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Anya looks down at the top of my head. “Elle?”

“Yes, baby?”

“Are you coming with us?”

My fingers stop on the knot.

I make myself finish tying it before I look up at her. Her face is still pale from the hospital, the bruise near her temple yellowing at the edges, but her eyes are wide and hopeful in a way that hurts worse than if she cried.

I smile because I have to. “I don’t know yet,” I say.

That’s a lie. I know.

Nikolai never asked me to come. He talked about arrangements and safety and time, and I stood there like a fool waiting for him to say the one thing he didn’t say.

Anya frowns. “But you have to.”

“I’ll talk to your papa.”

“You promise?”

My throat tightens. “I promise I’ll talk to him.”

She studies me for a second, as if she can tell I am not giving her the real answer, then she puts one hand on my shoulder. “You can sit next to me on the plane if you come,” she says seriously. “I don’t mind.”

I press my lips together before I embarrass myself in front of her. “That’s very generous of you.”

She nods. “I know.”

The laugh that comes out of me is almost a sob. I smooth the lace again even though it is already tied, then stand and kiss the top of her head.

“I’ll be right back,” I tell her.

“Where are you going?”

“To wash my face.”

She squints at me. “Your face looks fine.”

“I need to look pretty if I’m getting on that plane,” I say, trying to hold back my tears.

She accepts this because she’s eight and kind enough not to question a woman who’s clearly seconds from falling apart.

I walk away before she can say anything else. I make it as far as the side corridor before my breath breaks. I press a hand to my mouth and turn toward the wall, trying to swallow it down, trying to remind myself this is better. Anya will be safer away from here. Nikolai will be safer if he is not distracted by me. I can leave before I become one more problem in a house already choking on them.

It doesn’t help. I still want to go with them. I still want him to have wanted me enough to ask. I could do the easy thing. I could walk back into the hall, find Nikolai, and tell him I am pregnant.

Nikolai is a decent man under everything else. If he knew, he would take responsibility. He would make space for me because that’s what men like him do when duty gives them a shape to follow.

And that’s exactly why I cannot tell him like this.

I don’t want a place in his life because he feels trapped into giving me one. I don’t want to become another obligation he carries because he is too honorable to put me down.

“Crying now?” Irina’s voice cuts through the corridor.

I wipe my face and turn.

She stands a few feet away, dressed for travel though no one has invited her anywhere. Her hair’s pinned back too tightly. Her eyes are red, but there is nothing soft in them when she looks at me.