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“I can explain,” Galina says, though she looks terrified. As do the rest of the people around me. “I came down because Miss Anya wasn’t in her bed. I thought she had gone to Miss Elara’s room or perhaps downstairs.” Her voice trembles at the edges, though she keeps trying to smooth it out. “I reached the stairs and saw her at the bottom. I screamed. You came.”

Nikolai looks back at Kirill. “Where were you?”

“Downstairs.”

“Where downstairs?”

“The east hall.”

“Why?”

Kirill hesitates. It’s so small I almost miss it.

Nikolai doesn’t. “Why?” he asks again.

“I heard movement.”

“What movement?”

“I don’t know. A door, maybe.”

“Before Galina screamed?”

Kirill’s mouth tightens. And there it is. Not proof. Not even close.

But enough to make Nikolai’s face go blank in a way that frightens me more than anger would have.

“Nikolai,” I say.

He doesn’t look at me.

Kirill says, “I went to check. That’s all.”

“You went to check upstairs?”

“No. I was downstairs.”

“You said you heard movement.”

“From upstairs.”

“So you were close enough to hear movement upstairs, but far enough away that you arrived after Galina,” Nikolai says. When he says it like that, it does sound ridiculous. But it doesn’t mean that this is the time or the place for this.

Kirill’s eyes flick to Sergei again.

Nikolai grabs him by the throat and slams him back into the wall.

A nurse gasps.

Someone at the desk says, “Sir, you can’t⁠—”

Sergei moves at once, catching Nikolai’s arm, but Nikolai doesn’t let go.

“Where were you?” Nikolai asks.

Kirill grips his wrist, face turning red. “I didn’t touch her.”

“That’s not what I asked.”