanna and her companions were gone—vanished the moment his power had erupted, taking their threats and promises with them.

"Well," Ryzhiy said, hopping onto a singed market stall, "that could have gone better. Also worse, I suppose, since we're all still breathing."

Alysa stood frozen where the invisible bonds had held her, her face pale and her hands shaking. "They were going to kill me. Just... casually kill me, like swatting a fly."

"Welcome to the magical world," Dmitry said grimly, steadying himself against a scorched post. The power drain had left him feeling hollowed out, like someone had scooped away parts of his insides. "Everything here either wants to eat you, enslave you, or use you as currency."

"That's not entirely fair," Ryzhiy protested. "Some things just want to ignore you completely."

Alysa looked between them, and Dmitry saw the exact moment she made her decision. Her spine straightened, her jaw set, and the terrified confusion in her eyes hardened into something more dangerous—determination.

"Okay," she said firmly. "I want answers. All of them. And don't you dare try to protect me by keeping me ignorant. I just got threatened by fairy tale monsters because of something your grandmother did. I think I've earned the right to know what I'm dealing with."

Dmitry studied her face—the stubborn set of her freckled features, the way she held the fire extinguisher like she was ready to use it again. She was scared, yes, but not broken. Not running. It was exactly what he'd hoped for and exactly what he'd feared.

"There's somewhere we need to go," he said finally. "Somewhere safe, where I can... where we can figure this out."

"Safe?" Ryzhiy's laugh was distinctly unfeline. "Boy, where we're going is about as far from safe as you can get while still being technically on your side."

---

The apartment building at 1347 Volkov Street looked exactly like every other Soviet-era concrete block in this part of the city—gray, brutalist, and thoroughly depressing. But as they climbed the thirteen flights of stairs (the elevator had been broken for as long as Dmitry could remember), he felt the familiar tingle of wards and old magic seeping through the walls.

"Thirteenth floor?" Alysa panted, pausing on the landing. "Isn't that supposed to be unlucky?"

"Only if you're not a witch," Dmitry replied, producing a key that looked like it had been forged from blackened iron and what might have been bone. "Baba Yaga always said luck was for people too lazy to make their own fate."

The lock turned with a sound like grinding teeth, and the door swung open to reveal an apartment that shouldn't have existed.

From the outside, the building was standard Soviet construction—small rooms, low ceilings, barely enough space for a single person to live comfortably. But the apartment they stepped into was vast, with ceilings that disappeared into shadow and rooms that seemed to stretch far beyond what the building's footprint should have allowed.

"Spatial distortion," Dmitry explained, seeing Alysa's expression. "Grandmother was never one for accepting limitations."

The furniture was exactly as he remembered—heavy wooden pieces that looked like they'd been carved by hand from trees older than the city itself. Tapestries covered the walls, depicting scenes from fairy tales that were decidedly not child-friendly. And everywhere, everywhere, there were strawberries.

Painted on walls, carved into chair backs, embroidered on cushions, and growing in impossible abundance from pots that lined every windowsill. The air was thick with their scent, sweet and cloying and touched with something darker underneath.

"She always said strawberries were the fruit of transformation," Dmitry murmured, running his fingers over a bowl carved from what looked like a single enormous berry, frozen in wood. "Sweet on the tongue, but they leave you changed."

Alysa was staring at a portrait above the fireplace—a woman with wild gray hair, fierce dark eyes, and a smile that promised either wisdom or wickedness, depending on your perspective. "That's her? Baba Yaga?"

"Grandmother, yes." Dmitry's voice was carefully neutral. "Though she preferred Yelena when she wasn't working."

"Working?"

"Being a legendary witch," Ryzhiy supplied helpfully. "Teaching harsh lessons to the wicked, grinding bones to make bread, the usual resume items for someone in her position."

Dmitry moved through the apartment like a man walking through a graveyard—respectful, wary, and fighting not to remember too much too quickly. But the memories came anyway: hands stained permanently red from handling berries that weren't quite berries, the scent of herbs that grew only under a full moon, and always, always, his grandmother's voice teaching him that power came with a price and mercy was a luxury the world rarely afforded.

In the kitchen, he found what he was looking for. The cellar door stood slightly ajar, revealing stone steps that descended into comfortable darkness. And from below came the rich, intoxicating scent of fermented fruit and old magic.

