Page 34 of The Fire Beneath the Frost

I stared at Dimitri in the flickering lowlight of Sanctuary—the shadows licking across his cheekbones like ghosts refusing to let go.His shirt was still open from earlier, clinging damply to his chest.His hair, mussed from my fingers, fell across his forehead in a way that made me ache all over again.But his eyes—those sharp, searching eyes—held something I hadn’t seen before: hunger.Not for me, not exactly.For everything.For life, freedom, color, music, and madness.

I smiled, unable to help myself.“Let’s get out of here.”

He grinned and took my hand without hesitation, his callused fingers threading through mine.We slipped through the sticky heat and cigarette haze, stepping over a pair of middle-aged men tangled together on the cracked tile floor.Sanctuary had been built inside the bones of this ancient bathhouse, the plaster walls still stained from steam and old sins.I hesitated at the doorway just long enough to glance back once.

Outside, the icy wind tugged at my coat, and I let go of his hand reluctantly, tucking both into my pockets to hide how much I already missed the warmth of him.

“There’s so much I want to show you,” I whispered.“So much more than what they allow us.Beyond the bread lines and block housing.Beyond Mother Russia’s stone hands.”

We walked in silence, our footsteps echoing against the wet pavement.Leningrad was asleep, mostly.A tram clattered somewhere in the distance.A couple argued softly in a stairwell.But here, in these narrow hours before dawn, it felt like we were the only ones awake.

We stopped in front of a squat little building half-swallowed by a dying tree.People were moving quietly in and out, some dressed like peasants, others like they’d just stepped off a stage in Paris.One woman wore a feather boa and no pants.No one looked twice.

Dimitri cocked his head.“What is this?”

“Novye Khudozhniki,” I said.“The New Artists.”

He blinked.“This is real?”

“Very real.Come.”

Inside, the building felt alive, like it breathed.The walls were cluttered with canvases—bold splashes of red and black, distorted faces, obscene symbols tucked between layers of oil and paper.The floor was a chaotic swirl of limbs and color, artists sprawled on beanbags or balancing on window ledges, bottles of homemade vodka passed between paint-smeared hands.

And the music.

Atonal and glitchy.Some strange fusion of jazz, punk, and maybe classical if you were drunk enough.It didn’t follow rules.Instead, it bent time, and made the symphony in my mind crackle and bloom.

“Petyr!”

I turned and grinned.Timur.

He swept toward us wearing a kimono made of sewn-together tablecloths, his golden hair tied back with what looked like a phone cord.His eyes sparkled with a madness only genuine artists and revolutionaries possess.

“You brought a boy.I love a boy with wonder in his eyes.”

“This is Dimitri,” I said.

Dimitri nodded, clearly unsure if he should offer his hand or bow or just stand still.Timur laughed and kissed him on both cheeks.

“Oh, you’re delicious.Come.Let me show you our blasphemy.”

He took us through the warren-like halls, and each corner of the space was its own rebellion.A wall-sized mural of Lenin with hollowed eyes and bleeding teeth.Next to it was a sculpture made entirely from typewriter keys and bone.A film projected silently on a cracked white wall, looping two dancers in gas masks kissing as the city burned around them.

Dimitri couldn’t speak.He stared, breath caught in his chest.He reached out more than once—fingertips ghosting across paint or glass—and then snatched his hand back as if afraid to break the spell.

I watched him instead of the art.The way his lips parted.The way his pupils dilated.How his hand drifted to his chest, as if something inside him was cracking open and letting the light in.

Timur talked and waved and preached, but all I could hear was music.A symphony blooming in my mind, louder and richer than ever before.Strings over brass over wind.The avant garde jazz in the air mixed with Shostakovich in my bones.

It was beautiful.

And then—without fanfare—I realized I was falling in love.

Not with the moment.Not with the art.With him.

Dimitri turned to me then, his eyes shining.“How have I seen none of this before?”

“Because they don’t want you to.”

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