The notebook's leather cover began to curl and blacken, the smell of burning hide cutting through the cellar like a living thing. Kamo held it over the lantern flame, his face set in that brutal calm Jake had come to recognize—the calm of a man convinced that violence, in any form, could be holy.
For Kamo, this was purification. For Jake, it was disaster.
He had seconds.
His body tensed to lunge, but reason held him back. Kamo was stronger, faster, and utterly sure of his righteousness. If Jake tried to grab the book, Kamo would crush him—or worse, suspect him of betrayal. There was no winning a fight of bodies. Only a fight of minds.
"Stop."
The word sliced through the damp air. It wasn't a plea. It was an order.
Kamo froze, the book hovering over the flame. A lick of fire kissed the edge, curling it black. He turned slowly, eyes narrowing. "What did you say, Soso?"
"I said stop." Jake stepped forward, the lantern light throwing long shadows across his face. He met Kamo's stare head-on. "You're thinking like a soldier, not a strategist. You're about to do exactly what they want you to do."
Kamo frowned, his grip tightening on the notebook. "What I want is to destroy this poison before it spreads."
"And what they want," Jake countered, voice low and deliberate, "is for their poison to disappear without a trace." He paused, watching Kamo's expression shift. "Let's assume you're right—that it's a lie, a trick from the Okhrana to make us tear each other apart. Good. Then why would we help them hide the evidence of their own plot?"
Kamo's brows furrowed. The book drifted an inch farther from the flame.
"This isn't poison," Jake continued, seizing the moment. "It's the recipe for the poison. A map of how they think. We don't burn it—we study it. We use it."
The air thickened as Kamo considered his words. The edge of the notebook smoked but did not burn. Slowly, he lowered it.
"Use it how?" he asked at last. "By accusing a hero of betrayal? You'd bring the walls down on our own heads."
Jake shook his head. "No accusations. No speeches. We say nothing." His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "We watch him. Quietly. We observe who he meets, what he says, what he hides. If he's innocent, we protect him. If he's not, we'll see the proof with our own eyes—and then we'll know the Okhrana's real game."
He took another step forward, lowering his tone until even Pyotr had to lean in to hear. "Think about it, Kamo. They expect panic. They expect us to destroy ourselves. So we won't. We'll play the long game. We'll pretend their trick worked. We'll let the 'traitor' live—long enough to expose the Tsar's own machine."
The logic was a weapon, honed from Kamo's own paranoia and sharpened into something irresistible.
Kamo's eyes flicked between Jake and the half-scorched notebook. At last, he exhaled, a sound halfway between a growl and a sigh. "This is a dangerous game, Soso."
Jake met his gaze. "This is a dangerous war."
Kamo hesitated another beat, then snapped the notebook shut and slipped it inside his coat. "Fine," he said. "We do it your way. We watch. We wait." He jabbed a finger toward Jake. "But this stays between us. If one word of it leaks—true or false—it'll tear everything apart. No one else knows. Not Pyotr. No one."
"Agreed," Jake said.
Something unspoken passed between them then—a new alliance born out of mutual secrecy and mutual guilt. It was darker than trust, heavier than loyalty.
The silence stretched until the cellar door creaked open. A thin man stumbled in, panting, his ink-stained fingers clutching his coat.
"Comrades," he gasped, lowering his voice to a hurried whisper. "An urgent summons—from Comrade Orlov."
The name struck like a blow.
Kamo straightened. Jake's stomach turned to ice.
"The raids," the runner continued. "The loss of Mikho. Comrade Orlov says the leadership must meet immediately. The old print shop. One hour."
The man left as suddenly as he had appeared, leaving the door to swing shut behind him.
For a long moment, no one spoke. The sound of the harbor wind seeped in through the cracks in the wall, carrying the low wail of a ship's horn.
Jake looked at Kamo. Kamo looked back.
The game they had just imagined was no longer a theory. The man in the ledger—the lion of the revolution, the future ghost of a purge—had summoned them.
They weren't observers anymore. They were walking straight into the lion's den.