“Their sympathies, then, are still with the common soldier.” Half of Zivon’s mind followed the information well enough. But the other half . . . Why would Evgeni have had a snapshot of those two? The very two who were of interest to Zivon? The two who were alluded to in the last message he’d decoded in Moscow, the one he had been wanting so desperately to recover? Had Zhenya, in fact, been an intelligence agent?
“We had their names on file, from that first photograph Lily dug up.” Hall set the photo down again and leaned back in his chair. For a long moment, he regarded Zivon without speaking. Then, quietly, he said, “You were right about this. And so, I’ve been giving some thought to what you insisted at the start. About the proper reaction from us. You weren’t born a gentleman either, were you?”
Zivon started a bit at the question, so out of the blue.
But not. Not out of the blue at all, from Hall’s perspective. All this potential trouble for the Germans was coming about because two common men had risen through the ranks. Two common men saw the plight of their true comrades and wanted it to end. Two common men were ready to start a rebellion among the soldiers to force their superiors to listen.
Not so different, really, from all that had happened in Russia over the last year. Something Zivon should understand, given his similar story. “No. I was not. My mother’s family had connections to the intelligentsia, but we had none at all to the nobility.”
Which would make Hall question where Zivon’s loyalties had really lain, even in Russia. He, like these Germans, was more common than elite, by rights.
Hall blinked at him. “Popov was going to retire at the new year. You would have taken over command of the division.”
A fact he’d made it a point never to mention here, where he’d been forced to take a position at the bottom. Zivon drew in a long breath but didn’t answer.
Apparently Hall didn’t need one. “I knew Popov well. We set your division up together, mirroring ours here, you know. We still kept in touch—he mentioned you often. Your brilliance. Your talent with the work. He said he could imagine handing the reins over to no one else.”
Zivon’s throat went tight. “I admired him greatly.” He had no idea, now, where his mentor even was. He’d vanished a few weeks before Zivon had fled too. Was he dead? Or safe somewhere in Allied territory? He prayed that it was the latter.
“Had you actually received that promotion, it wouldn’t have come just with a military title.”
Ah, so this was his point. Zivon nodded. “I realize it would have given me access to social circles to which I did not by rights belong.” He ran his thumb over the ruby of his ring. “I am not like those German officers, sir. I know well to whom I owe thanks and loyalty for my advancement. And more, though I can commiserate with how my people suffer, I cannot condone the way the soviets have chosen to institute change. It is not freedom that is extended to all, only to those with whom one agrees. This is what our American allies have taught the world, is it not? True freedom means freedom to disagree.”
Hall smiled and opened his mouth. But before he could say anything more, his office door burst open.
Zivon spun, frowning when he saw Clarke there, out of breath and wild-eyed. “It’s Ivy—the captain just got word and took off in his car. They couldn’t find me fast enough. She’s ill. This flu.”
Zivon pushed to his feet.
“Go.” Hall had already rounded the desk, his own face lined with worry. “If Blackwell has left, it must be bad. Keep me updated.”
He needed no more permission than that. Zivon charged for the door, he and Clarke both running down the corridor, the stairs, and out into the summer sunshine. Neither paused to debate the path to take or how best to get there.
They simply ran. Heedless of the pedestrians that stared at them. Despite how constricting Zivon’s suit jacket felt on his shoulders, how his shoes rubbed his heels. He ran, barely keeping up with Clarke—who usually could barely keep up with him. He ran until the Blackwell house came into view, until he heard his friend’s fists pounding on wood, until the door opened and he could skid to a halt on the polished floors.
He expected Eaton. Perhaps even the captain. But it was Lily who stood in the entryway, gripping the latch. Lily, her eyes empty. Her dress stained.
Clarke’s breath heaved in and out, words barely finding purchase in the air. “Ivy. They said—Ivy.”
Lily’s lips parted, but no sound emerged. Her fingers moved from the latch to the door itself, gripping it with white fingers. Even so, she swayed a bit.
Clarke gripped her by the shoulders, panic turning his usually smiling face into a mask Zivon scarcely would have recognized. “Where is she?”
Lily shook her head. A wisp of hair had slipped free of her chignon at some point, falling directly before her face, but she didn’t even bother to move it aside.
A guttural cry tore from Clarke’s throat. He dashed away from her, toward the stairs neither of them had ever dared to go up, the ones that would lead to the family’s bedrooms. Someone would probably stop him—Mrs. Blackwell, the captain, a servant. But that didn’t seem to occur to him.
Lily still stared at where he’d been. “She’s . . .” Her voice was so faint Zivon could have convinced himself she hadn’t spoken at all. She swallowed, blinked. “Gone.”
“No.” Zivon whispered it.
From above them, Clarke screamed it.
Lily’s eyes slid shut, and he feared she was going to topple, so he did the only thing he could think to do. He pulled her to his chest with one arm and urged the door closed with the other. “Lily. My love. What happened?”
She trembled in his arms, if tremble was a fitting enough word for the violence of her shaking. “We sent word to Daddy as soon as we got her settled. It moved so fast, though. So fast. She must have been hours trying to get home. I don’t know—she was fine this morning, but her lips were blue already when she got here.” A sob overtook her, and her fingers gripped his lapels. “There was nothing I could do. She was gasping for breath, and there was nothing I could do!”
“Milaya.” He held her tightly, far more tightly than he usually would have dared, but he couldn’t fight the thought that she’d fall to pieces if he didn’t.
Some part of him hadn’t believed all the stories about this flu. Not until now. The keening from upstairs, the woman falling apart in his arms, demanded he admit the truth.
He buried his face in Lily’s hair. “I’m so sorry.” The words came out in Russian. He couldn’t convince his tongue to correct itself and didn’t imagine it really mattered. The words meant nothing anyway. She probably wouldn’t even hear them. His arms would speak more loudly, more clearly.
Another sob tore through her, sounding as though it carried her very soul with it. Her knees buckled, though she didn’t fall. She couldn’t, not as firmly as he held her, as tightly as she gripped him. And he wouldn’t let her. Instead, he scooped her up and carried her into the drawing room, to the familiar sofa with its faded pattern, where they’d sat together countless times. Her arms slid around his neck for the journey and showed no signs of letting go when he leaned down to try to put her on the cushions.