Page 90 of Katya and the Young God

And she doesn’t know, exactly, what he went through out here, what he did from that small cabin. Going from a sprawling empire of power and wealth and influence to...that.

“Makes sense,” she says, and there’s a small scratching sound at the door, and they both turn to look towards it, before she pushes herself up, hand going to the knife taped on the underside of her bed frame.

“It’s Stepan,” he says, almost lazily, with a raised eyebrow at her hand. “You had that taped to the bed?”

“You never know when you need to stab someone at night.” She places it delicately on the nightstand.

“How many —"

“Three. Three times.” She shrugs on her robe, before letting the poor dog in.

14

They spend a cozy rest of the day mostly just in blankets, with a fire in the fireplace, going over maps of the compound where Selene is being held, drawn on graph paper with exacting measurements.

Katya’s tentatively impressed, both with his recall and his skill at drawing out floor plans. There are several blank spots where he had no access to, but it’s surprisingly well drawn out.

He doesn’t quite hover, more like watches her obsessively, as she switches from floor to floor, from page to page, like he’s worried that she’ll judge him poorly for it.

But she’s seen battle and infiltration plans with less fidelity to dimensions.

“You should take up architecture,” she mutters, sitting back, smoothing her hand over the sheets. “Design school, something.”

He gives her a look like he’s not sure what she’s getting at, like he thinks she might be insulting him. “Why?”

“Because I’m used to rough sketches, not actual blueprints,” she says, and her mind is off, racing.

The compound is a four-story warehouse, with offices around a central main room. Everyone can see into the central room, with roving patrols down the open-air hallways.

Selene sits in a glass and copper box in the middle, where everyone can see in, where everyone can see what they do to her.

It makes exfiltration difficult without active teleporting skills, more so with the highlight that Pieter drew on to show rune security around the cell.

“They keep lights on her at all times?” She asks, staring at the edge of the cell. It’s too clean, too well put together to be built just for Selene.

“As far as I saw.” He leans forward, jabbing his finger at the small room the furthest away on the fourth floor. “They kept me there, so I couldn’t see at night, but the guards didn’t vary up their paces, and the light was always on in the hallway.”

She had guessed that, given the level of detail he put in, but still an important detail.

He leans against her, and despite the affection and warmth, fatigue seeps into his every line.

“You should go lay down,” she says, keeping her eyes on the blueprints, knowing, just knowing, that it’s gonna take her some good hard staring to actually get a plan in line with what resources they have available. “You did a lot of activity, and you’re still recovering.”

Out of the corner of her eye, he gives her a look, and it’s a look of testing, of figuring things out, of debating with himself, and she lets him sit with that. Lets him figure things out, lets him ask, lets him convince himself that’s the best way to do this.

It doesn’t take long before he unfolds himself from the couch, with a soft, affectionate hand on her shoulder, before he wordlessly plods into the bedroom, and something warm and entirely terrifying unfolds inside Katya’s stomach.

Stepan raises his head from where he’s sprawled out in front of the fire, gives Katya an accusing look, before he follows Pieter into the room. There’s the telltale flop of the dog onto her giant bed, as the dog takes his usual place that he’s been sleeping even when Pieter was gone.

Katya waits, until the sound of breathing has evened out, the sure sound of someone asleep, before she shrugs on the snow jacket, clutching her phone in her fist, and steps outside, flinching in the face of the cold wind.

It’s dusk now, almost night, and the clouds part enough to let moonlight illuminate the snow on the ground, casting a strange glow on the trees around the cabin. Like she’s in some alien land, a land full of unknown terrors and treacherous pitfalls.

She lets herself have one moment of freaking out, of being completely unable to act, before she dials on her phone.

It takes Miri only two rings to pick up, and there’s the telltale buzzing sound to give away that she’s probably not somewhere that Katya could easily get to.

“Hey!” Her friend’s voice comes across, cheery despite the miles, and Katya hates the distance, hates that she can’t just drive over to Miri’s apartment, hates that she can’t just impulsively go over, get a hug, something. “Everything okay in the Wild Wild West?”

---