Zivon pulled his attention from the room itself and directed it instead toward where Blackwell had leaned down to greet the two young women who occupied the settee by the unlit fireplace. He couldn’t see much of them through their father, but their laughter and quick answers sounded cheerful. Innocent.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken with girls who were cheerful and innocent. A year? Two? Life in Russia had been so tense for so long. . . .

“Allow me to make introductions.” Blackwell stepped back, revealing his daughters. Zivon couldn’t tell at a glance who was the elder, but both were pretty, in that Western European way. One with brown hair, the same shade as her father’s, and the other with red-gold. “Girls, this is Mr. Zivon Marin, formerly a kapitan in the czar’s Imperial Navy. After the Revolution, he was forced to flee and has found a home here in London, where he assists Admiral Hall in his endeavors.”

Were he his brother, he could simply grin and have them as instant friends. But that had never been Zivon’s way. With his back as straight as a train’s rail ought to be, he bowed.

“Marin, this is my elder daughter, Miss Lilian Blackwell. And my younger, Miss Ivy Blackwell.”

They both smiled at him as he straightened. Easy, welcoming smiles.

Or maybe not so easy. His gaze snagged on the crystal-blue eyes of the elder, Lily, and his breath snagged with it. Her eyes . . . they were much like her father’s. They carried within them a knowledge of the storms always rumbling and flashing on the horizon. An understanding of these times, the good and the bad. A . . . a seeing. He didn’t know what else to call it. Not a gathering of the facts, of the patterns that he sought. It was something different. Something he couldn’t name. But something that made him think she understood things he didn’t.

3

PETROGRAD, RUSSIA

Nadya Sokolova kept her back straight and her hands clasped and wished she’d been a little more generous with her hairpins that morning. A blond curl had slipped free and was tickling her cheek, presenting a picture she knew very well didn’t make her look capable, much less intimidating.

To compensate, she clenched her teeth and lifted her chin another notch. She still wore her uniform from the First Russian Women’s Battalion of Death. The battalion had disbanded recently, after most of them took the ill-advised stand against the Bolsheviks—defending the provisional government, true. But she hadn’t been so stupid, and these new superiors knew it. So she still wore the uniform, as it looked fiercer than everyday clothes would. And gained her fewer leering glances.

She kept her back straight, but a finger twitched. How long did it really take to read a telegram?