Prologue
Winter 1944
The fire had burned low hours ago, now little more than a hushed glow in the hearth. The air inside the safehouse was damp with winter’s edge. Smoke clung to the walls, and outside, the wind scraped branches across the windows like fingernails.
Yelena sat with her back to the wall, curled up into herself, like she was trying to take up less space than she did yesterday. The sleeves of her coat swallowed her hands. It was too big for her now, hadn’t been, once, but the weight she’d lost in the past few months had slipped quietly from her frame, until even her clothes started to look like they belonged to someone else.
Her face was pale, Her eyes sunken with malnutrition and lack of sleep. Her lips chapped. There was a scab on her knuckle, raw from being picked at. The tin in her lap was open, already half-empty.
The second Natasha handed her the can, Yelena had pried it open with the edge of a dull spoon and began to eat, fast and silent. She didn’t look up between bites, and didn't pause to speak. Syrup dripped down her chin. She wiped it away with the back of her sleeve, too focused on the sugar to care.
They hadn’t eaten anything substantial in days. Not since the last convoy failed to arrive. What little they had came from trade, or stealing, or kindness that didn’t come free. The peaches had come from a soldier much older than her, smug in the way men got when they knew they had the upper hand. His breath had smelled rotten, and his body was heavy and smelly on top of hers. Afterwards, when he'd taken what he wanted, he handed over two cans like they cost him nothing.
She hadn’t told Yelena about the encounter. She never would.
As she watched her sister close her eyes and breathe through the last bite, Natasha couldn’t bring herself to regret it. Not when Yelena looked like that. Not when, for the first time in weeks, she looked full. Happy. Like she’d forgotten, just for a moment, that the world was burning around them.
Yelena wiped the spoon clean on the back of her sleeve and leaned against the wall, the sugar had brought color to her cheeks, just a little. Natasha reached into her coat pocket and pulled out her own tin, still unopened.
“Here,” she said quietly, rolling it across the floor. It stopped against Yelena’s ankle.
Yelena blinked, surprised.
“I’m full,” Natasha lied.
Yelena pushed it back. “You’re not.”
Natasha rolled to her side, propped her head in her hand. “I ate a cup of porridge earlier this morning,” she lied again.
Yelena shook her head. “Sugar’s rare. You should keep it.”
Natasha didn’t argue. She just sat up and slid the tin back toward her sister, slower this time. When Yelena didn’t reach for it, Natasha picked it up herself, opened the lid and scooped a bit onto the spoon. She moved forward, nudged Yelena’s hand aside, and pressed the spoon into her mouth.
Yelena scowled but swallowed anyway.
“Bossy,” she muttered, licking the sweetness off her teeth.
Natasha smiled and handed her the can to finish.
They sat like that for a while. Quiet. The wind outside howled against the stone. Yelena kept eating, slower now, like the edge of desperation had dulled. Natasha rested her chin on her knees.
Then, without thinking, she reached out and tapped her fingers gently against Yelena’s arm.
Tap... pause... tap-tap... pause... tap.
Yelena didn’t react at first. Then she turned her head, eyes softer than they’d been all night.
“You still do that?” she asked.
Natasha shrugged. “You looked like you needed it.”
Yelena leaned into the rhythm the way she always had. The tapping was faint, familiar, something older than the war, older than the Red Room, older than even the ashes of the orphanage. It had started in the bunks, when Yelena was too little to sleep without a hand to hold. Natasha had run out of words to soothe her, so she found a rhythm instead.
Now it was muscle memory. Now it was all they had left.
“Don’t go tomorrow,” Yelena said suddenly.
Natasha stilled.
“I have to.”
“They’ll send someone else.”
“They won’t.”
“You said you weren’t ready.”
“I’m ready enough.”
Yelena turned away, pulling a wool blanket tight around her shoulders. “You’re lying.”
Natasha didn’t answer. She reached forward instead and tapped the rhythm again, this time along Yelena’s spine. Slow. Careful.
Yelena’s voice was smaller now. “What if something happens?”
“It won’t.”
“But what if it does?”
Natasha hesitated then, it wasn’t far fetched to think something could go wrong. It most likely would, but…“No matter what happens, I’ll find my way back to you.”
Yelena’s eyes searched hers, wide and sharp and terrified in the flickering dark.
“Promise?” she whispered.
Natasha leaned in close, pressed her forehead to Yelena’s.
“Promise.”