Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo (z-lib.org).mobi

came down, some of the worry had gone from his face.
“There are people everywhere. There must be hundreds walking the road, and
I can see the dom cart.”
“It’s butter week!” I exclaimed.
In the week before the spring fast, every nobleman was expected to ride out
among his people in a dom cart, a cart laden with sweets and cheeses and baked
breads. The parade would pass from the village church all the way back to the
noble’s estate, where the public rooms would be thrown open to peasants and
serfs, who were fed on tea and blini. The local girls wore red sarafan and
flowers in their hair to celebrate the coming of spring.
Butter week had been the best time at the orphanage, when classes were cut
short so that we could clean the house and help with the baking. Duke Keramsov
had always timed his return from Os Alta to coincide with it. We would all ride
out in the dom cart, and he would stop at every farm to drink kvas and pass out
cakes and sweets. Sitting beside the Duke, waving to the cheering villagers,
we’d felt almost like nobility ourselves.
“Can we go and look, Mal?” I asked eagerly.
He frowned, and I knew his caution was wrestling with some of our happiest
memories from Keramzin. Then a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “All
right. There are certainly enough people for us to blend in.”
We joined the crowds parading down the road, slipping in with the fiddlers
and drummers, the little girls clutching branches tied with bright ribbons. As we
passed through the village’s main street, shopkeepers stood in their doorways
ringing bells and clapping their hands with the musicians. Mal stopped to buy
furs and stock up on supplies, but when I saw him shove a wedge of hard cheese
into his pack, I stuck out my tongue. If I never saw another piece of hard cheese
again, it would be too soon.
Before Mal could tell me not to, I darted into the crowd, snaking between
people trailing behind the dom cart where a red-cheeked man sat with a bottle of
kvas in one chubby hand as he swayed from side to side, singing and tossing
bread to the peasants crowding around the cart. I reached out and snatched a
warm golden roll.
“For you, pretty girl!” the man shouted, practically toppling over.
The sweet roll smelled divine, and I thanked him, prancing my way back to
Mal and feeling quite pleased with myself.
He grabbed my arm and pulled me down a muddy walkway between two
houses. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Nobody saw me. He just thought I was another peasant girl.”
“We can’t take risks like that.”