Getting us out of the palace felt like pulling off a heist—or at least, that’s how Semchik treated it. Aksana had increased security around the palace, and that made me rest easier, what with the possibility of an imminent Tsurskij declaration of war, but it did make sneaking past all the guards something of a challenge. The uniforms might have helped, but the guards would either not recognize us, which was bad, given that we were meant to be their colleagues, or they would recognize us, which was worse, for obvious reasons.

Eventually, Semchik got the recently retrieved Zubov to distract the guards on a service gate long enough for us to slip through without attracting much scrutiny.

Exiting onto the street outside felt like finally breaking the surface after being trapped under an ice sheet. Out here the sepulchral silence was replaced by all the normal, comforting sounds of the city: squawking, laughing, yelling, farting, jangling, juddering, splashing, thumping.

It warmed me until I realized the people of the city had no idea of the sword hanging over their heads.

Semchik led us to a nice neighborhood where the streets were quiet and desolate, even this early in the evening, and then an apartment over a hat shop. (Anya, Pasha’s wife, was a hat maker.)

The apartment was modest in square footage but frankly opulent in decor, much more gaudy than anything in Whitecap Palace, packed to the gills with velvet and silk and gold and tassels and geometrically carved wooden sofas and chairs and tables and ceramic sculptures of dolphins and cow-eyed smiling children. Even to me, everything looked slightly out of date. I hadn’t seen the beds yet, but I was sure they’d have those ceramic pillows on them, too.

“Whose apartment is this?” I said, sliding my finger down the dustless lacquered arm of a chair. “Why would Dasha need an apartment in the city? Why would Dasha need this apartment in the city?” I wrinkled my nose. It looked like something out of Dmitrij Fadeich’s fever dreams.

“Why do you think, Yusha?” Semchik said. He was standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest.

I looked at Sanya, and he raised his eyebrows.

“Oh. Oooh.”

“Zoya Tikhonovna will be traveling with her troupe for another two weeks at least. So we have some time. Will this accommodation be satisfactory to you?”

I thought he must have noticed me curling my lip at the decorations, but he was looking at Sanya.

“Yes, Knyazhich Semyon. Thank you.” Sanya bowed quite properly, and Semchik grimaced.

“We should be thanking Dasha,” I said. “If she were here.”

“If you wanted to see Dasha, you shouldn’t have run off to Veliko,” Semchik snapped. Then he put his hand to his brow and rubbed. “I’m sorry. It has been a long day, and I need to get back. You’re to stay here in this apartment until you hear from me. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Knyaz Semyon.”

“Well, it was this or a prison cell, Iyu. Would you prefer that?”

“No, Semyon. I’m sorry, I can’t help teasing.”

“I know. I know. It’s still very strange.” He shook his head. “I’m sure Dasha will be by later. Now, I really have to get back.” He gave us both one last sidelong look before leaving.

“He hasn’t told Dasha,” I said as soon as the door closed behind him. “If he had, she would be here. Even if it were to kill me, she would be here. You know, after my trial, Dasha tried to talk to me. She was the only one.”

Sanya nodded.

“I always thought one day Dasha was going to snap and kill Semchik or Aksana. Maybe both. She worked so hard and never got anything for it. She thought she would make the better knyaz, and if she’d just been born a boy, she would’ve been. But even if she’d been born a boy, I think Aksana would have favored Semchik. Dasha was too desperate for her approval. Aksana could smell it. Of course, if she’d been born a boy, she wouldn’t have had to be so desperate.”

“Why do you think she didn’t?” Sanya asked.

“What, kill Semchik and Aksana? Well, she loves them, of course. Dasha may be angry, Dasha may know the world is unfair and it may give her a chip on her shoulder, but Dasha is nothing if not loyal.”

I said that looking down at the shining wood of Dasha’s lover’s sofa, but when I looked up at Sanya, at his placid eyes and steady, quiet presence, I laughed.

His brow raised slightly, which I knew meant, “What?”

“Nothing. It’s just, I’m saying that about Dasha when you’re standing right here. Talking about Dasha’s loyalty, but you. You’re the most loyal person I’ve ever known. Maybe that anyone’s ever known.”

“I was not loyal to Knyaz Artyom. I was not loyal to my family.”

“You were loyal to me. Twenty years of loyalty I didn’t deserve.” And, knowing that was completely unsatisfactory in the face of the rest of the world, I added, “You were loyal to Yelena.”

He stood there silently, thinking. “I don’t think she would have wanted this,” he said slowly. “But it’s hard to know what she would have wanted. She could not imagine. She would be sad that our parents and I are not together.”

“Sanya, I—”

He put up his hand. “It’s not for you to be sorry about. The world changed because of you, but you do not make decisions for everyone. You do not make decisions for me.” He turned to examine a bookcase like he was done with the conversation.

