Page 92 of Winterveil

The air was hazy with the lingering remnants of the explosion and all around them were smoldering bits of plaster. She and Klaudia picked their way through the wreckage.

They came to what little remained of the statue: just the base of it, shattered and smoking. Klaudia used a gloved hand to carefully shift the rubble.

Beneath it was a dark chute, like a hole in the earth itself. Their flashlights revealed the rusted rungs of a ladder. Giselle’s heartbeat quickened.

Klaudia descended first; Giselle heard the soft thud as she reached solid ground. The beam of her flashlight carved a path out of the darkness and Giselle followed her down.

She had expected the tunnel to have a dank quality, like a sewer, but instead the air felt stiff and chill. The tenor of their footsteps told Giselle they were walking on metal, smooth and flat. The flashlight jumped across the walls, illuminating stretches of steel with stamped letters in Russian and coiling lengths of unsheathed wire. Giselle shivered.

After a few moments, the ground began to tilt upward. And then, farther down the tunnel, she glimpsed another ladder.

As they approached it, she and Klaudia shared a glance. Klaudia’s stare, her icy gray eyes that had once so cowed Giselle, now filled her with determination. Klaudia’s resolve became her resolve; Klaudia’s certainty her certainty.

Giselle aimed her flashlight up the ladder as Klaudia climbed. As soon as Klaudia reached the top, she beamed her own flashlight down, guiding Giselle’s way.

They emerged into a corridor of sleek gray metal, fluorescent lights humming and flickering along the walls.

“Where do you think they are?” Giselle asked in a whisper. Her whole body was quivering with the adrenaline of desperation. If Nadiya was close, she needed to get to her; it didn’t matter if Nadiya only regarded her with disdain—Giselle couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing her again. Not after everything. Not after how Giselle had left her, alone in the deepening snow. . . . And she couldn’t allow herself to think of what Deckard might be forcing her to endure.

“I don’t know.” Klaudia’s voice was low and tense. Was she as worried about Julian? Giselle had certainly seen the way Julian looked at her, and the more subtle way Klaudia regarded him in return. “But let’s be careful. We—”

The double doors at the end of the hall opened. Two black-clad men charged them, pistols drawn. Giselle was too shocked to feel afraid. Once they had both Giselle and Klaudia frozen at gunpoint, they parted to let Deckard through.

“Nice to see you girls,” he said. His tone was infuriatingly casual. He glanced down at the watch on his wrist. “Forty-six minutes. I underestimated you, Klaudia. The typical clandestine officer-in-training clocks in at seven hours for equivalent challenges.”

“I’m glad you’re impressed,” Klaudia said coldly.

Giselle stared down the barrel of the man’s pistol. It stirred up a memory of her mother’s boyfriend, his face leering and wolfish. She swallowed hard and said, “Where are they?”

“Right this way,” said Deckard. He gestured to his men and they holstered their guns, allowing Giselle a momentary flash of relief. “I’m sure they’ll be overjoyed to see you.”

Anger burned in her throat. Deckard led them through the double doors and down another corridor. There had to be an intricate web of tunnels beneath Traumstadt that allowed his employees to duck in and out of the simulation easily, vanishing and reappearing as if by magic. It would explain the man in the bowler hat and his seemingly impossible solidity.

Finally they came to a floor-to-ceiling glass cell, divided in two. It reminded Giselle horribly of a cage at the zoo. In one cell Julian was hunched on the floor, head buried in the crook of his knees.

In the other cell was Nadiya. Giselle’s heart leaped.

Upon seeing her, Nadiya got unsteadily to her feet. She approached the glass, her face streaked with the dried salt of tears. Her eyes were wide, terrified. She brought one hand up to the glass, fingers trembling, and pressed her palm flat against it.

Giselle mirrored her movement, pressing her hand to the other side of the glass and splaying her fingers to match Nadiya’s. A moment passed, their eyes locked wearily and without words. Her chest felt both wonderfully light and unbearably heavy. It took Giselle another moment to school her thoughts.

Hoarsely, she said, “Let them out.”

Deckard pressed a button on the wall. There was a low rumble and then the click of an electronic lock. Nadiya practically threw herself against the door as it opened.

Giselle caught her before she collapsed to the floor. She lifted her head weakly to meet Giselle’s gaze.

“You’re all right,” Nadiya whispered.

Giselle could only manage to nod.

“There was a speaker. It played a recording of your screams. Over and over again. I thought . . .” Nadiya glared accusingly at Deckard, eyes darkening. “How did you get that sound?”

“My colleagues at the lab have an artificial intelligence program that can extrapolate the sound of someone’s voice at all volumes and tones with input samples. Your compatriots were unharmed.”

Giselle hardly felt unharmed. But a bit of her anger dissipated as she held Nadiya to her chest, grateful for the brief moment of physical contact. She knew that would likely be cut short soon—either by Deckard or by Nadiya herself.

Julian stumbled out of his cell. He braced one hand on the wall, doubled over. His face was a frightful shade of whitish green. Klaudia stood beside him, fingers hovering shakily above his shoulder, as if she wanted to touch him, to comfort him, but couldn’t quite close the small distance between them.