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“Not quickly enough.”

Anya tugs at the sleeve of my jacket. “Papa, I know when you switch to Russian because you don’t want me to understand something.”

I look down at her. “You should be learning more Russian, then.”

Her eyes narrow. “That’s not an answer.”

“No, it is not.”

She watches me for another second before deciding she has more important concerns. “Is Elle going to wake up?”

I turn toward Levin.

He is taking her pulse now.

“She will wake up,” Levin says before I have to ask. “Her blood pressure dropped when she stood, and she should never have been allowed to stand in the first place, but I don’t see anything at this stage that suggests a more serious loss of consciousness.”

I glance at Kirill.

“She insisted on walking,” Kirill says immediately.

“You are significantly larger than she is.”

“She threatened to become difficult if I carried her.”

I stare at him.

Anya supplies the rest with considerable enthusiasm. “She said her dignity was already on life support, and Kirill wasn’t allowed to pull the plug.”

For several seconds, I say nothing.

Then I look at the unconscious woman again.

Even now, with blood drying in her hair and half her body bruised from protecting a child she didn’t know, there is something faintly absurd about imagining her threatening Kirill over her dignity.

“What was she doing at the school?”

“She was making a delivery,” Kirill says.

“A delivery.”

“Pastries for a faculty event.”

I glance at the blue jacket again.

A woman delivering cakes walks into a school, sees my daughter in danger, and decides within seconds that getting struck by a car herself is preferable to watching a child die.

That kind of instinct is difficult to manufacture.

It is also difficult to understand.

“Did she know who Anya was before the accident?”

“No.”

“Did she know who I was?”

“No.”