Koschei looks long at his child. The girl takes her second breath, through her eyes. It makes no sound at all. “She has a name already, volchitsa, my love, my terrible wolf. She is my death. And I love her abjectly, as a father must.” Death, their daughter, who will never learn to speak, who will never need to speak, holds out her bloody arms, streaked white and silver with fluid. “I always die at the end,” he whispers, and he is afraid now, his hands shaking. “It is always like this. It is never easy.”
