Valera had cleared as much of it off Ledjo as she could. With his raindrop eyes closed, he’d looked almost peaceful, an angel somehow trapped in hell. With her body covered in ash and her hands cut and filthy from digging, Valera had looked like some kind of beast from the abyss. She wanted to bathe Ledjo in her tears, but they wouldn’t come.

Povenets B had taken Valera’s freedom, and now it had taken her child. She’d almost given in, lain down next to Ledjo and let the rubble consume her as well, but something deep in her mind had compelled her not to. It forced her up and onto her feet. She couldn’t stop herself. She left her son in his horrible, open grave, and she walked home.

The further she got from the plant, the quieter the streets were. She passed building after building with cracked or smashed windows, and the odd person still running towards or away from the centre of the naukograd. By the time she reached her house she was completely alone. But even if Zukolev’s entire battalion of guards had been standing at her door, she wouldn’t have seen them in her shock-fuelled trance.

She stepped into the silent house and saw that the destruction had even reached inside here. Shards of glass from the windows that faced towards the power plant covered the floor, and a thick crack ran up the wall that she and Ledjo used to paint their fantastical worlds and stories on. She briefly looked at her faint half-reflection in one of the larger slices of glass. It was bad luck to look in a broken mirror—if she could have constructed the thought she would have asked the universe what more bad luck she could possibly endure.

She moved into the kitchen, and opened a cupboard next to the sink. She removed the thin wood panel she’d installed in it a year ago to create a fake back wall, and pulled two backpacks out of the hidden recess. She strapped the large one across her shoulders, and cradled the smaller one in her arms. Then, not rushing or racing, or looking at all like she was conscious of what she was doing, she walked away from her home and out through the unguarded entrance to Povenets B.

In her haze of trauma, she’d hiked west through the forest that surrounded the secret city until she hit a road. She’d continued on, one pack across her shoulders and the other in her arms, until the driver of a small truck picked her up just outside a village called Pindushi at the top of Lake Onega.