At first, he thought that he was looking at three naked women chained to the wall; whatever small sordid joy might've stirred in his heart at the sight of female bondage had evaporated as soon as he saw the long bloodied bruises on the wrists of narrow fingerless hands, the drooping narrow breasts and the bird's feet so swollen that puckered flesh half-concealed the manacles. The faces that reminded him of Byzantine saints and angels-with large dark eyes that took up half of these narrow faces, the fine-boned Eastern cheeks that tapered into small sharp chins, and small but perfect lips half-opened in suffering.

Then he noticed that their naked bodies were shapeless sacks, reminiscent of plucked chickens, and he realized with a start that they were the bodies of birds-picked clean of feathers, with just a few downy tufts and jutting feather shafts remaining in place.

"Who are you?” he whispered to the bird-women.

One by one they lifted their faces, their eyes half-hidden under heavy dark eyelids, and whispered in turn, “Alkonost,” “Sirin,” “Gamayun."

Yakov interrupted. “What happened next?"

Sergey ruffled his feathers. “I would've told you already if you hadn't interrupted me. So just listen, yeah?"

Yakov nodded and kept quiet.

Sergey continued with the tale-how he froze to the floor by the door, unable to turn away or rush forward to help, paralyzed by a mix of terror, revulsion, and pity. How he also grew acutely aware of his own small and fat bird body, and imagined what his wings would look like naked-handless sticks covered in blue puckering skin-how he shuddered.

The dark Byzantine eyes watched him from the wall, drawing him in, and he was unable to look away at the rest of the room, just their eyes and bloody manacles holding the unspeakable, unimaginable abominations.

"Why are you here?” he croaked finally. “What are they doing to you? Why…” He wanted to ask why they were naked, but thought better of it. “What happened to your feathers?"

"They took them,” Sirin said in a halting but sweet voice, and her lips trembled. “They took them to make into charms, to give to evil men."

"They grow back,” Alkonost added, “but they take them again."

"You will die twice,” Gamayun hissed, her eyes burning with insuppressible madness.

"Can I do anything to help?” Sergey whispered. Sadness filled him as no feeling had ever done; he thought that it was the first time in his life that he truly felt something. He wanted nothing more than to help them.

"Take my last feather.” Alkonost shifted awkwardly, turning to expose her flank, naked but for a single small white feather. “It's a charm."

"What does it do?"

"I don't know.” Alkonost bit her lip and almost cried. There was nothing majestic about her now.

"Take mine too,” Sirin said, and twisted, moving her heavy body to the side, exposing the dusty-gray feather in the hollow under her wing. “It's a spell."

"Take them all!” Gamayun struggled against her bonds wildly, drawing blood from her ankles and wrists. “Take my curse, take my hate, take everything we got, but stop this degradation.” When she ceased struggling and hung helpless and exhausted against her manacles, her head on her chest, Sergey saw the black smudge of a feather in the nape of her neck.

He collected the three feathers, and stopped in the doorway. It seemed impossible to leave them like this. “I'll come back for you,” he said. “I promise."

The three bird-women said nothing; Alkonost started with her song again, a childish lullaby Sergey had heard too many years ago to remember the words of, but the melody stirred his heart with an unfamiliar longing for the happy time without responsibility, for the time when he could be tucked under the thick quilted blanket and no worry could touch him there. He swallowed the bile rising in his throat and squeezed through the slit in the door. He felt lighter somehow, emptier.

He moved his wings, trying to explain. “It's like this, see,” he said. “Nothing will ever be the same again. It's like my life broke in half. Do you know what I mean?"

Yakov nodded. He did. He knew the distinct before and after, he felt the rift that cleaved his life in two separate and irreconcilable parts, where he felt that one had nothing to do with the other; he was a different man now, and he felt like throwing himself on the cold floor of his prison and weeping and striking his fists against the boards when he thought that this rift, this separator, this memory had been pried out of his soul by the bony spirit fingers of the boatman.

"Where are the feathers?” Galina asked.

Sergey smirked and lifted his wings. There, among his own dirty-white feathers, there was a brilliantly white one, a gray one, and a black one, their shafts entangled securely in his down.

Yakov picked them out, his stubby fingers particularly ungraceful, and studied the feathers. “What do we do with them?"

"A charm, a spell and a curse,” Galina said.

Yakov sighed and closed his fist. “What does it even mean? Everyone here speaks in stupid riddles, like if throwing words together would somehow give them meaning. Well, it doesn't; it's all gibberish to me. So don't you start talking like that, like you know what's going on."

"Don't tell me what to do and how to talk.” Galina almost snarled at him. “Who do you think you are? I'm not your wife, so you don't snap at me every time something goes wrong."

He shrugged and handed her the feathers. “You figure this one out then."

Galina studied the feathers on her palm, tilting it sideways to catch the light from the window in the end of the hallway. She looked as perplexed as Yakov felt, and he had to suppress a smirk of satisfaction. “A charm or a spell?” Galina mused. “And do any of you remember any fairytales with feathers?"

"Just with flower petals,” Sergey said. “Remember the one about the seven-colored flower?"

Galina grinned. “Sure do. ‘Fly little petal from east to west, from north to south, and come back around, make my wish come true when you touch the ground.’”

"That's the one,” Sergey squawked, pleased. “Think it'll work?"

"Not the chant,” Galina answered, “But let's see what happens when they touch the ground.” She loosened her fingers, and all three of them watched as the feathers drifted down to the floor and came to rest, the fine silken fibers wavering in the gentle draft coming from the window at the end of the hallway.

They waited a while; the feathers remained motionless.

"Screw this,” Yakov said. “Let's get out of here, find Koschey, and see if he knows what that's all about."

"We can't leave,” Galina said, and pointed at the door. As if he were stupid.

"Sergey,” Yakov said. “Can you get to the lock?"

"Hold on,” the rook said, and waddled outside through the slot in the bottom of the door. They heard it scraping and panting; an occasional thud signified a fall.

"I can't reach it,” Sergey informed them, poking his head through the opening. “If you could give me a boost-but even then I don't know if I'm strong enough."

"I am,” Yakov said, and lay down on the floor. He squeezed his arm through the opening and waited for the rook to step on his open hand. Once the clawed cold bird fingers wound around his thumb, he turned on his right side, bending his arm upward.

"Just a bit more,” Sergey instructed. “There. I'm touching it with my beak.” There was more scraping and clanging of metal. “Can't do it-the lock's too strong."

"Put your beak next to the tumbler,” Yakov said. “Does it go right or left?"

"Left,” Sergey said. “Just be careful."

Yakov grasped the bird's legs and put all the strength of his arm into forcing the internal tumbler aside. He worked blind, and his heavy breathing was the only sound in the cell. Sergey was a trooper-Yakov could feel how stiff the rook was, how hard he tried to remain motionless and rigid.