His eyes scanned the lane, hunting for curls turned gold in the sun. He grinned at the mere thought of Nadya trying to act nice and sweet, as he’d told her she must do when knocking on doors. She was many things, his Nadezhda. But nice and sweet weren’t on the list.

His mother would have hated her. Hated her determination to buck tradition, hated the way she spat out the statement that there was no God, no need for family, nothing worth fighting for but the State. And Zivon . . .

The grin faded, gathered, twisted into a frown. Zivon wouldn’t like her either, but that was no surprise. He and Zivon could never agree about anything. Not their books, not their friends, not their beliefs, not their politics.

Definitely not their politics.

But even so. They were brothers. And Evgeni should have tried harder to stop him from making such an enormous mistake. He should have tried harder to learn his plan. To read a few of those thoughts ever flying through Zivon’s mind. He should have actually spoken to him last Christmas of the dangers his czarist leanings would pose, rather than spending their few hours together teasing him about Alyona.

The door opened again behind him, and the woman stepped out, absent the children but holding more than a single photograph, that was for certain. Evgeni’s eyes went wide when he saw she had a whole album.

Not just a whole album. Zivon’s album. “All of them!”

The woman’s smile was tight with guilt. “The children looked through them, pretending it was a magazine. You are in here. It must be yours, then, oui?”

“Oui.” Or close enough, anyway, that his hand shook with awe as he reached out. “May I?”

“Of course. It is yours.” She handed the album over.

He flipped open the cover, sucking in a breath at the image that stared at him. Him and Zivon, from their last Christmas with both Batya and Matushka. They were both in uniform—a contrast of army and navy, field officer and intelligencer. Both grinning, showcasing the two traits they actually shared. Batya’s eyes. Matushka’s smile.

So different, they had always been. Differences so clear in this frozen moment. Zivon, with the spectacles that bespoke too many hours of reading. Evgeni, with the scrapes on his knuckles from his last fistfight.

Yet this was the first photograph in his brother’s album. Not Alyona or Matushka or Batya or any of his colleagues. Them. Together.

The woman folded her arms across her middle. “Your brother?”

He could only nod.

“Did he . . . not survive the crash?”

“He did. But we were separated. I have not seen him since.”