The White City by Elizabeth Bear

into deep pleats around her body. “The dress stands up to dirt,” she said, primly, and took his arm to lead him out into the main room of the club. Belliye Noche boasted other spaces in addition to this grand one—there were coatrooms and a conversation area in the old entryway, and the chancel had become a sitting room—but the former nave was both spectacular and comfortable. The windows had been dimmed inside with translucent glass, and cozy nooks established through the strategic use of Chinese screens and groups of furniture. There were two or three of the blood present, and a half-dozen courtesans and staff, but the old nave was capacious enough to seem barely inhabited even so.
    Sebastien allowed Phoebe to guide him. She led him to a niche below the clerestory, the sort of corner where lean shadows loomed in apparent despite of the gaslamps and a velvet chaise collected dust. It was unoccupied: Sebastien would have hated to stumble upon a feeding pair who had withdrawn for some discretion, which was a hazard of public spaces in an underground club. Instead, Phoebe settled onto the wine velvet and patted the chaise to encourage him to join her.
    Feeling rather like a summoned housecat, Sebastien obliged. The ancient horsehair stuffing barely compacted under his weight. “Old and dry,” he said.
    Phoebe patted the couch again, a mistress of willful misinterpretation. “But still serviceable. I found Irina Stephanova.”
    “How?”
    “You know my methods, Watson,” she mocked, so Sebastien leaned ostentatiously away from her, and she was forced to add: “Do you really think he’s inspired by you?”
    “Art always outstrips the reality,” Sebastien said. “Phoebe—”
    “I am sorry.” She made a moue of contrition. “But do you know how rarely I have the advantage on you? I spent the morning inquiring after her in artist’s clubs and with her friends, and it turned out some few of them had heard your name, and all of them recognized the ring. That, and the tenor of my questioning, must have served to convince someone of the necessity of informing her of my inquiries. She met me for dinner and has agreed on my assurances to turn herself in.”
    “To Dyachenko?”
    “To you,” Phoebe said. “She’s waiting for you elsewhere. She did not wish to be seen, and coming here—would guarantee being seen.”
    Sebastien took her hand, feeling its warmth, its pulse, the curl of her fingers around his. “You’ve done well, Phoebe.”
    She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I know.”
    He nerved himself—there were things no weight of years made any easier—and lowered his lips to her ear to whisper, “and I am sorry about Jack.”
    She lifted her head and turned to stare at him. “Don’t you dare take responsibility for that.”
    “Phoebe—”
    “Don’t,” she interrupted, “you dare. I was there, Sebastien, and I know how little it was your fault.”
    “I would have saved him for you if I could.”
    “And for him, and for yourself,” she said, so agreeably he found himself looking for the trap. Confronted with his attention, she sighed and rolled her eyes. “You act as if this is the first time I’ve been widowed, Sebastien, and while I am not so accomplished upon it as you are, I know how to do this. And so do you.”
    He stared, and shrugged, and said, “Touché. Does it hurt less the second time, then?”
    “You don’t know?”
    He had to think about it. And then he said, wearily, “Let us say for the moment that I do not recall.”
    It was her turn to stare, a strand of her hair—the color of winter butter—straggling across her forehead. A moment only, and then she brushed the hair back into her bun and said, “Yes, well, rather, then. Shall we go and collect Irina Stephanova?”
    “Yes,” Sebastien said, biting back relief. “Let us do so by all means.”

Moscow
    Police Palace, Kremlin
    January 1897
     
    Imperial Police Inspector Kostov was a tall man, brown-haired,