The forger's offer hung in the air like a trap glinting in dim light — a thread of promise stretched over a pit. Protection, safe passage, the reach of a hidden network — everything Kato needed to survive. But the price was bondage. She would trade one kind of danger for another.
The woman she once was — the dutiful schoolteacher's daughter — might have recoiled. But that woman had died in Tbilisi. The one who stood here had crossed mountains, outwitted secret police, and learned to bleed without flinching.
She didn't panic. She didn't refuse. She treated the forger's offer for what it was: a negotiation.
"Your offer is… interesting, Yasha," she said, deliberately using his name. Her tone was calm, steady. She picked up a carved letter opener from his desk, studying it like a cat watching prey. "Protection is valuable. But your 'friends' are criminals. Working with them carries its own risks — betrayal, raids, rival gangs. If I'm to take those risks, the terms must be clear. And the reward must be worth it."
Yasha leaned back, smiling slowly. The woman across from him wasn't prey. She was a player.
"I'm listening," he said.
"First, the work." She set down the letter opener with a sharp click. "I'll be a courier, not a mule. I carry messages, small packages, information. No weapons, no narcotics, nothing that stinks of murder or poison. I'll keep plausible deniability."
"Reasonable," Yasha said with a nod.
"Second," she continued, her eyes clear, her voice firm. "At every stop, I want the name, the face, and the passphrase of my contact before I travel. I won't wander city to city like a stray dog. I'll move as part of a chain — professional, organized."
"Also reasonable," he said, his tone turning thoughtful.
"Third," she said, leaning forward, "my price. Safe passage is not payment. It's the cost of doing business. My fee is information."
He raised an eyebrow. "Information?"
"Yes," she said. "Your people hear things. At stations, in taverns, in police barracks. I want to know what the Okhrana is doing between here and the north. Where the checkpoints are. Who's been arrested. Which Bolsheviks are still free. You will keep me informed. You'll be my eyes as well as my hands."
For a long moment, Yasha just looked at her. She was taking his offer and reshaping it, forcing him to give her his most valuable currency — intelligence.
Then he laughed, a short, admiring sound. "Saints preserve us. The stories about Koba's wife don't do you justice. You've got ice in your veins." He studied her for another beat, still smiling. "But information costs me favors and blood. You're asking a high price."
"And you're asking to employ the most wanted woman in the Caucasus," Kato said evenly. "You're already taking a risk. The question is whether you'll get enough out of it to make it worthwhile."
It was a bluff. She knew she couldn't survive alone. But her delivery was flawless — cool, unwavering.
Yasha's expression shifted. The calculation behind his eyes was quick, sharp, and mercenary. He saw her value: brave, intelligent, useful. Not a pawn, but a piece worth moving across the board.
"Done," he said at last, slapping his ink-stained palm on the table. "You have a deal, Anna Petrova."
The name — her new name — landed like a seal on a contract.
"You'll be our Nightingale," he said. "And we'll be your wings."
He reached beneath his desk and pulled out a small, canvas-wrapped cylinder, both ends sealed with dark wax.
"This is your first delivery," he said. "Take it to a watchmaker in Rostov-on-Don. His name's Abram. The address is stitched into your new passport. The passphrase is, 'Does the clock tell the true time?' He'll reply, 'Only for those with the patience to wait for it.' He'll give you your next instructions — and the first of your reports."
He slid the package and papers toward her. "The train leaves in two hours. Don't miss it."
Kato took the package, feeling its weight — her freedom and her new chain bound together. She tucked it into her satchel beside the fresh papers. Anna Petrova, widow from Odessa, now walked the earth. Ekaterina Svanidze was gone.
Outside, Kutaisi pulsed with noise and color. The market was alive with shouts, the smell of spice and sweat thick in the air. Kato moved through it like a ghost, no longer a fugitive but a woman on a mission. For the first time in weeks, she felt purpose instead of fear.
Then she saw them.
Four Okhrana agents pushing through the crowd — broad-shouldered men in plain coats, hard eyes scanning faces. They were interrogating a fruit seller, their questions punctuated with shoves. One of them held a sheet of paper — a photograph.
Kato's blood turned cold. She couldn't see the image, but she knew. They were closing the net.
She lifted her scarf higher over her head and turned away, forcing her steps to remain calm, steady. The satchel pressed against her side like a heartbeat. The forged papers, the sealed parcel — her only chance.
Without looking back, she slipped into the crowd.
Not as Kato, the hunted widow of a revolutionary.
But as Anna Petrova — the courier, the spy, the Nightingale — vanishing north into the storm.