Turning to the familiar stone steps, she padded down to the rooms she had made her own. The door was closed, as always. She let herself in, turned on the lights, and smiled at the beautifully ordered chaos. Mama had her oils and watercolors and canvas. Lily had her solutions and gels and baths. But this was her art. Perhaps it wasn’t art that would make her a household name, an accolade Euphemia Blackwell could claim.

But it made a difference.

And that was what kept her coming back here day after day, developing and altering photos for the admiral. Her mother wouldn’t approve, not of the second part of her job. But her country needed her. Needed her skills.

She settled at her table and skimmed her eyes over what Hall had left for her—two photos to combine by three o’clock, when the field agent in need of it would pick it up before disappearing into the Continent again.

She smiled and turned for her scalpel. Getting out on time today would be no trouble at all.

2

Zivon Marin gripped his briefcase and breathed a silent prayer. It had taken him weeks of watching, waiting, and gauging to be ready to sit in this chair before Admiral Hall’s desk. He had known the moment a return telegram reached him in Paris that he would work quite happily with his czar’s allies against the Central Powers. But that hadn’t meant he could trust them with his own country’s secrets.

The admiral gave him the easy smile of a man who knew well he held this portion of Zivon’s future in his hands. “How are you settling in, Marin? Any questions for me?”

Zivon splayed a hand across the flat side of his briefcase. “Yes, actually. I received my paycheck today—thank you. But I have not a bank here in London.”

“Ah, of course. I’ll refer you to mine. Well, many of us here use it. I’ll just jot the name down, shall I? And the direction?” Even as he spoke, the admiral pulled forward a piece of paper and a pen.

Zivon waited for him to scratch a few of the words onto the paper. Let him engage his mind in something positive, something easy. Then he drew in a breath and moved to the real subject he’d wanted to broach. “There is one other thing, sir. Directly before I fled Russia, my colleagues and I were still trying to do the work we had always done, despite Russia pulling out of the war. I intercepted a message that may be of interest to you.”

Hall paused, pen halfway through a word, and blinked up at him. “Oh?”