The ballroom of Stockholm's Hôtel Royal glittered like a frozen galaxy. Dozens of chandeliers spilled warm light over polished marble and uniforms heavy with medals. Music drifted from a grand orchestra, soft and genteel, barely masking the hum of political tension beneath the surface.
It was a charity gala for war orphans — the kind of neutral compassion Sweden specialized in — but everyone in the room knew what it really was: a trading floor for influence. Diplomats from enemy nations toasted one another with forced smiles; industrialists who sold steel to both sides laughed a little too easily.
And then she appeared.
Hélène de Beaumont.
Her entrance wasn't dramatic — it was deliberate. A moment of choreography executed with precision. The sapphire-blue gown shimmered with each movement, drawing eyes the way a flame draws moths. The necklace at her throat — Koba's gift — blazed under the chandelier light, cold and brilliant.
She carried herself with a quiet, dignified melancholy. Beautiful, but untouchable. A woman painted in sadness and silk.
From across the room, Sofia — buried inside Hélène's perfect façade — spotted him immediately. Colonel Dmitri Orlov. The target.
Just as Kato's dossier described: silver-haired, confident, eyes bright with intelligence and ego. He wore his medals lightly, like a man who didn't need them to command respect. He stood with the French attaché, relaxed, amused, completely at home.
Sofia's pulse fluttered, but her training held. She didn't look at him. Didn't glance in his direction even once. To do so would have been crude. Kato's lesson echoed in her mind: You are not the hunter. You are the invitation to the hunt.
So she played her part.
She let the Swedish Minister of Trade kiss her hand. She laughed softly at an American banker's bad joke. She charmed an aging countess with elegant conversation in flawless French. Her every gesture whispered grace, wealth, restraint — and just enough loneliness to make men want to fill the silence around her.
Across the room, Orlov noticed.
At first, he observed her the way he might study a fine painting — detached, appreciative. But as he watched her longer, curiosity replaced detachment. The melancholy behind her smile, the way she seemed to float above the noise of the room… it wasn't an act he recognized. It was something rarer.
He excused himself from his circle of officers and began to move toward her. Slowly. Inevitably.
The fish was taking the bait.
Miles away, the world looked different.
The room above the harbor smelled of wet wool and cigar smoke. The windows rattled faintly with the wind off the Baltic. Here, there was no champagne, no laughter — only maps, papers, and the quiet hum of machinery in motion.
Koba sat behind a plain desk, sleeves rolled up, his expression unreadable.
Murat stood before him — the same Murat who had ambushed Stern. A bruise darkened his jaw. He looked uneasy.
"He's good," Murat said finally. "Fights like a soldier. But he's alone."
Koba smiled faintly. Not anger, not approval — calculation. The encounter had been a probe, not a failure. Now he knew his opponent's measure. Stern was dangerous, competent… and isolated.
"He'll go to the Café Metropol tomorrow," Koba said, not asking but knowing. "He thinks he'll find you there. He'll expect a trap."
Murat nodded. "We could take him then. Quietly."
"No," Koba said, almost gently. "Killing him is Lenin's way. Crude. Predictable. Dead men can't teach us anything. We're not building graves, Murat. We're building a kingdom."
He wrote something on a slip of paper, folded it, and handed it across the desk. "Give this to our friend Borodin."
Murat frowned. "You want to threaten him again?"
Koba's smile deepened, faint and cold. "Threats are for amateurs. This is an offer."
He leaned back in his chair, eyes glinting in the lamplight.
"Lenin offers martyrdom. I offer results. The note assures Borodin that his family in Vologda is safe — under our protection, in fact. It also mentions his younger brother, the sick one. A sanatorium in Switzerland has just agreed to take him in. All expenses paid."
Murat blinked. "You're… helping him?"
"I'm buying him," Koba said. "Hope costs less than fear and lasts longer. Every man has his price. Even revolutionaries."
Back in the ballroom, Colonel Orlov reached her at last.
"Madame de Beaumont," he said, bowing slightly, his accent rich and smooth. "Forgive my intrusion, but I could not resist introducing myself. Dmitri Orlov."
He smiled — the confident smile of a man used to command. "I must say, it is rare to see such a perfect sapphire so far from home." His eyes flicked to her necklace, then back to her own.
Sofia's heart skipped. The first move.
She returned his smile — soft, mysterious, and perfectly sad. "Some things, Colonel," she said, her French lilting and refined, "are best admired from afar. Up close, they may lose their perfection."
He chuckled. "I disagree. True quality only deepens under scrutiny." He extended a hand. "Allow me to test that theory — with a glass of champagne?"
She let him take her hand. "As you wish, Colonel."
The game had begun.
Across town, in a dim boarding house by the docks, Stern was cleaning blood from his face. Yagoda worked silently beside him, disinfecting the cuts with cheap vodka.
The pain didn't matter. The humiliation did. He had been outplayed — his opponent had seen him before he even entered the board.
A knock at the door broke the silence. The boarding-house keeper stood in the hall, nervous, holding an envelope.
"For you," he muttered, before retreating down the stairs.
Yagoda frowned, taking it. "It's from Borodin."
Stern unfolded the note. One line, neat and precise, written in blocky Cyrillic.
THE WARLOCK KNOWS YOUR NAME.
He stared at it for a long moment, the words burning in his mind.
The message was clear.
He wasn't chasing a ghost.
He was walking straight into one's trap.
And the Warlock — Koba — was already watching.