“And I’m only a collection of her memories of me.” Papa scoops up Valentin’s bills and deals again.
“I do have an idea,” Valentin says. He lays the words out as carefully as he plays his next hand, while Papa takes another drag on his cigarette. “Not just helping her recover whatever memories she’s lost. I—I know she doesn’t trust me enough for that, not yet. But if she wants to escape from Rostov, all this…”
“Best not to say too much right now,” Papa says.
“No, you’re right. But if she can forgive me, if she’s willing, then she should meet me in the vault room tomorrow afternoon. One o’clock. We’ll have a few hours to talk before I have to go on a mission with Kruzenko.”
Papa extinguishes his cigarette in his emptied glass. “Not flesh nor feathers—best of luck to you, young man.”
The train rattles around a corner, and the moonlit fog pours in from the window, flooding my view until I slip back into the prickly warmth of sleep.
CHAPTER 29
THE VAULT IS DARK as I feel my way through the narrow corridor. Maybe my dream of Valentin and Papa was just that; or maybe it’s all a trap. My fingers scrape flecks of paint from the walls and an image flits through me of others touching this place—servants, liveried and trussed up, seeking refuge from their bygone rulers decades ago.
Something shuffles at the end of the hall. Scraping sound; smell of sulfur; light. Valentin’s face looms out of the darkness as he lowers his match to a large candle, then takes it around the room, lighting further candles from the first.
“Are we performing some sort of ritual?” I ask. “You have Saint George’s finger bone on display in here?”
He shakes his head. “I had to use the light outlet to power the record player.”
I smile despite myself and sink down cross-legged onto the floor. He appears to have made some effort to sweep up the dust and fragments of disintegrating drop sheets. The record player is open before me, built into a square plaid-patterned suitcase. “And what does this have to do with—”
“Shh. A surprise.” He finishes fussing with the candles and sits opposite me. After flipping through his stack of record sleeves, he pulls a black disc out without letting me see the album cover.
“Come on, Valya. I hate surprises.”
“Most psychics do.” He slides the disc onto the turntable. “Close your eyes.”
I wrap my arms around my chest. “I’m really not in the mood for games. What you’ve been doing to me…”
He winces, eyes closing like a searchlight extinguishing. “I know I shouldn’t have kept it from you, Yulia. But at the same time, I had to—as long as Rostov trusted me to do it, then I could monitor what he was doing, protect you from facing him alone…”
“I don’t need your protection,” I say, my face flushing. “Not anyone’s. Why does everyone think I’m so helpless? I can take care of myself.”
“But don’t you see? That’s just it. You can’t stand up to Rostov by yourself—none of us can. We have to work together. But they’ve turned us against each other this way, everyone spying on everyone else…”
“Please. Don’t. You were right before, when you showed me what happened when you tried to run. It’s safest for us in here.” I lean back on my palms.
Valentin nods, fingers circling the rim of the record. “For now, yes. But once we catch the Americans…”
I tremble, squeezing my eyes shut. “No.” His words are making me sick. He’s filling me with the foulest disease I can imagine.
He’s filling me with hope.
“I want to run again. Of course I do. But Rostov—” Buried memories rumble deep in my mind. I cannot let them free. The blistering white heat, the thud in my chest and temple—No. There are thoughts Rostov must not see. But their existence, their hearts beating under the floorboard, remind me what he’s capable of.
“Yes,” Valentin says, “but even Rostov cannot catch everything.” He takes a deep breath. “Do you trust me, Yulia?”
“No.” I don’t even pause to think.
Valentin smiles. “Fair enough. But I think we want the same things—a better use for our powers, a better life than ‘good enough.’ Do you want them badly enough to try?”
Yes. The answer comes from deep in my bones, etched onto my genetic code. I want answers, I want freedom, I want something more than the comfortable but helpless life that Sergei says is ours. I want to know why Mama has changed her mind; I want to see the soft, tender thoughts under my brain’s bruises.
“All right.” I shift my weight and squeeze my eyes shut. “I’m closing my eyes.”
The needle drops. Scratchy sounds creep from the record like melting ice. “I was given this music as a reward for sifting through your dreams. I think you deserve to have it as much as I do,” Valentin says.