Page 96 of Winterveil

“I wasn’t ready before,” Nadiya said. Her throat pulsed. “But . . .”

Giselle stepped closer and closed the rest of the space between them. She had expected to feel a rush of adrenaline, injected by the perilousness of the situation. How doomed and impossible it all seemed. Instead, a languid warmth filled her, steady, slow.

The song unfurled. All I wanna do—

She slid her arms around Nadiya’s waist. Beneath the swelling of the music, Nadiya’s breath caught, a low sound that made Giselle’s pulse skip in return.

Nadiya’s hands rose to cup her face. Her fingers trembled as they skimmed along her cheekbones, the curve of her jaw. She leaned forward until their foreheads touched.

“I’m ready now,” she said.

And then there was nothing but the song and the feeling of Nadiya’s lips on her own. Giselle pulled her closer, arching against every curve of her body, the solidity of muscle and the tenderness of flesh. The world behind her eyelids was all that lambent orange-gold. She hadn’t imagined it was possible: to see only what was in front of her.

Thirty-Two

Spring 2037

Camp Peary, Virginia

Julian watched Nadiya and Giselle go and felt something almost like regret. At some point, during those seemingly interminable moments that they had spent in adjoining cells, he had started to feel comforted by Nadiya’s presence. Their bodies, huddled together on opposite sides of the glass. It had been the only thing to keep him from drifting entirely into madness, into ruinous dreams of the past.

As if she could sense his thoughts, Nadiya glanced over her shoulder and met his gaze. She didn’t speak, didn’t even nod, but a wave of relief went through Julian. She was safe and so was he.

But it wasn’t until he turned back to Klaudia that the screams in his head went silent. It was something about her he couldn’t quite describe, her gray eyes, which had ceased to seem so cold to him—they quieted everything else in his mind.

Klaudia reached into the pocket of her coat and drew out a small bundled object. Wrapped protectively in a layer of cloth were his glasses.

“Thanks,” Julian said in surprise, taking them and slipping them on. The world sharpened and clarified. When it sank in to him that Klaudia had brought them with her on their rescue mission, he added, “You were very confident.”

“Not really,” she said. “Deckard isn’t even half as clever as he thinks he is.”

Conspicuously, Crispin retreated to put on the record player. A swelling of orchestral music filled the air. It sounded like Prokofiev.

“I didn’t mean about your plan,” said Julian. “Hopefully you know by now I wouldn’t doubt you. I meant confident that Deckard didn’t just put us down like dogs.”

“He wouldn’t do that. Not after he’s gone through all this effort. And especially considering you both have paternal figures with power who would miss you.”

Julian grimaced. “Ever the pragmatist.”

“Someone has to be.”

He wished Klaudia hadn’t brought up his father, even in passing, but when he looked at her—now with the benefit of his glasses—he could only think of the utter ingenuity it had taken to rescue them. Forty-six minutes and she had solved Deckard’s riddle and pulled him out of that glass prison cell.

“Shit. Molotov cocktails?” Julian exhaled, shaking his head. “How did you even think of that?”

With a shrug, Klaudia said, “You can take the girl out of Russia . . .”

Julian smiled. “I’m glad you said it and not me.”

“Your restraint is admirable.”

She was almost—almost—smiling back at him. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold and maybe, he told himself, a little bit from their conversation. Julian felt an answering heat in his chest.

Klaudia had come for him. Her face was the first thing he’d seen when he lifted his head from his arms. The first voice he heard when the screams were silenced. Looking at her now filled him with the same sense of relief, of refuge. He wasn’t even too embarrassed to have thrown up in front of her. She had already seen him cry, and he had seen the cracks in her armor, great and small, so many times. They were safe before each other’s eyes.

As they’d been leaving the tunnel, Nadiya had fallen into step beside him.

“Thank you,” she said, too quietly for anyone but Julian to hear.