“Okay,” I said, dumping myself on the sofa and gathering a nest of non-ceramic pillows around me. “I’m very tired. Do you mind if I take a nap?” Semchik had shoved some dumplings of unknown age and provenance on us before he left and promised to have food sent up by “someone trustworthy,” so at least we didn’t have to worry about that.

“If you want to sleep, you should go to bed,” he said.

I groaned, covering my face with a pillow. “Sanya, the sun has barely set.”

“And yet, you are tired.”

I chuckled into the pillow.

I heard him moving closer. “If you sleep like that, you’re going to wake up with a sore neck.”

“I already have a sore neck.” My voice was muffled by the pillow.

“Do you want to make it worse?”

I pulled the pillow down to peer up at him as he loomed over me. “You really are a father, aren’t you?”

He favored me with a soft smile.

“But you’re not my father.” (Even if you’re old enough to be, I thought but did not say.) “So you can’t send me to bed.”

He appeared to consider this, then bent down, slid one arm under my knees and another around my back, and picked me up.

“Sanya!” I kicked, putting up token resistance. “Are you even using myortva?”

“I don’t waste myortva,” he said.

“I need to start training,” I said as he carried me into the dark bedroom. “People should have a harder time picking me up.” I was too big to properly fit in his arms, really, but he wasn’t struggling much, either.

He laid me down on the bed, and I let go of his neck reluctantly. “You have to undress yourself,” he said.

“I’m just so tired.” I threw my arms across my face and wiggled my toes in my boots.

Slow exhale through the nose. He sat down at my feet and started in on my laces.

He wasn’t halfway done before a sick lump formed in the pit of my stomach. “Sanya, stop. It’s okay; I’ll do it myself.”

“I don’t mind,” he said.

“I do.” I sat up. “I know you don’t want me, and I understand, I really do. This is strange, everything about what is going on is strange, and I know your life didn’t end when mine did. But my life did end eighteen years ago, and eighteen years ago I loved you, so I still love you now, and I don’t think I can handle this.” I gestured at his fingers on my laces.

He moved his hands into his lap and looked down at them.

I twisted my fingers to keep myself from jumping up, throwing my arms around his neck: Never mind; you can do what you want; please keep touching me; please don’t leave me alone.

So I let that silence stretch out until it was painful, until I was about to give in and abase myself because I could not stand to lose him now, and then he said, “I’ve loved you for more than half of my life now.”

“Then why?” I laughed desperately. “I love you, and you love me, and we’re not so different, just because your body has aged and mine hasn’t. Can’t we just pretend I was gone instead of dead? I just went away for a long time.” I scooted up to be next to him and put my hand on his shoulder. “Can’t we?”

He turned to me. Put his hands on the sides of my face. “This is what you want?” he said.

In the shadows, his lines were smoothed out, he could’ve been himself twenty years ago. I could pretend. “Yes.”

His eyes searched my face for a moment, holding me there. I didn’t dare breathe.

He kissed me. I kissed him. I pulled him on top of me as I lay back down, I would have opened my chest and pulled him into me entirely if I could have.

***

He still slept like a shrimp, so I slept curled up around him, my chest pressed to his back, arms wrapped around him, so I could make sure he didn’t disappear like he did the last time something like this happened.

At least this time I wasn’t left needing to yank myself.

Oh, I didn’t even feel like joking. I would in the morning, I was sure, but right then, I just wanted to be happy. I just wanted to feel his skin on my skin, the heat of his body, the slow, steady rhythm of his heartbeat. How did he keep his heart so calm? Mine never slowed down. It rattled against his spine like a die shaking in a cup.

He smelled less like the earth now, and it occurred to me they must have washed the highlands off of him while they held him in prison. Washed the smell of his home away, shaved his beard. The thought of the manacles on him still made me sick, sick that they’d done it, sick that he’d let it happen. That he’d had to let it happen.

None of that now. That was over. That would never happen again.

I squeezed him tighter, and he made a low sleep sound and shifted in my arms.

I couldn’t sleep like this, not with one arm trapped under him and going numb. But tired as I was, I didn’t want to let go. I didn’t want to go to sleep and wake to him having slipped away, wake to the black lake and emptiness.

I kissed his shoulder, his neck, just behind his ear, and he shifted again, tossing his head at the tickle. Part of me wanted to wake him up, ask him if he wanted to do it again, but I wanted to keep his sleep self with me. He was different in his sleep. Unguarded. If he could find out how to be guarded in his sleep, I had no doubt he would. I had gotten pretty good, over my time in Veliko, at sleeping with one eye open, jumping awake at the smallest noises. If he’d ever had that, I supposed he’d lost it at some point in the intervening decades. He ought to sleep more lightly now that life was dangerous again, and maybe I’d tell him that, but not tonight. I should learn how to sleep at all when I wasn’t drinking, but not tonight.

Tonight, it was okay if I lay awake with him in my arms.