“Apologizing won’t resurrect the dead,” Vanya said.

“I can’t change the past, but I can promise you both this,” Mikhail said, looking from Vanya to me. His face hardened in resolve. “Once we kill Koschei, once we end this war, I’ll revoke all discriminatory laws against minorities and disband the Tribunal. I’ll take power away from the nobility and give it to the common people, and you, Ivan, I’ll pardon you. You’ll be able to go home.”

The anger drained from Vanya’s face. Exhaling slowly, he turned away. “Kupalo will never be my home again, Mikhail. I’m beginning to think it never was in the first place... But thank you.”

With its exposed brick walls and windows as narrow as castle arrow-slits, the lobby of Stzernova Company had all the aesthetic of a prison cell. Vanya had stretched out in one of the chairs the moment we entered, but a nervous energy kept me pacing and glancing repeatedly at the double doors.

If Inga had once provided uniforms for the Otzvuk, her clientele appeared to have shifted in the months since Kupalo’s Strannik counsel had requested her aid. Two Fraktsiya guards had been posted outside her factory’s doors, and yet more milled around the factory’s loading bay, stacking crates onto a waiting wagon. We had been forced to leave Mikhail at the forest’s edge with our weapons and supplies and continue ahead with his horse roped to my own.

Maybe it was the grinding purr of steam-powered engines, or the questions Vanya’s accusations had put into my head, or the fact that each moment, Galina’s captors were straying farther and farther away from us, but I couldn’t sit still. Standing didn’t help, only made the wait slightly more tolerable.

“You look suspicious when you pace like that, Toma,” Vanya said as I began my third circuit around the room.

“You should be, too, considering who’s waiting just outside,” I hissed.

“Relax. I suspect the Fraktsiya didn’t give her much choice in who she makes uniforms for.”

I flinched as the door at the other end of the lobby swung open, expecting Fraktsiya soldiers to flood the room.

A brown-haired woman stepped out, regarding us levelly. “Inga Elenovna will see you now.”

Vanya rose to his feet. “You might as well come, too, Toma.”

The woman led us down the hallway and into a spacious office backlit by two arched windows. Luxurious rosewood furniture occupied the space, and the walls were hung with gilt frames containing swathes of Strannik goldwork.

Behind the malachite-topped desk sat a tall, imposing woman wearing an elegantly tailored dress suit. As we entered, she regarded us with piercing blue eyes as pale as her hair. The bold goldwork adorning the shoulders and hemline of her black silk jacket was the only display of her heritage.

“Ivan Zoravich, I suppose you’re here to return my horses?” Her low voice was clipped by the faintest trace of a Strannitsky accent, subtler than the smoky edge that colored Vanya’s own words, but clearly of the same origin.