Paper Confines

xxx. Sing One We Know

PAPER CONFINES.
30. / Sing One We Know

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Nadya was in the dark again. Muted strokes of orange sundered the black backs of her eyes. It could have been the kitchen light of the remade church and Theodore yanking her tablecloth shield. It could have been death. But there was a hand in hers she knew by its shape to be Colette's, and whispers of a voice that brought her back to life every time.

"Dieu, she's moving. Nadya?"

"There she is," someone else said wrly.

Nadya's eyes fluttered open to a squint. She was expecting to be in the hospital wing, but was relieved to find the room around her was an unfamiliar classroom. Presumably that meant it was chosen, and subsequently safe.

Still her bones ached. There was a foul copper tang in her mouth she assumed in hazy remembrance was from Malfoy's blood.

Colette was at her side, perched on a narrow bed with a thick, white quilt that must have been conjured. The orange strokes under Nadya's closed eyes weren't death or the church. They were just Colette: sunlight in the flaxen tangles of her hair. She looked exhausted. Her dress was singed and bloody, and in her gaze was fear.

In the first blurry moment Nadya's eyes landed on the woman behind Colette, her breath skidded past her lungs.

"Banks?"

"Ah ah, quiet," said Reid, "Save your breath for the million questions I have. And drink this."

Reid. Reid was here. Nadya adjusted to the light. "Why are you—?"

"I thought you'd have grown out of not listening by now. Drink this."

She handed a little blue phial to Colette like she was Nadya's interim keeper.

It was a stupid thing to think after six years, but Reid looked older. Her hair was done in manifold braids, knotted in a bun atop her head and gleaming with sparse golden beads of different sizes. She had the same frown as Amoret, but sterner eyes; they didn't give so much away upon a glance. But she was dressed in Ravenclaw's colours like a tragic relic of her sister. Long, indigo robes hugged her waist with a silver belt, the silk pooling thinly at her calves to expose heeled boots and thick tights. A fur-lined coat hung on the brass end of the bed, and Nadya tore her eyes away from the damp shoulders to read her Ministry badge.

It was embroidered on the right breast of her robe: a small, silver circle with a flip-sided globe, half snowy and half verdant. The top letters read DIMC and the bottom were in Cyrillic, but Nadya only knew Dutch curses and Hindi and assumed neither would help much with Russian.

"What does that say?"

Now Colette urged her, pressing the phial into Nadya's hands. "Nadya, not now."

Reid spoke only when Nadya swallowed the contents with an expression of disgust. The potion tasted like soap set on fire."BKSD. British-Karelian Subdivision of Defense."

"Karelia?"

"A republic of Russia. Wizarding society doesn't recognize the Soviet Union. Is it my turn to ask questions yet?"