Anya's haphazard family ate lunch late that Saturday, the inn beyond the world bustling in preparation for Dmitri's annual noblemen council.  Leshys of all types, stout and slender, with ram's horns and boar tusks, bear teeth and wolf skins, laughed heartily over vodka and a roaring fire.  Their attendants talked rowdily.  The harvest was drawing close, and it was a time for celebration.

Anya's nerves were on edge: her shopping excursion with Morozko was in an hour.  It could either go uneventfully or horribly, terribly wrong.  She hoped for the former but anticipated the latter. 

Morozko gave her a hard look across the oak-hewn dining room table but said nothing. ...