"The wine cellar," he said, more to himself than to the others. "She always said her best spells were stored in bottles."

The cellar was a wonder—rack upon rack of bottles, each one glowing faintly with its own inner light. Labels written in Cyrillic script identified their contents: "For Mending Hearts (Literally)," "Truth Serum (Side Effects May Include Temporary Honesty)," "Liquid Courage (Not Recommended for Mortals)."

But it was the journal he found on the wooden table that made his breath catch. Leather-bound, thick with pages covered in his grandmother's spidery handwriting, and still warm to the touch despite the cool cellar air.

"'For my grandson,'" he read aloud, "'who will undoubtedly ignore all my carefully laid plans and stumble into danger like a blind bear in a beehive. If you're reading this, it means I'm either dead or imprisoned, and you've finally stopped running from what you are.'"

"She knew," Alysa said softly. "She knew this would happen."

Dmitry turned the page, his hands trembling slightly. "'The Kozlov bloodline carries a gift and a curse in equal measure. We are soul-mages, Dmitry—we touch the very essence of life itself. But power without understanding is destruction, and destruction without purpose is merely chaos.'"

He paused, scanning ahead, and his face went white. "'Chernobog will come for you. He has been planning this for decades, waiting for me to weaken, to make a mistake he could exploit. He wants our power—not to wield it himself, but to corrupt it, to turn the magic that preserves balance into something that serves only darkness.'"

"There's more," Ryzhiy said quietly, his ancient eyes fixed on the journal. "Keep reading."

"'In the cellar, you will find my emergency reserves. The strawberry wine is not truly wine—it is liquefied magic, concentrated power stored for the darkest hours. Drink sparingly, and only when you have no other choice. And look for the knitting needles.'"

Alysa glanced around the cellar. "Knitting needles? In a wine cellar?"

But Dmitry had already spotted them—a pair of what looked like ordinary aluminum knitting needles lying beside a half-finished scarf on a small shelf. As his fingers closed around them, though, they grew warm, then hot, and the metal began to shift and flow like liquid silver.

When the transformation finished, he held two slender daggers, their blades etched with runes that seemed to move in the flickering candlelight. The handles fit his grip perfectly, as if they'd been made specifically for his hands.

"'My needles,'" he read from the journal, "'have been in our family for seven generations. They were made to protect, to preserve, to cut away corruption wherever it takes root. Use them well, grandson. You will need every advantage against what is coming.'"

The apartment above them suddenly filled with sound—footsteps, shouting, and the distinctive crash of forced entry. Through the cellar ceiling came flashes of unnatural light and the acrid smell of burning magic.

"They found us," Ryzhiy said unnecessarily.

Dmitry looked at the wine rack, at the journal in his hands, at Alysa's terrified but determined face. Then he reached for a bottle labeled "For When All Else Fails (May Cause Spontaneous Heroism)."

"Dmitry, no," Alysa started, but he'd already pulled the cork.

The wine was the color of fresh blood and tasted like liquid fire. It burned all the way down, and then the world exploded into crimson light. Power flooded through him—not the uncontrolled surge from the tavern, but something deeper, more focused. Ancient knowledge whispered through his mind: spells his grandmother had known, techniques passed down through generations of Kozlov witches, and underneath it all, the warm, fierce pride of a family that had protected the balance between worlds for longer than written history.

Above them, something roared in frustration and pain. The footsteps became more urgent, more destructive.

"They're in the apartment," Alysa whispered, gripping her fire extinguisher like a talisman.

Dmitry stood, the daggers feeling weightless in his hands, power singing through his veins like a familiar song. For the first time since his grandmother's disappearance, he felt like himself—not the frightened bartender hiding behind layers of careful normalcy, but the heir to seven generations of magical tradition.

"Let them come," he said, and his voice carried the authority of old magic and older bloodlines. "This is my grandmother's house. Here, I am exactly who I was born to be."

The cellar door above them burst open, and shadow poured down the stairs like a living thing. But Dmitry was already moving, the wine's power flowing through him like liquid starlight, and in his hands, Baba Yaga's knitting needles gleamed with hungry light.

The war his grandmother had fought was about to become his own.