She leaned into me, and I held her.
She was sobbing, and her whole body shook with it.
She hadn’t cried once since I’d met her. Not when I pulled her out of the rubble at Minerva’s headquarters. Not outside of it when the dead were taken out on stretchers. Not the morning when she found her grandmother. I’d been waiting for it and worried it would never come.
I don’t know how long I held her. I would all night if she needed me to.
Then I felt her shivering against me.
I gathered her into my arms, lifted her, and stood. She put her arm around my neck and pressed her face into my shoulder.
As I started up the path toward the main camp, Lyra and Henry were running down the shore toward us.
“Bishop? What?—”
“I’ve got Katarina. She’s not hurt.”
I glanced back over my shoulder. “Anna is okay. Dagger has her.”
More of the team ran past us toward the shore. They didn’t ask, and I didn’t stop.
I carried her up the path through the birches and onto the porch of the main camp, where the front door was standing open.
Inside, the fire was low in the hearth. I sat down on the sofa in front of it with her in my lap. She didn’t lift her head off my chest. She was still crying. I brushed her hair off her face and held on.
For a while, I just held her. Then I let myself think.
Vasiliev was dead. There was no way he could’ve survived the shot that hit him. Now that Lyra and Henry were with Anna, Dagger and the rest of the team could take care of Vasiliev’s body and the boat and Anna’s weapon. By dawn, there’d be no trace of what had happened tonight.
These were all things I knew how to handle. It was Anna’s involvement that I couldn’t wrap my head around.
The front door opened behind me. Lyra approached first, sat beside us on the sofa, and stroked Katarina’s hair. She turned into it briefly, then rested her cheek where it had been on my chest.
Henry came in behind her with Ann, who was wrapped in a wool blanket. He guided her to the room’s second sofa.
When Julian came in last and shut the door behind him, I was somewhat taken aback by his presence. On the other hand, he and Anna seemed to share a special bond, but it wasn’t my place to question it.
He sat in the chair but didn’t remove his coat.
The room was quiet for several minutes, then Anna spoke.
“There are things I need to tell you.”
“Anna.” Henry’s tone was soft and his words soothing. “It can wait until morning.”
“It can’t. I’m sorry.” She looked from me to Katarina, then Lyra, and lastly, returned her gaze to Henry. “I’ll explain, but to do that, I have to start at the beginning.”
Lyra stood, joined her mother on the sofa, put her hand on her mother’s knee, and waited.
“You all know Julian as the man who has looked after Onteora since our family was forced to flee to Switzerland. That’s true, but it’s not the whole of it. Julian, Horatio, and I met when the three of us worked for MI6. We were so young at the time, not that we thought so then. We’ve been in one another’s lives for a very long time.”
I glanced at Julian, who was expressionless. That he was former MI6 made it unsurprising.
“After Horatio’s death, Polina and I worried about this property. More than anywhere we’d ever lived, Onteora was the place that meant the most. We couldn’t bear the idea that whoever was responsible for Horatio’s and Mikhail’s deaths, along with Pavel’s and Amelia’s, might try to destroy it. While we didn’tthink anyone would be able to trace it to us, it wasn’t a risk we were willing to take.
“Julian had recently retired from SIS, but was still serving as a consultant to MI6.” Anna turned to him, and he nodded once. “I contacted him, asking for his help in finding someone who could watch over it. He volunteered.” She glanced at him again, and this time, he spoke.
“You were reluctant to take me up on it at first, but I wore you down.”
