and pressed flat against the table. She could feel them against her skin, soft as sheets of silk. She
knew that if she could move her wings, the straps would loosen, giving just enough for her to slip
free. But as she twisted, a biting pain stopped her cold: She had been pinned to the table. The nails
ripped into the skin of her wings.
A figure stepped into her peripheral vision. Evangeline could turn her head just enough to see a
woman in a white lab coat.
“She’s a very unusual creature,” the woman said.
“I thought that was what Dr. Godwin was looking for,” a second voice responded.
Evangeline’s skin grew hot; her hands trembled against the metal cuffs. She recognized the name
Godwin. She knew it from her childhood. If Godwin was behind this, she knew she was in terrible
danger. It would be better to tear off her own wings than to be subject to his will.
She pressed her forehead against the leather strap, seeking the coolness of it, but the throb of the
electrodes sent a current of heat into every part of her body. The pain caused her eyes to fill with
tears. She blinked them away and they slid down her temples. A bright light burst on overhead,
blinding her. When her eyes adjusted, she saw a syringe poised in a hand. As the nurse inserted the
needle into her vein, she took a deep breath and struggled to stay conscious. She wanted nothing more
than to drift to sleep. But she couldn’t let herself go. If she did, she might never wake up.
Angelology Research Center, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
As they walked down the narrow iron staircase and into the underworld of the Hermitage, Verlaine
was subsumed by the smell of thick deoxygenated air shot through with the slightest hint of
gunpowder.
“Stay close and be careful not to trip,” Vera said. She moved ahead, flipped a switch, and a naked
bulb illuminated the space. They had descended into a long hallway made of old limestone. Vera
grabbed a flashlight from a shelf, turned it on, and walked through a narrow, dark passageway. “This
passage leads to chambers where the tsars once hoarded ordnance to stave off political agitators.”
They turned a corner. Verlaine found the passage so tight that the walls brushed the sleeves of his
jacket, leaving a film of powder behind. “You smell the gunpowder, yes?” Vera continued.
“Whenever I smell it I remember the thousands of people gathered outside the palace and the crimes
committed against Russians by their own army.”
Vera opened a door and led them into a room.
“Now these rooms belong to the society, and for decades they’ve been employed as a staging area
for more than three million pieces of undocumented art. The first months of my time here were spent
cataloging objects for my supervisor.” Stopping before a wooden door sunk into the stone, she took a
set of keys from her pocket and unlocked it. “This is his private space. If he knew I was bringing you
here, I would be out on the street.”
In a single motion, Vera opened the door and led them into the space. Verlaine walked inside,
feeling awed by the chaos of objects.
“After Angela Valko’s death, her father, Dr. Raphael Valko, donated her research papers to the
research academy.”
“I haven’t heard news of Raphael for years,” Bruno said. “He left the academy abruptly in the
eighties to pursue his own research. He was ancient when I met him. I imagine he must have passed
away by now.”
“Raphael Valko is very much alive,” Vera said. Reaching beneath a shelf, she hauled out a suitcase
trimmed in leather. As she opened it, clouds of dust rose into the air, spinning in the weak gleam of
the flashlight. Shining the beam across its contents, she picked up a picture frame, the glass coated in
a thick film of dust, and gave it to Verlaine. Wiping away the grime, he found an image of Evangeline.
She stood between her parents, one hand in her mother’s hand, the other in her father’s. She could not
have been much older than five or six years old. Her hair was long and braided; a missing front tooth
created a gap in her smile. Evangeline had been a normal kid once. He wished, suddenly, that he had
tried harder to protect her. He couldn’t help but feel that he’d gone about everything in the wrong way
—they should have captured Evangeline and Eno when they had had the chance. Looking up, he found
Bruno holding a folder.
Bruno opened the folder. There was a collection of loose pages inside. A passage had been
scribbled on the top page. Bruno read: “To you this tale refers who seek to lead your mind into the
upper day, for he who overcomes should turn back his gaze toward the Tartarean cave. Whatever
excellence he takes with him he loses when he looks below.”