He’d been praying since that first conversation with Father Smirnov that the Lord would show him how to forgive. How to crave mercy for his enemies’ souls above justice. He’d been praying God would show him how to love them.

He sank to a seat on the hard wooden chair at the table. This wasn’t the answer he’d anticipated.

Lily stared at the newspaper, but no matter which sentence she focused her gaze upon, it still made no sense. She knew that the Zivon Marin who had captured her heart was in fact the Kapitan Marin named by the reporter. The history outlined in the article was a distorted reflection of the one he’d told her. But the man painted with words in black and white and the man who held her while she sobbed and entrusted her with his heart were entirely different.

Black and white could lie. She knew that better than anyone. It was no great thing at all to take what was there, cut it out, and put it somewhere else instead, where it meant something entirely different.

Mama pushed her tea aside with a shake of her head and tossed a second newspaper onto the table, disgust in every line of her face—and the lines had deepened in the last month. “Rot and rubbish, the lot of it. Zivon Marin is no murderer.”

“No. He is most assuredly not.” And that, in her opinion, was where whoever had orchestrated this had overplayed their hand. Zivon was many things, capable of many things. She’d glimpsed that soul-deep bitterness in him, yes. But it was the sort that came of being wronged, not of doing the wronging. Of feeling the guilt and shame for being unable to save someone who was his responsibility, not for taking actions against her.

And she understood that bitterness now. She hated this influenza with the same passion he’d applied to the Bolsheviks. And though her hate wasn’t aimed at people, it would still eat away at her if she let it.

She tapped a finger to the second column of the story. “This here, this mention of the evidence they were shown. That sounds like photographic evidence, does it not?”

Mama moved around the table to stand beside Lily and skimmed the paragraph in question. “It does. Do you think Blinker has copies?”

“I don’t know. But there’s one certain way to find out.” She spun for the door.

Mama was hot on her heels. “I’m coming with you. I want to help, if I can.”

They didn’t waste time on conversation as they hurried onto Curzon Street. She avoided looking toward Hyde Park, toward the path she usually walked with Ivy. Instead, they turned to Mayfair, directly toward Whitehall. And as the OB came into view, she also tried not to wonder if her halfhearted hours at work were in part responsible for this wretched article.