JUDAS â
Irina woke up and was out the door early that morning, slipping any tails that Isaacâor even Yelenaâhad told to follow her. Good practice (paranoia) had her switch faces twice before she went in to a coffee shop to get two drinks, and once more before she made her way to the park.
When Masha first opened the underworld to Irina and inducted her into the Scarlet Angels, Irina had been an innocent. She had looked up to Sofia, for her strength and determination. They had been close, and Sofia had used that closeness and hurt her with the truth. After three years, Irina grudgingly understood that she would never have known the truth if it werenât for Sofia. Â
âMaybe they originally wanted to just keep swans in this park.â Irina looked around, âI wonder where the geese are.â
The park had a few determined joggers, teenagers loitering, and people striding purposefully about their day. Irina passed Sofia one of the coffees, âAny little ducklings imprint on you, or do the fledglings still not suspect?â
She needed to know if it was safe enough to drop the borrowed face.
  âProbably flown to warmer waters,â she murmurs. âAnd who could blame them, really?â Sofiaâs eyes trace along the edges of the ice. Perennially frozen, even in summer. Itâs a shock that anyone charted this part of Revda, had braved the snows and storms, had set root in this unforgiving soil. What sick bastard had looked upon this iced-over hellscape, and thought home? âWouldnât you, if you could?â
  And that raises another question, one thatâs much too early for her to want to consider right now. I told you the truth, so why havenât you run? she wants to ask. Why havenât you made a new life for yourself? Donât you see thereâs only a graveyard here?
  She turns, at last, to Irina - at least, to the face that Irina wears today. She knows. All those years spent together, how could she not know? Sofia nods her thanks for the warm cup. Through her gloves, she feels the hot liquid begin to thaw her fingertips, the sensation warring with the chill of the air around them. âThey know better than to loiter where they do not belong,â Sofia answers by way of explanation. Itâs too early for that, she knows. When the city is just waking up, in brittle light of the morning dusk, they have their privacy, however brief. A ghost of a smile lingers upon Sofiaâs lips. âA lesson that weâve both yet to learn, Iâm afraid.â











