Page 35 of The Fire Beneath the Frost

He stepped closer, so close our shoulders touched.“I want more.”

I took his hand again.

“Good.Because there’s more.So much more.And I want to show you all of it.”

Timur gestured at a towering sculpture made of welded car parts and porcelain doll heads, one eye still blinking lazily from a broken mechanism.“You see?This is our answer to the West’s pretentious postmodernism.We don’t need Warhol or Basquiat.We’ve got rust and grief.And look how beautiful it is.”

I smiled, leading Dimitri closer to the piece.“So you’re saying trauma is the new paintbrush?”

“Exactly,” Timur said, jabbing a finger in the air like he was conducting a manic symphony.“Art born out of oppression is the most sincere.What do the Americans know of hunger?Of being followed in the street because your ideas are too colorful?”He threw his arms wide, his voice echoing just enough to make a few heads turn.“They have freedom and too much choice.It waters everything down.But here—our constraints sharpen the blade.”

“You sound like a slogan,” I teased, folding my arms.“But even you can’t deny that what they’re doing in New York right now is brilliant.Graffiti, street fashion, the clubs—it’s chaos in the best way.Theirs is art without a ceiling.Ours is… art with a gun at its back.”

Timur grinned.“Which makes ours braver.”

Dimitri’s eyes flicked between us, enthralled.It was adorable.The way his brow furrowed as he tried to keep up with our banter, like he was eavesdropping on a conversation between two galaxies colliding.

We stepped into another room, this one quieter, painted in deep purples and black.A massive sculpture stood in the center: a twisting column of mirrors, feathers, and broken television sets stacked like an altar.Its reflection caught every piece of light in the room and scattered it like a disco ball, mourning its own existence.

And in the corner—two women.Half-shrouded in shadow, their silhouettes whispered against each other, lips meeting in a soft, deliberate kiss.

Dimitri froze.

I felt him stop beside me.His breath hitched, just for a moment.I followed his gaze and saw them, too.

They weren’t trying to hide, not exactly.But their corner was dark enough, and the music loud enough, that they could’ve easily gone unnoticed.Still, to a man like Dimitri—who’d only just touched the edge of this world—it must’ve looked like a miracle.

Timur was called away by someone tugging at his arm, and with a quick, fond pat to my shoulder, he disappeared into the crowd.

Dimitri turned to me, his voice quiet.“Is everyone here… like us?”

I let out a breath, slow.“No,” I said, guiding him back into the corridor with its crumbling brick and flickering light bulbs.“Not everyone.”

He looked disappointed.Or maybe just confused.

I lowered my voice.“Those women in there?They’re taking an enormous risk being that public.I admire it.But it’s dangerous.”

“Why?”he asked, eyes still darting, still trying to understand.

I hesitated, then gave a crooked smile.“Because the state cares a hell of a lot more about what two men do than what two women get up to.Ask the men in the Party—they’re more likely to get off imagining two women together than to find it threatening.We’re the threat.They see us as… political contamination.”

He frowned, clearly turning the words over in his mind.

I thought of Vera.Her careful smile, the sadness behind her eyes.The weight she carried.And then I thought of Dimitri.

He could never know she was one of us.

Dimitri yawned, almost apologetically, and rubbed the back of his neck.

I glanced at a battered clock nailed to a pillar, its hands stuttering around like they were drunk.Nearly three in the morning.

Shit.

“We have to be at work in a few hours,” I murmured, groaning internally.“Come on, let’s go home.This revolution will still be here tomorrow.”

He didn’t argue.Just nodded, sleep softening his features.I led him back out into the Leningrad night, the scent of cold stone and stale beer chasing us down the alley.

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